Catalogue Search | MBRL
Are you sure you want to remove the book from the shelf?
{{itemTitle}}
6,648
result(s) for
"Cultural imperialism"
Sort by:
The Druze : a new cultural and historical appreciation
The Druze - a much-misunderstood Muslim sect primarily inhabiting the Levant - have endured centuries of persecution by orthodox elements hostile to Islam's rich sectarian diversity on account of their esoteric divergence from mainstream Islam. As a result, they have become a 'fighting minority,' as described by one of their most illustrious leaders. Druze religious belief branched out from 10th- and 11th-century Shi'ism, and includes elements derived from Greek philosophy, Eastern religions and Islamic mysticism. It enshrines all religious schools, but posits itself as the sole path to mystical knowledge. Druze teachings are kept secret, so libel and slander by their opponents have been generally left uncorrected. The Druze have preferred taqiyya (dissimulation) when independence or freedom of belief proved unattainable, which has exacerbated ignorance of their faith. Such mystification makes any enquiry into Druze doctrine or history a delicate endeavor. In this valuable study, author Abbas Halabi (himself from a prominent Druze family and closely involved in Lebanese Druze policy) elucidates misconceptions about Druze origins. In a clear style, rich in chronology and analysis, Halabi elaborates on the political role played by the Druze in the history of the region and evaluates their chances of survival in an era when religious tolerance and political democracy are still nascent.
Book
Race, Empire, and Epistemic Exclusion
This essay analyzes racialized exclusions in sociology through a focus on sociology’s deep epistemic structures. These structures dictate what counts as social scientific knowledge and who can produce it. A historical analysis of their emergence and persistence reveals their connections to empire. Due to sociology’s initial emergence within the culture of American imperialism, early sociological thought embedded the culture of empire’s exclusionary logics. Sociology’s epistemic structures were inextricably racialized, contributing to exclusionary modes of thought and practice along the lines of race, ethnicity, and social geography that persist into the present. Overcoming this racialized inequality requires problematizing and unsettling these epistemic structures by (1) provincializing the canon to create a transformative epistemic pluralism and (2) reconsidering common conceptions of what counts as “theory” in the first place.
Journal Article
The struggle for the Eurasian borderlands : from the rise of early modern empires to the end of the First World War
\"This is the first in a trilogy of books to explore the Eurasian borderlands as contested 'shatter zones' which have generated some of the world's most significant conflicts. Analysing the struggles of the Habsburg, Russian, Ottoman, Iranian and Qing Empires, Alfred Rieber surveys the period from the rise of the great multicultural, conquest empires in the late medieval/early modern period to their collapse in the early twentieth century. He charts how these empires expanded along moving, military frontiers, competing with one another in war, diplomacy and cultural practices whilst the subjugated peoples of the borderlands strove to maintain their cultures and defend their autonomy. The gradual and fragmentary adaptation of Western constitutional ideas, military reforms, cultural practices and economic penetration began to undermine these ruling ideologies and institutions leading to the collapse of all five empires in revolution and war within little more than a decade between 1911 and 1923\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Myths of Empire
Overextension is the common pitfall of empires. Why does it occur? What are the forces that cause the great powers of the industrial era to pursue aggressive foreign policies? Jack Snyder identifies recurrent myths of empire, describes the varieties of overextension to which they lead, and criticizes the traditional explanations offered by historians and political scientists.
He tests three competing theories—realism, misperception, and domestic coalition politics—against five detailed case studies: early twentieth-century Germany, Japan in the interwar period, Great Britain in the Victorian era, the Soviet Union after World War II, and the United States during the Cold War. The resulting insights run counter to much that has been written about these apparently familiar instances of empire building.
eBook
Imperial co-operation and transfer, 1870-1930 : empires and encounters
\"Conflict and competition between imperial powers has long been a feature of global history, but their co-operation has largely been a peripheral concern. Imperial Co-operation and Transfer, 1870-1930 redresses this imbalance, providing a coherent conceptual framework for the study of inter-imperial collaboration and arguing that it deserves an equally prominent position in the field. Using a variety of examples from across Asia, Europe and Africa, this book demonstrates the ways in which empires have shared and exchanged their knowledge about imperial governance, including military strategy, religious influence and political surveillance. It asks how, when and where these partnerships took place, and who initiated them. Not only does this book fill an empirical gap in the study of imperial history, it traces ideas of empire from their conception in imperial contact zones to their implementation in specific contexts. As such, this is an important study for imperial and global historians of all specialisms\"--From publisher's website.
