The Future of India

The Future of India

Author: Bimal Jalan

Publisher: Penguin UK

Published: 2006-06-02

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13: 9351181642

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As Recently As A Decade Ago, The Prospect Of India Becoming A Developed Country Any Time Soon Seemed A Distant Possibility. Since Then, However, There Has Been A Sea Change In Our Own And The World&Rsquo;S Perception About Our Future. What Explains This Rising Tide Of Optimism? And How Far Is It Justified? In The Future Of India, Bimal Jalan, Former Governor Of The Reserve Bank Of India, Takes Up The Formidable Challenge Of Examining The Nuts And Bolts Of This Proposition. In His Thought-Provoking, Clear-Sighted Analysis, He Argues That It Is The Interface Between Politics, Economics And Governance, And Their Combined Effect On The Functioning Of Our Democracy, Which Will Largely Determine India&Rsquo;S Future. An Understanding Of This Interface Will Help Explain The Swings In India&Rsquo;S Political And Economic Fortunes Over The Past Decades, And Why The Promise Has Been Belied. In The Light Of Experience, Argues Jalan, There Is No Certainty That The Present Euphoria Will Last Unless There Is The Political Will To Seize The New Opportunities That Are Available. He Proceeds To Suggest Steps That Can Be Taken To Smoothen Our Path To Progress: Ways To Strengthen Parliament And The Judiciary; A Series Of Political Reforms That Would, Among Other Things, See Greater Accountability Among Ministers; And Effective Ways To Curb Corruption And Enhance Fiscal Viability. In All These There Is An Emphasis On The Pragmatic, Born Of Jalan&Rsquo;S Experience As An Administrator, Economist And Member Of Parliament. Contemporary And Topical, The Future Of India: Politics, Economics And Governance, Perhaps More Than Any Other Book On The Subject, Shows Just How A Future Close Enough To Be Seen Need Not Forever Remain Elusive To The Grasp.


Representations of Power in Medieval Germany 800-1500

Representations of Power in Medieval Germany 800-1500

Author: Björn K. U. Weiler

Publisher: Brepols Publishers

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 376

ISBN-13:

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This book brings together a group of leading experts on the political history of Germany and the medieval empire from the Carolingian period to the end of the Middle Ages. Its purpose is to introduce and analyse key concepts in the study of medieval political culture. The representation of power by means of texts, buildings and images is a theme which has long interested historians. However, recent debates and methodological insights have fundamentally altered the way this subject is perceived, opening it up to perspectives unnoticed by its pioneers in the middle of the twentieth century. By taking account of these debates and insights, this volume explores a series of fundamental questions. How was power defined in a medieval context? How was it claimed, legitimized and disputed? What were the moral parameters against which its exercise was judged? How did different spheres of political power interact? What roles were played by texts, images and rituals in the maintenance of, and challenges to, the political order? The contributors bring varied and original approaches to these and other questions, illuminating the complex power relationships which determined the changing political history of medieval Germany.


Problems and Possibilities of Early Medieval Charters

Problems and Possibilities of Early Medieval Charters

Author: Jonathan Jarrett

Publisher: Brepols Publishers

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9782503548302

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Although historical work on the early Middle Ages relies to an enormous extent on the evidence provided by charters and other such documents, the paradigms within which such documents are interpreted have changed relatively slowly and unevenly. The critical turn, the increasing availability of digital tools and corpora for study, and the acceptance among charter specialists that their discipline can inform a wider field all encourage rethinking. From 2006 to 2011, a series of sessions at the Leeds International Medieval Congress addressed this by applying new critiques and technologies to early medieval diplomatic material from all over Europe. This volume collects some of the best of these papers by new and young scholars and adds related work from another session. The subjects range from reinterpretations of Carolingian or Anglo-Saxon political history, through the production and use of charters by all ranks of society and their subsequent preservation from Spain to Germany and England to Italy, to explorations of new media leading to new kinds of results from such evidence. The result is an array of new perspectives which makes an important contribution to recent reconsiderations of charter studies. It will inform a wide audience from all walks of medieval historical studies.


