Subject: History / Europe / General

Subject: History / Europe / General

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New Energies

|9780822947769|A History of Energy Transitions in Europe and North America|Over the past 250 years, energy transitions have occurred repeatedly—the rise of coal in the nineteenth century, the explosion of oil in the twentieth century, the nuclear utopianism of the 1950s and 1960s. These transitions have been as revolutionary as any political or economic upheaval, and they required changes in infrastructure and behavior. Yet new energies never wholly replace old ones. This volume historicizes energy production and consumption while demonstrating how energy use has reshaped everything from social life and economic organization to political governance. It foregrounds the importance of energy…

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Weimar Prussia, 1925–1933

|9780822985341|The Illusion of Strength|With the development of a strong parliamentary system, Orlow shows how close Prussia came to realizing its goal of lasting democracy for the entire Reich, and how far it fell when the Nazis took power.| Dietrich Orlow|| History / Europe / General History / General

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Rivers in History

|9780822959885|Perspectives on Waterways in Europe and North America| Throughout history, rivers have run a wide course through human temporal and spiritual experience. They have demarcated mythological worlds, framed the cradle of Western civilization, and served as physical and psychological boundaries among nations. Rivers have become a crux of transportation, industry, and commerce. They have been loved as nurturing providers, nationalist symbols, and the source of romantic lore but also loathed as sites of conflict and natural disaster. Rivers in History presents one of the first comparative histories of rivers on the continents of Europe and North America in the modern…

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The Dispute of the New World

|9780822960812|The History of a Polemic, 1750–1900| Translated by Jeremy Moyle When Hegel described the Americas as an inferior continent, he was repeating a contention that inspired one of the most passionate debates of modern times. Originally formulated by the eminent natural scientist Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon and expanded by the Prussian encyclopedist Cornelius de Pauw, this provocative thesis drew heated responses from politicians, philosophers, publicists, and patriots on both sides of the Atlantic. The ensuing polemic reached its apex in the latter decades of the eighteenth century and is far from extinct today. Translated in 1973, The Dispute of…

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Nature in the New World

|9780822960805|From Christopher Columbus to Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo| Translated by Jeremy Moyle In Nature in the New World (translated 1985), Antonello Gerbi examines the fascinating reports of the first Europeans to see the Americas. These accounts provided the basis for the images of strange and new flora, fauna, and human creatures that filled European imaginations. Initial chapters are devoted to the writings of Columbus, Vespucci, Cortés, Verrazzano, and others. The second portion of the book concerns the Historia general y natural de las Indias of Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo, a work commissioned by Charles V of Spain in 1532 but…

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