Getting the Historia Written

This is the first of two chapters dealing with Alamán’s work as a historian, almost entirely devoted to a discussion of his Historia de Méjico (1849-1852), his monumental five-volume history of the Mexican independence struggle, bookended by parts of volumes one and five, respectively, with penetrating and controversial accounts of the colonial period and the political history of the early republic. The chapter pays some slight attention to the work that preceded this, his Disertaciones sobre la historia de la República Mejicana, which dealt with the colonial era. His interesting epistolary relationship with the American historian W. H. Prescott is described at length, as well as his sources and working methods for the history of the independence struggle. A close analysis of his library is also offered.

A History of Western Philosophy: From the PreSocratics to Postmodernism

SummaryStephen Evans provides a lucidly written one-volume history of Western philosophy. He offers a splendid summary of the basic teachings of the major thinkers in the West, interspersed with his own insightful evaluations. Showing the mutual dependence of philosophy and theology as well as the need for Christians to rediscover the valuable tool of thinking philosophically, among many other things, this is a great resource for the lay person and specialist alike.RÉSUMÉStephen Evans a produit un volume d’histoire de la philosophie occidentale rédigé de façon très lucide. Il fournit ainsi un excellent résumé de l’enseignement fondamental des principaux penseurs de l’Occident, en offrant ses propres évaluations pertinentes. Il met en lumière la dépendance mutuelle de la philosophie et de la théologie et fait ressortir le besoin pour les chrétiens de redécouvrir l’outil utile d’une pensée philosophique. C’est là une ressource importante pour le spécialiste comme pour le non spécialiste.ZusammenfassungStephen Evans legt ein verständlich geschriebenes einbändiges Werk über die Geschichte der westlichen Philosophie vor. Er bietet einen brillanten Überblick über die grundlegenden Lehrmeinungen der wichtigsten Denker des Westens, durch den sich seine eigene kenntnisreiche Würdigung hindurchzieht. Das Buch zeigt die gegenseitige Abhängigkeit von Philosophie und Theologie auf sowie unter anderem die Notwendigkeit für Christen, das wertvolle Werkzeug philosophischen Denkens wiederzuentdecken; somit ist es ein großartiges Hilfsmittel für Laien und Fachleute gleichermaßen.

At the origins of “dachа topos”:marginalia of an unfinished work by Yu.M. Lotman

In the autumn of 1991, two years before his death, at the invitation of the Pushkinsky Fond, Lotman began working on a 3-volume history of the Russian nobility through the everyday life of the Durnovo family from St. Petersburg. The second volume was published posthumously in 1996, but all that remains of the third is the introductory fragment entitled «Kamen’ i trava». Despite its brevity and incompleteness, this essay nevertheless deserves attention, because it leads us to reflect on a fundamental rupture in pre-revolutionary cultural history, namely the disintegration of the dual structure of Russian society (aristocracy–peasants) and the rise of a “third” class between them: the urban middle class. Lotman, like Chekhov before him, traces this passage focusing on changes in the noble country estate: its slow degradation and its progressive “democratization” and transformation into dacha. Drawing on heterogeneous sources, from high poetry to mass literature, the scholar offers reflections of astonishing insight and perception that, if reread in the light of the cultural and anthropological debate developed in the 25 years since the author’s death, help to understand the roots of contemporary practices and phenomena such as mass tourism, changes in taste and the affirmation of kitsch, the weakening of cultural and epistemological categories that were once “strong” like the Self and the Other, the Here and the Elsewhere.

Critical analysis of existing approaches towards atlases within cultural geography

Cultural geography is a rather young and not completely institutionalized geographical science in the Russian realm. There are no cultural geographical atlases present in the state of the art, Russian classifications of thematic atlases, though one of the options includes “the atlases of culture”. A series of S.Ya. Suschiy’s atlases of the history of Russian culture and regional historical and cultural atlases may serve as some examples of atlases using the materials of cultural geography. These atlases are rarely original in terms of the means of cartographic visualizations. They are often merely historical or even hardly include any maps being only formally named as atlases while in reality looking like regional encyclopedias. The phonomena of cultural geography have received a certain development among thematic maps of complex atlases. Though the maps of cultural artifacts prevail in this case there are the traditions emerging of mapping cultural heritage and also of cultural geographical regionalization. There are such examples present in the volume “History. Culture” of the National atlas of Russia and also in some thematic products of neighboring disciplines like ethnic, ethnographic and ethnogeographic atlases. However, one can hardly witness any specific for cultural geography mapping means or approaches even in these latter cases. Mental maps could be regarded as potentially prospective trend for creating atlases specifically within cultural geography. In this regard, there is a need to overcome the existing dichotomy of mental maps like graphic means of picturing the human perceptions of their environments and traditional cartographic products focusing on mental representations. The prospect is likely to be focused on the complex cartographic decisions linking spatial representations and certain cultural landscapes.