Book
The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity
There was racism in the ancient world, after all. This
groundbreaking book refutes the common belief that the ancient
Greeks and Romans harbored \"ethnic and cultural,\" but not racial,
prejudice. It does so by comprehensively tracing the intellectual
origins of racism back to classical antiquity. Benjamin Isaac's
systematic analysis of ancient social prejudices and stereotypes
reveals that some of those represent prototypes of racism--or
proto-racism--which in turn inspired the early modern authors who
developed the more familiar racist ideas. He considers the
literature from classical Greece to late antiquity in a quest for
the various forms of the discriminatory stereotypes and social
hatred that have played such an important role in recent history
and continue to do so in modern society.
Magisterial in scope and scholarship, and engagingly written,
The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity further
suggests that an understanding of ancient attitudes toward other
peoples sheds light not only on Greco-Roman imperialism and the
ideology of enslavement (and the concomitant integration or
non-integration) of foreigners in those societies, but also on the
disintegration of the Roman Empire and on more recent imperialism
as well. The first part considers general themes in the history of
discrimination; the second provides a detailed analysis of
proto-racism and prejudices toward particular groups of foreigners
in the Greco-Roman world. The last chapter concerns Jews in the
ancient world, thus placing anti-Semitism in a broader context.
eBook
Imperial Thinking and Colonial Combat in the Early Twentieth-Century Italian Army
Although designed primarily as a national institution, between the 1880s and the First World War the Italian army's military operations were all in the colonial sphere. By 1914, Italy claimed an extensive empire in East and North Africa. How far did imperialism shape Italian military culture and institutions? I identify ‘imperial thinking’ across nine areas of army activity. Italian colonialism relied on a pervasive narrative of Italian benevolence – italiani brava gente – with Italian conduct in war or as imperial rulers portrayed as inherently mild. This was accompanied by a set of anxieties we might term Adwa syndrome: after Italy's defeat by Ethiopia at Adwa in 1896, the Italian army was acutely afraid of possible violent uprisings by the local people. Many army officers expected betrayal and brutality from their colonial enemies or subjects, and acted accordingly. This outlook shaped the army's conduct both in the colonies and when dealing with European adversaries in the First World War. While the army of late Liberal Italy was structurally and doctrinally a national army, it was increasingly imperialist in mindset and outlook, which directly affected its conduct on and off the battlefield.
Journal Article
Empireland : how imperialism has shaped modern Britain
\"In this brilliantly illuminating work exploring the realities and legacies of empire, Sathnam Sanghera demonstrates how so much of what we consider to be modern Britain is actually rooted in its imperial past. In prose that is at once both clear-eyed and full of acerbic wit, Sanghera shows how the past is everywhere in the United Kingdom, also drawing critical links to similarities in the United States and around the world. Empire--British or otherwise--informs nearly everything, from common thought processes to the routines that shape everyday life, from the foundation of the National Health Service (NHS), to the nature of racism in the UK, from the British distrust of intellectuals in public life to the exceptionalism that imbued the campaign for Brexit, and the government's early response to the COVID crisis--all while empire is a subject shockingly obscured from view. Revelatory and lucid, Sanghera suggests that cultivating a new, more honest relationship to the past is essential in moving forward\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Overcome by Modernity
In the decades between the two World Wars, Japan made a dramatic entry into the modern age, expanding its capital industries and urbanizing so quickly as to rival many long-standing Western industrial societies. How the Japanese made sense of the sudden transformation and the subsequent rise of mass culture is the focus of Harry Harootunian's fascinating inquiry into the problems of modernity. Here he examines the work of a generation of Japanese intellectuals who, like their European counterparts, saw modernity as a spectacle of ceaseless change that uprooted the dominant historical culture from its fixed values and substituted a culture based on fantasy and desire. Harootunian not only explains why the Japanese valued philosophical understandings of these events, often over sociological or empirical explanations, but also locates Japan's experience of modernity within a larger global process marked by both modernism and fascism.
What caught the attention of Japanese thinkers was how the production of desire actually threatened historical culture. These intellectuals sought to \"overcome\" the materialism and consumerism associated with the West, particularly the United States. They proposed versions of a modernity rooted in cultural authenticity and aimed at infusing meaning into everyday life, whether through art, memory, or community. Harootunian traces these ideas in the works of Yanagita Kunio, Tosaka Jun, Gonda Yasunosuke, and Kon Wajiro, among others, and relates their arguments to those of such European writers as George Simmel, Siegfried Kracauer, Walter Benjamin, and Georges Bataille.
Harootunian shows that Japanese and European intellectuals shared many of the same concerns, and also stresses that neither Japan's involvement with fascism nor its late entry into the capitalist, industrial scene should cause historians to view its experience of modernity as an oddity. The author argues that strains of fascism ran throughout most every country in Europe and in many ways resulted from modernizing trends in general. This book, written by a leading scholar of modern Japan, amounts to a major reinterpretation of the nature of Japan's modernity.
eBook