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In November 1519, Hernando Cortés walked along a causeway leading to the capital of the Aztec kingdom and came face to face with Moctezuma. That story--and the story of what happened afterwards--has been told many times, but always following the narrative offered by the Spaniards. After all, we have been taught, it was the Europeans who held the pens. But the Native Americans were intrigued by the Roman alphabet and, unbeknownst to the newcomers, they used it to write detailed histories in their own language of Nahuatl. Until recently, these sources remained obscure, only partially translated, and rarely consulted by scholars. For the first time, in Fifth Sun, the history of the Aztecs is offered in all its complexity based solely on the texts written by the indigenous people themselves. Camilla Townsend presents an accessible and humanized depiction of these native Mexicans, rather than seeing them as the exotic, bloody figures of European stereotypes. The conquest, in this work, is neither an apocalyptic moment, nor an origin story launching Mexicans into existence. The Mexica people had a history of their own long before the Europeans arrived and did not simply capitulate to Spanish culture and colonization. Instead, they realigned their political allegiances, accommodated new obligations, adopted new technologies, and endured. This engaging revisionist history of the Aztecs, told through their own words, explores the experience of a once-powerful people facing the trauma of conquest and finding ways to survive, offering an empathetic interpretation for experts and non-specialists alike.

History teaches that antisemitism is a disease which begins with the Jews but does not end with them. Once antisemitism is unleashed, it knows no bounds and can attack the very fabric of society. This deadly strain of hatred often turns against other minority groups too, not to mention foundational democratic values, beginning with equal rights and equal protection before the law. Therefore, antisemitism should be viewed as a universal human rights issue of importance to all, and not solely as a parochial Jewish or Israeli concern. Antisemitism: What Everyone Needs to Know® explores how, in the 21st century, antisemitism is once again resurgent. In recent years, the FBI reported that well over half of all religiously motivated hate crimes in the United States targeted Jews, even though Jews comprise just over two percent of the population. It is striking how little understood antisemitism, including the term itself, still is. This extends quite widely to political leaders, educational authorities, law enforcement and the judiciary, civic groups, and media outlets. Polls have also shown how knowledge of the Holocaust, which was widely considered to be a firewall against the resurgence of antisemitism, is declining, notwithstanding ongoing attention to the topic in education, museums and memorials, and culture.

The Maya forged one of the greatest societies in the history of the ancient Americas — and in all of human history. Long before contact with Europeans, Maya communities built spectacular cities with large, well-fed large populations. They mastered the visual arts, and developed a sophisticated writing system that recorded extraordinary knowledge in calendrics, mathematics, and astronomy. The Maya achieved all this without area-wide centralized control. There was never a single, unified Maya state or empire, but always numerous, evolving ethnic groups speaking dozens of distinct Mayan languages. The people we call "Maya" never thought of themselves as such; yet something definable, unique, and endlessly fascinating - what we call Maya culture - has clearly existed for millennia. So what was their self-identity and how did Maya civilization come to be "invented?"With the Maya historically subdivided and misunderstood in so many ways, the pursuit of what made them "the Maya" is all the more important. In this Very Short Introduction, Restall and Solari explore the themes of Maya identity, city-state political culture, art and architecture, the Maya concept of the cosmos, and the Maya experience of contact with — including invasion by — outsiders. Despite its brevity, this book is unique for its treatment of all periods of Maya civilization, from its origins to the present.

Winner of both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award and named by the Modern Library one of the twentieth century''s 100 Best Non-Fiction Books, Paul Fussell''s The Great War and Modern Memory was universally acclaimed on publication in 1970. Today, Fussell''s landmark study remains as original and gripping as ever: a literate, literary, and unapologetic account of the Great War, the war that changed a generation, ushered in the modern era, and revolutionized how we see the world. This brilliant work illuminates the trauma and tragedy of modern warfare in fresh, revelatory ways. Exploring the work of Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves, Edmund Blunden, David Jones, Isaac Rosenberg, and Wilfred Owen, Fussell supplies contexts, both actual and literary, for those writers who--with conspicuous imaginative and artistic meaning--most effectively memorialized World War I as an historical experience. Dispensing with literary theory and elevated rhetoric, Fussell grounds literary texts in the mud and trenches of World War I and shows how these poems, diaries, novels, and letters reflected the massive changes--in every area, including language itself--brought about by the cataclysm of the Great War. For generations of readers, this work has represented and embodied a model of accessible scholarship, huge ambition, hard-minded research, and haunting detail.Restored and updated, this new edition includes an introduction by historian Jay Winter that takes into account the legacy and literary career of Paul Fussell, who died in May 2012.

