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Religion plays a central role in human experience. Billions of people around the world practice a faith and act in accordance with it. Religion shapes how they enter the world and how they leave it - how they eat, dress, marry, and raise their children. It shapes their assumptions about who they are and who they want to be. Religion also identifies insiders and outsiders, who has power and who doesn''t. It sanctifies injustice and combats it. It draws national borders. It affects law, economy, and government. It destroys and restores the environment. It starts wars and ends them. Whether you notice it or not, religion plays a role in how billions conduct their lives. We are called, then, to understand this important factor in human life today.Beginning with the first signs of religion among ancient humans and concluding with a look at modern citizens and global trends, leading scholar Thomas Tweed examines this powerful and enduring force in human society. Tweed deftly documents religion as it exists around the world, addressing its role in both intensifying and alleviating contemporary political and environmental problems, from armed conflict to climate change. Religion: A Very Short Introduction offers a concise non-partisan overview of religion''s long history and its complicated role in the world today.

The Rwandan genocide, the Holocaust, the lynching of African Americans, the colonial slave trade: these are horrific episodes of mass violence spawned from racism and hatred. We like to think that we could never see such evils again--that we would stand up and fight. But something deep in the human psyche--deeper than prejudice itself--leads people to persecute the other: dehumanization, or the human propensity to think of others as less than human. An award-winning author and philosopher, Smith takes an unflinching look at the mechanisms of the mind that encourage us to see someone as less than human. There is something peculiar and horrifying in human psychology that makes us vulnerable to thinking of whole groups of people as subhuman creatures. When governments or other groups stand to gain by exploiting this innate propensity, and know just how to manipulate words and images to trigger it, there is no limit to the violence and hatred that can result. Drawing on numerous historical and contemporary cases and recent psychological research, On Inhumanity is the first accessible guide to the phenomenon of dehumanization. Smith walks readers through the psychology of dehumanization, revealing its underlying role in both notorious and lesser-known episodes of violence from history and current events. In particular, he considers the uncomfortable kinship between racism and dehumanization, where beliefs involving race are so often precursors to dehumanization and the horrors that flow from it. On Inhumanity is bracing and vital reading in a world lurching towards authoritarian political regimes, resurgent white nationalism, refugee crises that breed nativist hostility, and fast-spreading racist rhetoric. The book will open your eyes to the pervasive dangers of dehumanization and the prejudices that can too easily take root within us, and resist them before they spread into the wider world.

On October 28, 1917, just days after the Bolsheviks seized power, the great Council of the Russian Orthodox Church voted to restore the patriarchate, which had been abolished by Peter the Great two centuries earlier. The Council chose Tikhon (Bellavin), the son of a humble village parish priest, to be head of Russia''s largest religious confession. At the time, the majority of Orthodox Christians were devoutly religious. Tikhon''s vision of the Church, which he began putting into practice during his years as the Orthodox bishop of North America (1898-1907), was that of an organic body which welcomed the participation of all believers. The Bolsheviks had other ideas. They aimed to create a revolution that would be carried out by the state on behalf of the people. And they sought to eradicate religion as “superstition” and not only to disestablish the Church, but to destroy it altogether. Although the alternate Russia which Tikhon represented would be crushed by the superior force of the Bolsheviks, he helped navigate the Church through immense challenges so that, in the end, the Orthodox Church outlived the Soviet experiment. The People''s Patriarch tells the story of the clash of visions for the new Russia in 1917 through the lens of the humble man chosen to lead the Church, whose life exemplifies the transformations within the Orthodox Church in late Imperial Russia and its fate during the Revolution. The People''s Patriarch is the first critical biography of one of the twentieth century''s most important Orthodox Christian leaders, based on an exhaustive use of previously untapped primary sources, including Tikhon''s letters and encyclicals, previously classified documents from the top Bolshevik leadership and Soviet secret police, and materials from a dozen archives in five countries.

The Oxford History of the United States is by far the most respected multi-volume history of the USA. The series includes three Pulitzer Prize winners, two New York Times bestsellers, and winners of the Bancroft and Parkman Prizes. Now, in the newest volume in the series, one of America''s most esteemed historians, Gordon S. Wood, offers a brilliant account of the early American Republic, ranging from 1789 and the beginning of the national government to the end of the War of 1812. As Wood reveals, the period was marked by tumultuous change in all aspects of American life--in politics, society, economy, and culture. The men who founded the new government had high hopes for the future, but few of their hopes and dreams worked out quite as they expected. They hated political parties but parties nonetheless emerged. Some wanted the United States to become a great fiscal-military state like those of Britain and France; others wanted the country to remain a rural agricultural state very different from the European states. Instead, by 1815 the United States became something neither group anticipated. Many leaders expected American culture to flourish and surpass that of Europe; instead it became popularized and vulgarized. The leaders also hope to see the end of slavery; instead, despite the release of many slaves and the end of slavery in the North, slavery was stronger in 1815 than it had been in 1789. Many wanted to avoid entanglements with Europe, but instead the country became involved in Europe''s wars and ended up waging another war with the former mother country. Still, with a new generation emerging by 1815, most Americans were confident and optimistic about the future of their country. Integrating all aspects of life, from politics and law to the economy and culture, Empire of Liberty offers a marvelous account of this pivotal era when America took its first unsteady steps as a new and rapidly expanding nation. A Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for HistoryWinner of the New-York Historical Society American History Book PrizeA New York Times BestsellerSelected as one of the Top 25 Books of 2009 by The Atlantic"On every page of this book, Wood''s subtlety and erudition show. Grand in scope and a landmark achievement of scholarship, Empire of Liberty is a tour de force, the culmination of a lifetime of brilliant thinking and writing." --The New York Times Book Review"Empire of Liberty will rightly take its place among the authoritative volumes in this important and influential series."--The Washington Post