British Creoles: Nationhood, Identity, and Romantic Geopolitics in Robert Southey’s History of Brazil

This essay considers the nationalist preoccupations underpinning Robert Southey’s three-volume History of Brazil (1810–1819), maintaining that there are important links between his historiographical practices and his rethinking of British imperialism in relation to the challenges raised by the Peninsular War and Napoleonic France. It argues that Southey’s rejection of many of the discourses associated with European encodings of the imperial frontier—such as climatic determinism, sentimental and stirring descriptions, and conquest narratives—forms part of the emergence of a new legitimatory style of British national historiography. While Southey deflates sublime or heroic tales of discovery and conquest, he nonetheless naturalizes the European experience in Brazil via a latent Anglocentric subtext, simultaneously co-opting the hegemonic tendencies of Spanish/Portuguese imperialism, and representing Britain as a benign colonial power divorced from the violence and cruelty associated with those regimes. As Southey’s Brazilians progress towards independence from Portugal, they are invested with more refined moral sensibilities and peculiarly ‘British’ national qualities, making their drift towards emancipation a vindication of a superior British colonial culture. Southey thus uses Brazil as a complex geopolitical space with which to examine a number of his most pressing national concerns, including his fears regarding French imperialism, his residual support for anti-slavery and emancipatory movements, his faith in British expansionism and missionary interventionism, his understanding of the British national character, and his endorsement of new models of ethnic and civic nationalism pioneered in South America.

Russia’s identity: grand challenges

The author formulates major components of Russian national identity that form the basis for a civic nation-building project. These are the study and preservation of historic and cultural legacies including archival and archeological heritage, historic and cultural monuments, memorial sites, historic sites, and landscapes. In addition to active projects, the author suggests novel projects: the construction of a big-data corpus for Russian and other languages spoken in the country, academic dictionaries and encyclopedias, complete works of classic Russian literature, and a multi-volume history of Russia. Social-science expertise is needed for infrastructure and development projects and the construction of mass residential buildings and transport facilities to ensure the preservation of common milieus and values that make up a national identity.

River of Death--The Chickamauga Campaign

The Battle of Chickamauga was the third bloodiest of the American Civil War and the only major Confederate victory in the conflict’s western theatre. It pitted Braxton Bragg’s Army of Tennessee against William S. Rosecrans’s Army of the Cumberland and resulted in more than 34,500 casualties. In this first volume of an authoritative two-volume history of the Chickamauga Campaign, William Glenn Robertson provides a richly detailed narrative of military operations in southeastern and eastern Tennessee as two armies prepared to meet along the “River of Death.” Robertson tracks the two opposing armies from July 1863 through Bragg’s strategic decision to abandon Chattanooga on September 9. Drawing on all relevant primary and secondary sources, Robertson devotes special attention to the personalities and thinking of the opposing generals and their staffs. He also sheds new light on the role of railroads on operations in these landlocked battlegrounds, as well as the intelligence gathered and used by both sides. Delving deep into the strategic machinations, maneuvers, and smaller clashes that led to the bloody events of September 19-20, 1863, Robertson reveals that the road to Chickamauga was as consequential as the unfolding of the battle itself.

Campaign of Giants--The Battle for Petersburg

Grinding, bloody, and ultimately decisive, the Petersburg Campaign was the Civil War's longest and among its most complex. Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee squared off for more than nine months in their struggle for Petersburg, the key to the Confederate capital at Richmond. Featuring some of the war's most notorious battles, the campaign played out against a backdrop of political drama and crucial fighting elsewhere, with massive costs for soldiers and civilians alike. After failing to bull his way into Petersburg, Grant concentrated on isolating the city from its communications with the rest of the surviving Confederacy, stretching Lee's defenses to the breaking point. When Lee's desperate breakout attempt failed in March 1865, Grant launched his final offensives that forced the Confederates to abandon the city on April 2, 1865. A week later, Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House. Here A. Wilson Greene opens his sweeping new three-volume history of the Petersburg Campaign, taking readers from Grant's crossing of the James in mid-June 1864 to the fateful Battle of the Crater on July 30. Full of fresh insights drawn from military, political, and social history, A Campaign of Giants is destined to be the definitive account of the campaign. With new perspectives on operational and tactical choices by commanders, the experiences of common soldiers and civilians, and the significant role of the United States Colored Troops in the fighting, this book offers essential reading for all those interested in the history of the Civil War.