Ritual is part of what it means to be human. Like sports, music, and drama, ritual defines and enriches culture, putting those who practice it in touch with sources of value and meaning larger than themselves. Ritual is unavoidable, yet it holds a place in modern life that is decidedly ambiguous. What is ritual? What does it do? Is it useful? What are the various kinds of ritual? Is ritual tradition bound and conservative or innovative and transformationa? longside description of a number of specific rites, this Very Short Introduction explores ritual from both theoretical and historical perspectives. Barry Stephenson focuses on the places where ritual touches everyday life: in politics and power; moments of transformation in the life cycle; as performance and embodiment. He also discusses the boundaries of ritual, and how and why certain behaviors have been studied as ritual while others have not. Stephenson shows how ritual is an important vehicle for group and identity formation; how it generates and transmits beliefs and values; how it can be used to exploit and oppress; and how it has served as a touchstone for thinking about cultural origins and historical change. Encompassing the breadth and depth of modern ritual studies, Barry Stephenson''s Very Short Introduction also develops a narrative of ritual''s place in social and cultural life. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Late in life, William F. Buckley made a confession to Corey Robin. Capitalism is "boring," said the founding father of the American right. "Devoting your life to it," as conservatives do, "is horrifying if only because it''s so repetitious. It''s like sex." With this unlikely conversation began Robin''s decade-long foray into the conservative mind. What is conservatism, and what''s truly at stake for its proponents? If capitalism bores them, what excites the? racing conservatism back to its roots in the reaction against the French Revolution, Robin argues that the right is fundamentally inspired by a hostility to emancipating the lower orders. Some conservatives endorse the free market, others oppose it. Some criticize the state, others celebrate it. Underlying these differences is the impulse to defend power and privilege against movements demanding freedom and equality. Despite their opposition to these movements, conservatives favor a dynamic conception of politics and society--one that involves self-transformation, violence, and war. They are also highly adaptive to new challenges and circumstances. This partiality to violence and capacity for reinvention has been critical to their success.Written by a keen, highly regarded observer of the contemporary political scene, The Reactionary Mind ranges widely, from Edmund Burke to Antonin Scalia to Donald Trump, from John C. Calhoun to Ayn Rand. It advances the notion that all right-wing ideologies, from the eighteenth century through today, are historical improvisations on a theme: the felt experience of having power, seeing it threatened, and trying to win it back.When its first edition appeared in fall 2011, The Reactionary Mind set off a fierce debate, in the New York Review of Books, on academic blogs, and throughout the internet. So intense was the controversy that it became the subject of a profile in the New York Times. Now updated to include Trump''s election and the rise of global populism, The Reactionary Mind is more relevant than ever.

A finalist for the 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction, this prize-winning and critically acclaimed history uses foreign relations as the lens through which to tell the story of America''s dramatic rise from thirteen disparate colonies huddled along the Atlantic coast to the world''s greatest superpower. George C. Herring tells a story of stunning successes and sometimes tragic failures, captured in a fast-paced narrative that illuminates the central importance of foreign relations to the existence and survival of the nation, and highlights its ongoing impact on the lives of ordinary citizens. He shows how policymakers defined American interests broadly to include territorial expansion, access to growing markets, and the spread of an "American way" of life. And Herring does all this in a story rich in human drama and filled with epic events. Statesmen such as Benjamin Franklin and Woodrow Wilson and Harry Truman and Dean Acheson played key roles in America''s rise to world power. But America''s expansion as a nation also owes much to the adventurers and explorers, the sea captains, merchants and captains of industry, the missionaries and diplomats, who discovered or charted new lands, developed new avenues of commerce, and established and defended the nation''s interests in foreign lands. From Colony to Superpower captures all this as it tells the dramatic story of America''s emergence as superpower--its birth in revolution, its troubled present, and its uncertain future.