A distinctive collection of essays capturing Lawrence Freedman''s insightful analysis across war, strategy, and foreign policy and providing a unique view of the key thinkers that shaped history.One of the world''s foremost scholars of warfare, both historical and contemporary, Lawrence Freedman has also played an important role in policymaking, serving as an official historian of both the Falklands War and on the UK inquiry into the 2003 Iraq War. Since the publication of his best-selling Strategy in 2013, Freedman has continued to explore many of the themes he raised in the book while commenting on ongoing conflicts.On Strategists and Strategy combines the best of Freedman''s many essays from the past ten years on warfare and foreign policy, alongside more personal pieces on the scholars who influenced him and his own life trajectory. The range of his interests is demonstrated in this lively and engaging collection of essays. They cover a wide range of topics, including Vladimir Putin''s strategic fanaticism; arguments on why we don''t take tactics seriously enough and why "stalemate" is used incorrectly as a metaphor for deadlock in war; considerations of the dilemmas of nuclear deterrence; and what Covid tells us about crisis management. The material on his own life is richly contextual, attuned to the broader historical trends and social forces in 1960s and 1970s Britain that shaped his experiences.This volume not only provides a broad-ranging sampling of Freedman''s most representative work, but also offers a unique window into a half century of world history.

This fast-paced narrative traces the emergence of the United States Navy as a global power from its birth during the American Revolution through to its current superpower status. The story highlights iconic moments of great drama pivotal to the nation''s fortunes: John Paul Jones'' attacks on the British during the Revolution, the Barbary Wars, and the arduous conquest of Iwo Jima.The book illuminates the changes--technological, institutional, and functional--of the U.S. Navy from its days as a small frigate navy through the age of steam and steel to the modern era of electronics and missiles. Historian Craig L. Symonds captures the evolving culture of the navy and debates between policymakers about what role the institution should play in world affairs. Internal and external challenges dramatically altered the size and character of the navy, with long periods of quiet inertia alternating with rapid expansion emerging out of crises. The history of the navy reflects the history of the nation as a whole, and its many changes derive in large part from the changing role of the United States itself.

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.

Extensively revised and updated in this sixth edition, The Modern Middle East explores how the forces associated with global modernity have shaped the social, economic, cultural, and political life in the region over the course of the past 500 years. Beginning with the first glimmerings of the current international state and economic systems in the sixteenth century, this book examines the impact of imperial and imperialist legacies, the great nineteenth-century transformation, cultural continuities and upheavals, international diplomacy, economic booms and busts, and the emergence of authoritarian regimes and the varied forms of resistance to them and to imperialism in an area of vital concern to us all. The text is engagingly written--drawing from the author''s own research and other studies--and enriched with maps and photographs, original documents, and other supplementary materials.

It was where World War II began on September 1, 1939. Its wartime experience was immortalized in Günter Grass`s The Tin Drum. Later it attracted worldwide attention as the site where workers` strikes led by Lech Walesa and the ensuing Solidarity movement led to the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe. Proud Hanseatic port, heart of the Baltic Sea trade, twice a "Free City," present-day liberal, cosmopolitan center: Gdańsk''s story between Germany and Poland is rich and fascinating. As Peter Oliver Loew colorfully shows, Gdańsk, also known as Danzig, is incomparable not only because of its recent past but also in how it has so uniquely embodied the tensions of the European continent over the last millennium. Situated geographically and culturally within these tensions, the city has developed a fascinating identity amid frequent conflict and shifting national affiliations. From prehistoric amber workers to early Slavic dukes, the conquest of the Teutonic Order, and submission to the Polish crown, Gdańsk''s development led to a remarkable flowering. Around 1650, no city between Moscow and Amsterdam was bigger or wealthier. As Poland''s decline culminated with the Partitions of Poland, the city ultimately found itself annexed into Prussia. The destruction of 1945 brought an almost entirely new Polish population, who rebuilt the historic center, now part of the reconstituted Polish state. Through each historical rupture, and despite the efforts of distant courts and capitals to rewrite its history, Gdańsk has maintained--or sometimes rediscovered--a connection to its own past. Today the port city on the Vistula once again thrives, drawing strength from its diversity and history. Drawing on the latest research of German and Polish historians, Peter Oliver Loew vividly portrays the politics, economy, society, culture, and everyday life of a European city par excellence.