From Publishers Weekly
In this acutely argued book, Columbia University political scientist Snyder challenges the American dogma that voting is a political panacea regardless of conditions or circumstances. Critically assessing American foreign policy in the 1990s, he argues that promoting free elections often produces serious conflict; he argues that where critical preconditions are not present (where there isn't, for instance, an adaptable ruling elite or institutions such as the rule of law and a free press), embracing the popular ballot often leads to the rise of a noxious nationalism, conflict and war: "Democratization produces nationalism when powerful elites within a nation need to harness popular energies to the tasks of war and economic development" yet "want to avoid surrendering real political authority." Snyder supports his theory with overwhelming evidence from a diverse array of historical situations--from revolutionary France to Nazi Germany, from Eastern Europe after the breakup of the Soviet Union to central Africa and central and southern Asia. His documentation suggests a pattern in ethnically divided authoritarian states: ethnic/nationalist conflict often bursts out just as efforts at democratization get underway. Drawing on his analysis, Snyder "prescribes ways to make democratic transitions less dangerous." The intellectual rigor of this important book distinguishes it from arguments driven by simple conservative longings for authoritarian rule; his analysis of the link between the initiation of democracy and resulting nationalism is far more convincing than the common reference to "ancient hatreds" as the source of conflict. Exceptionally well-organized and clearly written, Snyder's book provides a fresh look at the debate over the process of introducing democracy into formerly authoritarian countries. (Apr.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
A scholarly thesis about the perils and difficulties involved in the transition from tyranny to participatory government. Snyder (Political Science/Columbia) finds a correlation between a collapsing central authority (followed by a quickly emerging but immature democratization process) and the newly aroused ethnic conflicts that have sprung up in recent years. He suggests policies that would make such transitions safer, mainly by not rushing democratic political structures into place before the logical stages of progress have been achieved. Snyder also argues that a controlled media in the early phases of democratization may create national mythmaking, and that this may deter the development of democratic institutions (as was the case in Germany before WWI and WWII). He bases his theories upon the historical experiences of Germany, revolutionary France, Serbia, India, postcolonial Africa, and other nations with weak or nonexistent traditions of democratic government. Some of these nations democratic traditions were too weak to offset the powerful forces of ethnic nationalism that, once unleashed, brought violent conflicts against real or perceived enemies (as in Bosnia, Kosovo, Croatia, etc.). The refusal of discredited ruling parties to accept electoral defeat, combined with immoderate appeals to the old ethnic groups that were once held in check by a strong central government, will inevitably present a real and profound danger to peoples not used to democracy. In contrast, Snyder argues, civic identity and civic nationalization divided people the least after the fall of communism (as in Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Ukraine, etc.). He believes that the preconditions of democracy must be in place in order for it to develop sanelyand in order to avoid the ethnic nationalism of hate and civil war that can be driven by manipulating political leaders. Snyder presents logical theories supported by historical studies that question the undue optimism of a rush to an immature liberal democracy at the tragic cost of bloody strife and loss of freedom. National leaders should take notice. (Kirkus Reviews)

Fitztroy Maclean was one of the real-life inspirations for super-spy James Bond. After adventures in Soviet Russia before the war, Maclean fought with the SAS in North Africa in 1942. There he specialised in hair-raising commando raids behind enemy lines, including the daring and outrageous kidnapping of the German Consul in Axis-controlled Iraq. Maclean's extraordinary adventures in the Western Desert and later fighting alongside Tito's partisans in Yugoslavia are blistering reading and show what it took to be a British hero who broke the mould...

He was one of the most gifted scholars of his generation—a brilliant writer, high-society star, and cultural force who moved easily between aristocratic houses and the humble haunts of literary bohemia. He developed a lucid prose style that he used to scathing effect, earning notoriety for his sharp attacks on other historians. Now this superb biography of Hugh Trevor-Roper, universally acclaimed overseas, makes its anticipated American debut.
With incisive knowledge of the man and access to never-before-published letters, Adam Sisman paints a fascinating portrait of this charismatic, contentious, contradictory character. Sisman examines Trevor-Roper’s middle-class upbringing in a house so empty of affection that it caused, as he put it, his “almost physical difficulty in expressing emotion.” He traces Trevor-Roper’s career from his early academic triumphs to his later failure to produce the big book expected of him.
Sisman also provides riveting new details of the high drama of Trevor-Roper’s World War II intelligence work—in which he boldly blew the whistle on bureaucratic infighting that imperiled British code-breaking—and the exclusive investigation of Hitler’s death that inspired his bestselling postwar triumph, The Last Days of Hitler. As never before, Trevor-Roper’s personal life is explored, including his passionate affair with an older, married woman. Finally, An Honourable Englishman reveals the truth behind his public substantiation of the false Hitler diaries in 1983, a misstep (encouraged by his impatient employer Rupert Murdoch) that forever tainted his reputation.
Profoundly bright and brutally acerbic, Hugh Trevor-Roper was a literary lion like no other, and in An Honourable Englishman he receives the absorbing biography he deserves.

In 1648, Europe was essentially a medieval society. By 1815, it was the powerhouse of the modern world. In exuberant prose, Tim Blanning investigates “the very hinge of European history” ( The New York Times ) between the end of the Thirty Y ears’ War and the Battle of Waterloo that witnessed five of the modern world’s great revolutions: scientific, industrial, American, French, and romantic. Blanning renders this vast subject digestible and absorbing by making fresh connections between the most mundane details of life and the major cultural, political, and technological transformations that birthed the modern age.

