AMERICA


Book Description

AMERICA takes a fresh and compelling look at the birth of our nation, with lavish illustrations and interactive novelty spreads on every page. Revealed through the lens of an anonymous journal, readers will take a chronological journey through watershed moments of American History. From the Founding Fathers' signing of the Declaration of Independence through current events of the 21st century, AMERICA offers an in-depth look at the making of our nation in an accessible volume that will speak to readers of every age. Chockfull of innovative novelty components, including lift-the-flap postcards, removable song lyrics, and even a foldout replica of the Declaration of Independence, AMERICA offers readers a captivating exploration of the ideals and values our nation was built upon.




The Making of a Nation in the Balkans


Book Description

"The book contains a presentation and critical consideration of the ideas of historians on the major problems, processes, events, and personalities of the era of the Bulgarian (national) Revival. It is dominated by the effort to understand how the Bulgarian Revival has been conceived of and imagined while keeping a certain distance from the various views presented, whether critical, ironic, or simply that inherent in the presentation of another person's view."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved




Malaysia


Book Description

Focuses on Malaysia's four Prime Ministers as nation-builders, observing that each one of them when he became Prime Minister was transformed from being the head of the Malay party, UMNO, to that of the leader of a multi-ethnic nation. Each began his political career as an exclusivist Malay nationalist but became an inclusivist.




The Making of the Nations and Cultures of the New World


Book Description

The Making of the Nations and Cultures of the New World explores the question of how a culture - a collective consciousness - is born. Gérard Bouchard compares the histories of New World collectivities, which were driven by a dream of freedom and sovereignty, and finds both major differences and striking commonalities in their formation and evolution. He also considers the myths and discursive strategies devised by elites in their efforts to unite and mobilize diversified populations.




Making a Nation, Breaking a Nation


Book Description

This book focuses on the cultural processes by which the idea of a Yugoslav nation was developed and on the reasons that this idea ultimately failed to bind the South Slavs into a viable nation and state. The author argues that the collapse of multinational Yugoslavia and the establishment of separate uninational states did not result from the breakdown of the political or economic fabric of the Yugoslav state; rather, that breakdown itself sprang from the destruction of the concept of a Yugoslav nation. Had such a concept been retained, a collapse of political authority would have been followed by the eventual reconstitution of a Yugoslav state, as happened after World War II, rather than the creation of separate nation-states. Because the author emphasizes nation building rather than state building, the causes and evidence he cites for Yugoslavia’s collapse differ markedly from those that have previously been put forward. He concentrates on culture and cultural politics in the South Slavic lands from the mid-nineteenth century to the present in order to delineate those ideological mechanisms that helped lay the foundation for the formation of a Yugoslav nation in the first place, sustained the nation during its approximately seventy-year existence, and led to its dissolution. The book describes the evolution of the idea of Yugoslav national unity in four major areas: linguistic policies geared to creating a shared national language, the promulgation of a Yugoslav literary and artistic canon, an educational policy that emphasized the teaching of literature and history in schools, and the production of new literary and artistic works incorporating a Yugoslav view. In the book’s conclusion, the author discusses the relevance of the Yugoslav case for other parts of the world, considering whether the triumph of particularist nationalism is inevitable in multinational states.




Empire to Nation


Book Description

Following a hit and run that injures his son, John Spector is shocked when the driver comes forward to confess the accident was planned and that John made the arrangements. Upset by the suggestion, he embarks on a quest that will take him through the bizarre underbelly of the city in search of the truth. Even when faced with demons bent on stopping him, haunted by dreams of a man he's never met or sidelined by concerns for his mental health, John remains unshakable. Only after his path leads to the philanthropist Charles Dapper does his determination waver, for this is when he must make an extraordinary self sacrifice to realize his goal or risk losing everything.