This Very Short Introduction provides a concise, accurate, and lively portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte''s character and career, situating him firmly in historical context.David Bell emphasizes the astonishing sense of human possibility--for both good and ill--that Napoleon represented. By his late twenties, Napoleon was already one of the greatest generals in European history. At thirty, he had become absolute master of Europe''s most powerful country. In his early forties, he ruled a European empire more powerful than any since Rome, fighting wars that changed the shape of the continent and brought death to millions. Then everything collapsed, leading him to spend his last years in miserable exile in the South Atlantic. Bell emphasizes the importance of the French Revolution in understanding Napoleon''s career. The revolution made possible the unprecedented concentration of political authority that Napoleon accrued, and his success in mobilizing human and material resources. Without the political changes brought about by the revolution, Napoleon could not have fought his wars. Without the wars, he could not have seized and held onto power. Though his virtual dictatorship betrayed the ideals of liberty and equality, his life and career were revolutionary.

Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in adulthood is a prevalent and impairing disorder. While medications have been effective in treating adult ADHD, the majority of individuals treated with medications still have symptoms that require additional skills and symptom management strategies. This Second Edition of Mastering Your Adult ADHD is thoroughly updated to present the most current, empirically supported treatment strategies in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for coping with symptoms of adult ADHD. The Therapist Guide provides clinicians with effective means of teaching adult clients skills that have been scientifically tested and shown to help them cope with ADHD. The program has been updated to include the optional use of technology and smart phones to improve organization and planning. Core modules cover the development of systems for keeping track of appointments and tasks, reducing distractibility, and improving adaptive thinking skills, and there''s an optional module on reducing procrastination. Information is also provided regarding holding an informational meeting with a spouse, partner, or family member. The step-by-step, session-by-session descriptions are a practical resource for therapists who deliver the treatment. The companion Client Workbook contains all of the necessary information for participating in the practical CBT intervention. It includes worksheets, forms, and a link to an assessment measure that can be used to gauge progress during treatment.

The mythologies of the world are collective cultural dreams, and as such should be analyzed first from cultural perspectives. How do myths of the ancient Egyptians or Greeks, for instance, reflect the realities of the Egyptian and Greek cultures? When compared, however, mythologies reveal certain universal themes or motifs that point to larger trans-cultural issues such as the place of the human species in creation or the nature of deity as a concept. World Mythology: A Very Short Introduction is organized around the universal motifs. Creation, the Flood, the Hero Quest, the Trickster/Culture Hero, the Pantheons, the High God, the Great Goddess. Veteran mythology scholar David Leeming examines examples of each motif from a variety of cultures--Greek, Egyptian, Norse, American Indian, African, Polynesian, Jewish, Christian, Hindu--treating them as reflections of the cultures that "dreamed" them. He compares and analyzes them, exposing their universal significance and creating a "world mythology."

Between 1929 and 1945, two great travails were visited upon the American people: the Great Depression and World War II. Freedom from Fear tells the story of how Americans endured, and eventually prevailed, in the face of those unprecedented calamities.The Depression was both a disaster and an opportunity. As David Kennedy vividly demonstrates, the economic crisis of the 1930s was far more than a simple reaction to the alleged excesses of the 1920s. For more than a century before 1929, America''s unbridled industrial revolution had gyrated through repeated boom and bust cycles, wastefullly consuming capital and inflicting untold misery on city and countryside alike. Nor was the fabled prosperity of the 1920s as uniformly shared ag legend portrays. Countless Americans, especially if they were farmers, African Americans, or recent immigrants, eked out thread bare lives on the margins of national life. For them the Depression was but another of the ordeals of fear and insecurity with which they were sadly familiar.Franklin Roosevelt''s New Deal wrung from the trauma of the 1930s a lasting legacy of economic and social reform, in cluding the Social Security Act, new banking and financial laws, regulatory legistlation, and new opportunities for organized labour. Taken together, those reforms gave a measure of security to millons of Americans who had never had much of it, and with a fresh sense of having a stake in their country.Freedom from Fear tells the story of the New Deal''s achievments, without slighting its shortcomings, contraditions and failures. It is a story rinch in drama and peopled with unforgettable personalities, including the incandescent but enigmatic figure of Roosevelt himself.Even as the New Deal was coping with the Depression, a still more fearsome menace was developing abroad--Hitler''s thirst for war in Europe, coupled with the imperial ambitions of Japan in Asia. The same generation of Americans who battled the Depression evenutally had to shoulder the arms in another conflict that wreaked world wide destruction, ushered in the nuclear age and forever changed their own way of life and their country''s relationship to the rest of the world. Freedom from Fear explains how the nation agonized over its role in World War II, how it fought the war, why the United States won, and why the consequences of victory were sometimes sweet, sometimes ironic. In a compelling narrative, Kenney analyses the determinants of American strategy, the painful choices faced by commanders and statesmen, and the agonies inflicted on the millions of ordinary Americans who were compelled to swallow their fears and face battle as best they could.Freedom from Fear is a comprehensive and colourful account of the most convulsive period in American history, excepting only the Civil War - a period that formed the crucible in which modern America was formed.