On one level a history of the Electorate of Mainz in the eighteenth century, this book also seeks to illuminate a much wider area. In particular it is intended to be a contribution to the debate on the 'German Problem' - the growing cultural and political divergence between Germany and Western Europe in the modern period. Many historians have identified the crucial phase of this development in the nineteenth century; Dr Blanning argues that the eighteenth century was of equal if not greater importance.

Filled with colorful characters and history, Double Entry takes us from the ancient origins of accounting in Mesopotamia to the frontiers of modern finance. At the heart of the story is double-entry bookkeeping: the first system that allowed merchants to actually measure the worth of their businesses. Luca Pacioli--monk, mathematician, alchemist, and friend of Leonardo da Vinci--incorporated Arabic mathematics to formulate a system that could work across all trades and nations. As Jane Gleeson-White reveals, double-entry accounting was nothing short of revolutionary: it fueled the Renaissance, enabled capitalism to flourish, and created the global economy. John Maynard Keynes would use it to calculate GDP, the measure of a nation's wealth. Yet double-entry accounting has had its failures. With the costs of sudden corporate collapses such as Enron and Lehman Brothers, and its disregard of environmental and human costs, the time may have come to re-create it for the future.

This book explores the nineteenth century roots of globalisation through the activities of the enterprise network created by the Scottish merchant, William Mackinnon. It follows the rise of the family-led business group from its modest origins in Scotland to its transformation into the world's largest maritime and mercantile conglomerate, tracing the history of the various shipping firms within the group - including the British India, Netherlands India and Australasian United companies - and identifies the key factors behind its domination of coastal steamshipping around the Indian Ocean and into the western Pacific. It provides an analysis of the anatomy and dynamics of the enterprise network over time. The book also examines Mackinnon's relationship with the imperial statesman, Sir Henry Bartle Frere, which drew the network into the operations of British 'informal imperialism' in the Persian Gulf, Red Sea and East-Central Africa regions, and eventually to its sponsorship of the ill-fated Imperial British East Africa Company. It breaks new ground in identifying the interplay of personal and business considerations behind Mackinnon's participation in the 'Scramble for Africa' in its combination of maritime history with business history and imperial history to contribute to the current debate over 'gentlemanly capitalism' and British overseas expansion. WINNER OF THE 2004 WADSWORTH PRIZE. JOINT WINNER OF THE 2004 SALTIRE SOCIETY RESEARCH BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD. J. FORBES MUNRO is emeritus professor of international economic history, University of Glasgow

Based on unrestricted access to papers and personnel at BP, as well as numerous other sources, this second volume of BP's history aims to be an honest and comprehensive examination of the company in the period 1928-1954. Such a history inevitably touches on many different historical interests ranging from international relations to social, economic, political and military topics, primarily in Britain and the Middle East. The 1994 book includes penetrating insights into the direction and management of the company, the achievements and shortcomings of successive chairmen, and the relationship between the company and its major shareholder, the British Government. It also deals in detail with matters which have retained an aura of controversy and mystique long after their occurrence, most notably the international petroleum cartel which sought to control world oil markets, and the major international crisis arising from Iran's oil nationalisation.

This is the book that made Simon Schama's reputation when first published in 1987. A historical masterpiece, it is an epic account of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age of Rembrandt and van Diemen. In this brilliant work that moves far beyond the conventions of social or cultural history, Simon Schama investigates the astonishing case of a people's self-invention. He shows how, in the 17th-century, a modest assortment of farming, fishing and shipping communities, without a shared language, religion or government, transformed themselves into a formidable world empire -- the Dutch republic.

Bankers, philanthropists, scholars, socialites, artists, and politicians, the Warburgs stood at the pinnacle of German (and, later, of German-American) Jewry. They forged economic dynasties, built mansions and estates, assembled libraries, endowed charities, and advised a German kaiser and two American presidents. But their very success made the Warburgs lightning rods for anti-Semitism, and their sense of patriotism became increasingly dangerous in a Germany that had declared Jews the enemy. Ron Chernow's hugely fascinating history is a group portrait of a clan whose members were renowned for their brilliance, culture, and personal energy yet tragically vulnerable to the dark and irrational currents of the twentieth century. "Splendid.... Chernow does a wonderful job fleshing out the lives of the major characters in this family drama." -- Wall Street Journal "[Ron Chernow] has surpassed himself in this absorbing chronicle." -- The New Yorker "This is grand-scale scholarship .... It is all here, along with so much of the painful, tumultuous history of our time, all in one splendid book." -- David McCullough, author of Truman

Although the importance of the advent of printing for the Western world has long been recognized, it was Elizabeth Eisenstein, in her monumental, two-volume work, The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe, who provided the first full-scale treatment of the subject. This illustrated and abridged edition gives a stimulating survey of the communications revolution of the fifteenth century. After summarizing the initial changes introduced by the establishment of printing shops, it goes on to discuss how printing affected three major cultural movements: the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the rise of modern science. This new edition includes a new essay discussing recent controversies provoked by the first edition and reaffirms the thesis that the advent of printing entailed a communications revolution. Fully-illustrated and annotated, the book argues that the cumulative processes set in motion with the advent of printing are likely to persist despite the recent development of new communications technologies.

Between 1793 and 1794, thousands of French citizens were imprisoned and hundreds sent to the guillotine by a powerful dictatorship that claimed to be acting in the public interest. Only a few years earlier, revolutionaries had proclaimed a new era of tolerance, equal justice, and human rights. How and why did the French Revolution's lofty ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity descend into violence and terror?