Author: Richard Bassett

Publisher: Penguin UK

ISBN: 0241014875

Category: History

Page: 192

View: 6095

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The final decade of the Cold War, through the eyes of a laconic and elegant observer In 1979 Richard Bassett set out on a series of adventures and encounters in central Europe which allowed him to savour the last embers of the cosmopolitan old Hapsburg lands and gave him a ringside seat at the fall of another ancien regime, that of communist rule. From Trieste to Prague and Vienna to Warsaw, fading aristocrats, charming gangsters, fractious diplomats and glamorous informants provided him with an unexpected counterpoint to the austerities of life along the Iron Curtain, first as a professional musician and then as a foreign correspondent. The book shows us familiar events and places from unusual vantage points: dilapidated mansions and boarding-houses, train carriages and cafes, where the game of espionage between east and west is often set. There are unexpected encounters with Shirley Temple, Fitzroy Maclean, Lech Walesa and the last Empress of Austria. Bassett finds himself at the funeral of King Nicola of Montenegro in Cetinje, plays bridge with the last man alive to have been decorated by the Austrian Emperor Franz-Josef and watches the KGB representative in Prague bestowing the last rites on the Soviet empire in Europe. Music and painting, architecture and landscape, food and wine, friendship and history run through the book. The author is lucky, observant and leans romantically towards the values of an older age. He brilliantly conjures the time, the people he meets, and Mitteleuropa in one of the pivotal decades of its history.

Author: Walter Laqueur

Publisher: Macmillan

ISBN: 1429967021

Category: Political Science

Page: 256

View: 4334

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• In Brussels in 2004, more than 55 percent of the children born were of immigrant parents • Half of all female scientists in Germany are childless • According to a poll in 2005, more than 40 percent of British Muslims said Jews were a legitimate target for terrorist attacks What happens when a falling birthrate collides with uncontrolled immigration? The Last Days of Europe explores how a massive influx from Asia, Africa, and the Middle East has loaded Europe with a burgeoning population of immigrants, many of whom have no wish to be integrated into European societies but make full use of the host nations' generous free social services. One of the master historians of twentieth-century Europe, Walter Laqueur is renowned for his "gold standard" studies of fascism, terrorism, and anti-Semitism. Here he describes how unplanned immigration policies and indifference coinciding with internal political and social crises have led to a continent-wide identity crisis. "Self-ghettoization" by immigrant groups has caused serious social and political divisions and intense resentment and xenophobia among native Europeans. Worse, widespread educational failure resulting in massive youth unemployment and religious or ideological disdain for the host country have bred extremist violence, as seen in the London and Madrid bombings and the Paris riots. Laqueur urges European policy makers to maintain strict controls with regard to the abuse of democratic freedoms by preachers of hate and to promote education, productive work, and integration among the new immigrants. Written with deep concern and cool analysis by a European-born historian with a gift for explaining complex subjects, this lucid, unflinching analysis will be a must-read for anyone interested in international politics and the so-called clash of civilizations.

Author: Peter Merkl

Publisher: Routledge

ISBN: 1134239505

Category: History

Page: 281

View: 1201

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This new book explains the recent rift between America and some of her oldest European allies, especially with Germany and France. Particular attention is devoted to the several competing interpretations of the Euro-American rift, for example, that Europeans were taken aback when American neo-conservative leaders scornfully rejected their well-meant offers of post-9/11 assistance with expressions of disdain for the allies' backward military technology and budgets. The Bush administration's rejection of the Kyoto Treaty, its environmental stance and its position on international treaties are also examined in detail. Merkl's interpretation emphasizes America's neo-imperial, unilateralist posture and policies as contrasted to the Wilsonian internationalism that created the United Nations and established international rule of law backed up by the Security Council, a web of international treaties and international courts, including the International Court of Criminal Justice. Today's American leaders thus oppose European champions of an American-initiated international order while identifying themselves with the imperialist European doctrines and practices of another age.

Author: Ray Taras

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

ISBN: 0742557340

Category: Political Science

Page: 266

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Is Europe indeed uniting or instead falling apart as a result of anti-immigrant prejudices, a massive Islamic influx, and ancient intra-European hatreds? This innovative and engaging book explores this key question by examining the national and religious phobias and prejudices, antipathies and sympathies, stereotypes and heterotypes of Europe west and east. Considering the sources of Europe's culture-based divide, Ray Taras argues that the idea of two "Europes" is grounded both in reality and myth. The accession process that brought a dozen new members into the European Union after 2004 highlighted the persisting gulf between "old" and "new" Europe. While many concrete borders between east and west were removed (commercial, legal, passport regimes), many remained (absence of a single Euro currency zone, labor market, and security community). Virtual borders too were invented or re-imagined: the postmaterialist, inclusionary, tolerant values supposedly found in old Europe versus the materialist, nationalistic, xenophobic ones of new Europe. After reviewing the two Europes' contrasting historical legacies, Taras examines the EU institutions designed to overcome the historical European divide. He considers the treaties, political rhetoric, citizen attitudes, and literary narratives of belonging and separation that both bind and fray the fabric of Europe. Throughout, this interdisciplinary work provides a comprehensive, hard-hitting, and unabashed review of how enlarged Europe embraces contrasting understandings of its political home and of who belongs and who does not.

