Synopses & Reviews
The Cold War and the New Imperialism is an account of global history since 1945, which brings massive changes in global politics, economics, and society together in a single narrative, illuminating and clarifying the dilemmas of the present. Written for the general reader, it draws together scholarly research from a wide range of sources without losing sight of the larger pattern of events.
In the sixty-year period since the end of World War II, the world has indeed been remade. The war itself mobilized the political and social aspirations of hundreds of millions of people. The contest between the United States and the Soviet Union for global dominance drew every country into its field of force. Struggles for national liberation in the Third World brought an end to colonial empires. Revolutions in China, Cuba, Vietnam and elsewhere shook the global order, as did failed uprisings in Paris and Prague. Since the end of the Cold War the forces of the capitalist market have overwhelmed social institutions that have given meaning to human existence for centuries.
But the end of the Cold War has created as many problems for the world's remaining superpower, the United States, as it has solved. With its political, economic, and financial hegemony eroding, the United States has responded with military adventures abroad and increasing inequality and authoritarianism at home. The Cold War and the New Imperialism draws all these threads together and shows vividly that the end of history is not in sight.
Review
"A succinct and well-researched study. Essential." -Choice,
Review
"An important contribution to the history of Russian Jewry, the Haskalah, and traditional Jewish society. I heartily recommend it."-Michael Stanislawski,Nathan J. Miller Professor of Jewish History, Columbia University
Synopsis
Long before there were Jewish communities in the land of the tsars, Jews inhabited a region which they called medinat rusiya, the land of Russia. Prior to its annexation by Russia, the land of Russia was not a center of rabbinic culture. But in 1772, with its annexation by Tsarist Russia, this remote region was severed from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth; its 65,000 Jews were thus cut off from the heartland of Jewish life in Eastern Europe. Forced into independence, these Jews set about forging a community with its own religious leadership and institutions.
The three great intellectual currents in East European Jewry--Hasidism, Rabbinic Mitnagdism, and Haskalah--all converged on Eastern Belorussia, where they clashed and competed. In the course of a generation, the community of Shklovthe most prominent of the towns in the areawitnessed an explosion of intellectual and cultural activity.
Focusing on the social and intellectual odysseys of merchants, maskilim, and rabbis, and their varied attempts to combine Judaism and European culture, David Fishman here chronicles the remarkable story of these first modern Jews of Russia.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. 169-180) and index.
About the Author
Henry Heller is professor of history at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada, and the author of four books on early modern France.