Rebirth of a Nation


Book Description

An illuminating and authoritative history of America in the years between the Civil War and World War I, Jackson Lears’s Rebirth of a Nation was named one of the best books of 2009 by The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, and The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "Fascinating.... A major work by a leading historian at the top of his game—at once engaging and tightly argued." —The New York Times Book Review “Dazzling cultural history: smart, provocative, and gripping. It is also a book for our times, historically grounded, hopeful, and filled with humane, just, and peaceful possibilities.” —The Washington Post In the half-century between the Civil War and World War I, widespread yearning for a new beginning permeated American public life. Dreams of spiritual, moral, and physical rebirth formed the foundation for the modern United States, inspiring its leaders with imperial ambition. Theodore Roosevelt's desire to recapture frontier vigor led him to promote U.S. interests throughout Latin America. Woodrow Wilson's vision of a reborn international order drew him into a war to end war. Andrew Carnegie's embrace of philanthropy coincided with his creation of the world's first billion-dollar corporation, United States Steel. Presidents and entrepreneurs helped usher the nation into the modern era, but sometimes the consequences of their actions failed to match the grandeur of their hopes. Award-winning historian Jackson Lears richly chronicles this momentous period when America reunited and began to form the world power of the twentieth century. Lears vividly captures imperialists, Gilded Age mavericks, and vaudeville entertainers, and illuminates the roles played by a variety of seekers, male and female, from populist farmers to avant-garde artists and writers to progressive reformers. Some were motivated by their own visions of Christianity; all were swept up in longings for revitalization. In these years marked by wrenching social conflict and vigorous political debate, a modern America emerged and came to dominance on a world stage. Illuminating and authoritative, Rebirth of a Nation brilliantly weaves the remarkable story of this crucial epoch into a masterful work of history.




Political Culture and the Making of Modern Nation-States


Book Description

This book focuses on transformations of political culture from times past to future-present. It defines the meaning of political culture and explores the cultural values and institutions of kinship communities and dynastic intermediaries, including chiefdoms and early states. It systematically examines the rise and gradual universalization of modern sovereign nation-states. Contemporary debates concerning nationality, nationalism, citizenship, and hyphenated identities are engaged. The authors recount the making of political culture in the American nation-state and look at the processes of internal colonialism in the American experience, examining how major ethnic, sectarian, racial, and other distinctions arose and congealed into social and cultural categories. The book concludes with a study of the Holocaust, genocide, crimes against humanity, and the political cultures of violation in post-colonial Rwanda and in racialized ethno-political conflicts in various parts of the world. Struggles over legitimacy in nation-building and state-building are at the heart of this new take on the important role of political culture.




A Nation in Making


Book Description

Written in the last years of Sir Surendranath Banerjea's life, A Nation in Making is not only the autobiography of a pioneering leader in Indian politics but also a commentary on public life. In the pages of this book, we are offered insights into the life of the founder of the Indian National Association and twice president of the Indian National Congress. We grasp the vision motivating his landmark appeals-including one to the British to modify the 1905 Partition of Bengal, reinstitute habeas corpus and grant India a Constitution based on the Canadian model. Most of all, we understand the mind of a phenomenal leader-a trailblazer with the refrain, 'agitate, agitate'; a moderate with a quarrel with B. G. Tilak and Mahatma Gandhi; and an ardent exponent of nationalism and a representative form of government. Insightful, honest and sincere, this book immortalizes the work of those who, like Banerjea, 'placed India firmly on the road to constitutional freedom...by constitutional means'




Making and Unmaking Nations


Book Description

Winner of the Grawmeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order, 2018 Winner of the Joseph Lepgold Prize Winner of the Best Books in Conflict Studies (APSA) Winner of the Best Book in Human Rights (ISA) In Making and Unmaking Nations, Scott Straus seeks to explain why and how genocide takes place—and, perhaps more important, how it has been avoided in places where it may have seemed likely or even inevitable. To solve that puzzle, he examines postcolonial Africa, analyzing countries in which genocide occurred and where it could have but did not. Why have there not been other Rwandas? Straus finds that deep-rooted ideologies—how leaders make their nations—shape strategies of violence and are central to what leads to or away from genocide. Other critical factors include the dynamics of war, the role of restraint, and the interaction between national and local actors in the staging of campaigns of large-scale violence. Grounded in Straus's extensive fieldwork in contemporary Africa, the study of major twentieth-century cases of genocide, and the literature on genocide and political violence, Making and Unmaking Nations centers on cogent analyses of three nongenocide cases (Côte d'Ivoire, Mali, and Senegal) and two in which genocide took place (Rwanda and Sudan). Straus's empirical analysis is based in part on an original database of presidential speeches from 1960 to 2005. The book also includes a broad-gauge analysis of all major cases of large-scale violence in Africa since decolonization. Straus's insights into the causes of genocide will inform the study of political violence as well as giving policymakers and nongovernmental organizations valuable tools for the future.