Author: Richard Bassett

Publisher: Everyman's Library

ISBN: 0525659579

Category: Fiction

Page: 0

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A gorgeously jacketed hardcover anthology of stories set in Prague, by an international array of brilliant writers. The Golden City of Prague has long been an intellectual center of the western world. The writers collected here range from the early nineteenth century to the present and include both Prague natives and visitors from elsewhere. Here are stories, legends, and scenes from the city’s past and present, from the Jewish fable of the golem, a creature conjured from clay, to tales of German and Soviet invasions. The international array of writers ranges from Franz Kafka to Ivan Klíma to Bruce Chatwin, and includes the award-winning British playwright Tom Stoppard and former American Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, both of whom have Czech roots. Covering the city’s venerable Jewish heritage, the glamour of the belle-époque period, World War II, Communist rule, the Prague Spring, the Velvet Revolution, and beyond, Prague Stories weaves a remarkable selection of fiction and nonfiction into a literary portrait of a fascinating city.

Author: Tom Lansford

Publisher: Routledge

ISBN: 1351913999

Category: Political Science

Page: 412

View: 6571

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Iraq can be considered the 'perfect storm' which brought out the stark differences between the US and Europe. The disagreement over the role of the United Nations continues and the bitterness in the United States against its betrayal by allies like France is not diminishing. Meanwhile, the standing of the United States among the European public has plummeted. Within Europe, political tensions between what US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld euphemistically called the 'Old' Europe and the 'New' Europe continue to divide. To fully comprehend these rifts, this volume takes a specific look at the core security priorities of each European state and whether these interests are best served through closer security collaboration with the US or with emerging European structures such as the European Rapid Reaction Force. It analyzes the contribution each state would make to transatlantic security, the role they envisage for existing security structures such as NATO, and the role the US would play in transatlantic security.

Author: Hans Holzer

Publisher: Crossroad Press

ISBN: N.A

Category: Body, Mind & Spirit

Page: N.A

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Ghosts of Old Europe offers a very different kind of tour to the armchair traveler. Wander through the haunted castles and cottages of Europe with Hans Holzer, the world’s most famous psychic investigator, and explore a full range of psychic phenomena from the spirits of the British Isles to the haunts of Imperial Vienna. In England, Anne Boleyn's legendary ghost walks headless within the Tower of London; a procession of transparent monks appears in the Cathedral at Winchester, where no monks have trod since the sixteenth century; and Bloody Queen Mary still visits the four-poster bed where she slept in the dark days of 1553. At Kilkea Castle in Kildare, it is said that the Wizard Earl and his companions ride at night and will return someday from the beyond to “put things right in Ireland.” Room No. 2 in the Hotel de l’Europe in Avignon holds a shocking surprise for the unwary guest; and in Paris, No. 3 avenue Montaigne offers a special concert of ghostly piano music from a spectral grand. Ghosts occur wherever a great tragedy has left an unfortunate person stranded between the next world and this one, someone who has not yet been freed from their own emotional turmoil. The true accounts presented in this book are based on Dr. Holzer's personal investigations. Should you have occasion to visit some of these special sites yourself—if you are psychically gifted (and nearly everyone is to a varying degree)—chances are you may also have a true experience, ranging from a psychic “impression” of past events to an apparition, or perhaps you will hear an unworldly sound. Meanwhile, with this volume in hand, you can read of the long-dead Black Knight of Pflindsberg galloping wildly up the mountain—from the comfort of your own home.

Author: Alan John Percivale Taylor

Publisher: Crown

ISBN: N.A

Category: Europe

Page: 230

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"More than a recreation of moments in time from Europe that no longer exists, The Last of old Europe captures in these photographs an unchanging quality of humanity. AJP Taylor reminds us that "all things change" but that we recognize ourselves in these faces looking out at us from the past. Coming as it so opportunely did at the eleventh hour of culture about to be overtaken by incredible industrial and technological change, the camera has preserved a record of daily life that the written history of the period could never have a wholly preserved. Though artists of the day recorded the splendor of royal and wealthy patrons, few could afford to devote themselves to as vast a record of the common man. The efforts of these pioneering photographers have immensely enriched historical perspective.

Author: Christopher Birdwood Thomson

Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand

ISBN: 3748150326

Category: History

Page: 145

View: 1146

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This book is a retrospect covering the period 1912-1919. It begins with the first Balkan War, and ends with the Peace Conference at Paris. Many of the events described have been dealt with by other writers, and the only justification for adding one more volume to an already well-stocked library, is that the author was an eye-witness of all that he relates and enjoyed peculiar opportunities for studying the situation as a whole. To impressions derived from personal contact with many of the principal actors in this world-drama has been added the easy wisdom which comes after the event. With these qualifications a conscientious effort has been made to arrange the subject matter in proper sequence and to establish some connection between cause and effect-not with a view to carping criticism, but rather to stress the more obvious errors of the past and glean from them some guidance for the future.

Author: Christopher Birdwood Baron Thomson

Publisher: DigiCat

ISBN: N.A

Category: History

Page: 140

View: 5727

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This work is a full retrospect of the period from 1912 to 1919. It starts with the reexamination of the First Balkan War and ends with discussions on Peace Conference in Paris. This book attempts to draw some lessons from the war and peace. In addition, it asserts the cause of progress. The author keeps the readers curious by delivering accurate facts and details about the critical events of the period. This incredible history is a must-read for all history enthusiasts. Contents include: A Day on the Danube Belgrade—October, 1912: A View from a Window The Battle of Kumanovo Macedonia—1912 Albania—1912–1913 The Second Balkan War and the Treaty of Bucharest Two Men Who Died "1914" Peace and War The Neutral Balkan States—1915 Sleeping Waters The Disaster in Rumania—1916 The Russian Revolution and the Russo-Rumanian Offensive—1917 A Midnight Mass "Westerners" and "Easterners" The Peace Conference at Paris—1919 Looking Back and Looking Forward