By any measure, Julius Caesar is one of the most significant and famous figures in Roman history. Self-identified as a "popular" politician, he advocated for effective government to better the lives of average Romans,but believed such a government could not be based upon the existing democracy. Only through his personal authority and the massive organization he built to overthrow the government could the prosperity of all Rome''s citizens be ensured.Through a careful analysis of the ancient sources, especially Caesar''s own writings, David Potter offers us a stunning and original portrait of this great general and statesman.Master of Rome reveals Caesar as a highly organized manager with an extraordinary ability to adjust to circumstances while maintaining the ancient equivalent of a positive "media presence." After his death, Caesar''s followers put forward a narrative of his life that made his rise to power seem inevitable, but Caesar''s own writing tells us a different story--one of a detail-oriented general who demanded a high degree of accountability from his subordinates.A critical aspect of Caesar''s philosophy of command was the need to find room for former enemies to serve in his organization. While this philosophy catapulted Caesar to great fame as a general during the wars in Gaul, when he attempted to put this method into effect in the wake of the civil war that established him as the master of Rome, it led to his brutal assassination in 44 BCE.Master of Rome tells the dramatic story of one of history''s most intriguing figures, who rose from the fringes of Roman political society to unprecedented heights. Along the way, Potter identifies the extraordinary qualities that enabled Caesar to dominate the world in which he lived.

A fresh narrative history of the rise of Rome''s empire in Italy, that exposes the monumental expansion of the Roman familial, social, political, and militaristic way of living across Italy.Before the Romans could become masters of the Mediterranean, they had to first conquer the people of their own peninsula. This book explores the origins of Roman imperialism and the creation of Rome''s early Italian empire, bringing new light and interpretations to this important but problematic period in Roman history. It explains how and why the Romans were able to expand their influence within Italy, often through the use of armed conflict, laying the foundations for their great imperial project.This book critically reexamines and reframes the traditional literary narrative within an archaeologically informed, archaic Italian context. Jeremy Armstrong presents a new interpretation of the early Roman army, highlighting the fluid and family-driven character which is increasingly visible in the evidence. Drawing on recent developments within the field of early Roman studies, Children of Mars argues that the emergence of Rome''s empire in Italy should not be seen as the spread of a distinct “Roman” people across Italian land, but rather the expansion of a social, political, and military network amongst the Italian people. Armstrong suggests that Rome''s early empire was a fundamentally human and relational one. While this reinterpretation of early Roman imperialism is no less violent than the traditional model, it alters its core dynamic and nature, and thus shifts the entire trajectory of Rome''s Republican history.

Purses and bags have always been much more than a fashion accessory.For generations of Americans, the purse has been an essential and highly adaptable object, used to achieve a host of social, cultural, and political objectives. In the early 1800s, when the slim fit of neoclassical dresses made interior pockets impractical, upper-class women began to carry small purses called reticules, which provided them with a private place in a world where they did not have equal access to public space. Although many items of apparel have long expressed their wearer''s aspirations, only the purse has offered carriers privacy, pride, and pleasure. This privacy has been particularly important for those who have faced discrimination because of their gender, class, race, citizenship, or sexuality.The Things She Carried reveals how bags, sacks, and purses provided the methods and materials for Americans'' activism, allowing carriers to transgress critical boundaries at key moments. It explores how enslaved people used purses and bags when attempting to escape and immigrant factory workers fought to protect their purses in the workplace. It also probes the purse''s nuanced functions for Black women in the civil rights movement and explores how LGBTQ people used purses to defend their bodies and make declarations about their sexuality.Kathleen Casey closely examines a variety of sources—from vintage purses found in abandoned buildings and museum collections to advertisements, photograph albums, trade journals, newspaper columns, and trial transcripts. She finds purses in use at fraught historical moments, where they served strategic and symbolic functions for their users. The result is a thorough and surprising examination of an object that both ordinary and extraordinary Americans used to influence social, cultural, economic, and political change.

An update of a popular work that takes on the myths of the Spanish Conquest of the Americas, featuring a new afterword.Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest reveals how the Spanish invasions in the Americas have been conceived and presented, misrepresented and misunderstood, in the five centuries since Columbus first crossed the Atlantic. This book is a unique and provocative synthesis of ideas and themes that were for generations debated or perpetuated without question in academic and popular circles. The 2003 edition became the foundation stone of a scholarly turn since called The New Conquest History. Each of the book''s seven chapters describes one "myth," or one aspect of the Conquest that has been distorted or misrepresented, examines its roots, and explodes its fallacies and misconceptions. Using a wide array of primary and secondary sources, written in a scholarly but readable style, Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest explains why Columbus did not set out to prove the world was round, the conquistadors were not soldiers, the native Americans did not take them for gods, Cortés did not have a unique vision of conquest procedure, and handfuls of vastly outnumbered Spaniards did not bring down great empires with stunning rapidity. Conquest realities were more complex--and far more fascinating--than conventional histories have related, and they featured a more diverse cast of protagonists-Spanish, Native American, and African. This updated edition of a key event in the history of the Americas critically examines the book''s arguments, how they have held up, and why they prompted the rise of a New Conquest History.

From America''s preeminent naval historian, the first full-length portrait in over fifty years of the man who won the war in the Pacific in World War Two—"destined," says Andrew Roberts, "to be the defining life of Chester Nimitz for a long time to come." Only days after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt tapped Chester W. Nimitz to assume command of the Pacific Fleet. Nimitz was not the most senior candidate available, and some, including his new boss, U.S. Navy Admiral Ernest J. King, considered him a "desk admiral," more suited to running a bureaucracy than a theater of war. Yet FDR''s selection proved nothing less than inspired. From the precarious early months of the war after December 7th 1941 to the surrender ceremony in Tokyo Bay nearly four years later, Nimitz transformed the devastated and dispirited Pacific fleet into the most powerful and commanding naval force in history. From the start, the pressures on Nimitz were crushing. Facing demands from Washington to mount an early offensive, he had first to revive the depressed morale of the thousands of sailors, soldiers, and Marines who served under him. He had to corral independent-minded subordinates—including Admiral Bill "Bull" Halsey and General Holland "Howlin'' Mad" Smith—and keep them focused on shared objectives. He had to maintain a sometimes-fraught relationship with his Army counterpart Douglas MacArthur, and cope with his superiors, including the formidably prickly King and the inscrutable FDR. He had to navigate the expectations of a nation impatient for revenge and eventual victory. And of course, he also confronted a formidable and implacable enemy in the Imperial Japanese Navy, which, until the Battle of Midway, had the run of the Pacific. Craig Symonds'' Nimitz at War reveals how the quiet man from the Hill Country of Texas eventually surmounted all of these challenges. Using Nimitz''s headquarters—the eye of the hurricane—as his vantage point, Symonds covers all the major campaigns in the Pacific from Guadalcanal to Okinawa. He captures Nimitz''s composure, discipline, homespun wisdom, and most of all his uncanny sense of when to assert authority and when to pull back. In retrospect it is difficult to imagine anyone else accomplishing what Nimitz did. As Symonds'' absorbing, dynamic, and authoritative portrait reveals, it required qualities of leadership exhibited by few other commanders in history, qualities that are enduringly and even poignantly relevant to our own moment.