The Normans in the Mediterranean

The Normans in the Mediterranean

Author: Emily A. Winkler

Publisher: Brepols Publishers

Published: 2021

Total Pages: 268

ISBN-13: 9782503590578

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In both popular memory and in their own histories, the Normans remain almost synonymous with conquest. In their relatively brief history, some of these Normans left a small duchy in northern France to fight with Empires, conquer kingdoms, and form new ruling dynasties. This book examines the explosive Norman encounters with the medieval Mediterranean, c. 1000-1250. It evaluates new evidence for conquest and communities, and offer new perspectives on the Normans? many meetings and adventures in history and memory.00The contributions gathered here ask questions of politics, culture, society, and historical writing. How should we characterize the Normans? many personal, local, and interregional interactions in the Mediterranean? How were they remembered in writing in the years and centuries that followed their incursions? The book questions the idea of conquest as replacement, examining instead how human interactions created new nodes and networks that transformed the medieval Mediterranean. Through studies of the Normans and the communities who encountered them - across Iberia, the eastern Roman Empire, Lombard Italy, Islamic Sicily, and the Great Sea - the book explores macro- and micro-histories of conquest, its strategies and technologies, and how medieval people revised, rewrote, and remembered conquest.


Approaches to Poverty in Medieval Europe

Approaches to Poverty in Medieval Europe

Author: Sharon A. Farmer

Publisher: Brepols Publishers

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9782503555478

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The essays in this volume re-examine two major medieval turning points in the relationship between rich and poor: the revolution in charity of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and the era of late medieval crises when the vulnerability of the poor increased dramatically and charitable generosity often declined. Drawing on a variety of sources from England, France, the Low Countries, Italy, and Iberia, the contributors to this volume add new perspectives on the agency of the poor, the influence of gendered forms of devotion, parallels in Christian and Jewish representations of the deserving and undeserving poor, and the effect of mendicant piety on the status of the involuntary poor. A broader implication of the volume as a whole is that medieval studies of poverty and wealth need to pay more attention to the role of rulers, ruling elites, and public policy in shaping the experiences of the poor.


Travels and Mobilities in the Middle Ages

Travels and Mobilities in the Middle Ages

Author: Marianne O'Doherty

Publisher: Brepols Publishers

Published: 2015

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9782503554495

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This collection of research, which brings together contributions from scholars around the world, reflects the range and variety of work that is currently being undertaken in the field of travel and mobility in the European Middle Ages. The essays draw on diverse methodological approaches, from the archival and literary to the art historical and archaeological. The collection focuses not just on key medieval modes of travel and mobility, but also on themes whose relevance continues to resonate in the modern world. Topics touched upon include religious and diplomatic journeys, migration, mobility and governance, gendered mobilities, material culture and mobility, mobility and disability, travel and status, and notions of home and abroad. Broad themes are approached through case studies of individuals, families, and groups, ranging from kings, queens, and nobles to friars, exiles, and students. The geographical reach of the collection is particularly broad, encompassing travellers from Southern, Western, Northern, Central and Eastern Europe and journeys to destinations as diverse as Scandinavia, the Black Sea, the Mediterranean, and the Indian Ocean. A wide-ranging and detailed introduction situates the collection in its scholarly context.


Bishops' Identities, Careers, and Networks in Medieval Europe

Bishops' Identities, Careers, and Networks in Medieval Europe

Author: Sarah Thomas

Publisher:

Published: 2021-03-31

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 9782503579108

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Examines the identities and networks of bishops in medieval Europe. Bishops were powerful individuals who had considerable spiritual, economic, and political power. They were not just religious leaders; they were important men who served kings and lords as advisers and even diplomats. They also controlled large territories and had significant incomes and people at their command. The nature of the international Church also meant that they travelled and had connections well beyond their home countries, were players on an increasingly international stage, and were key conduits for the transfer of ideas. This volume examines the identities and networks of bishops in medieval Europe. The fifteen papers explore how senior clerics attained their bishoprics through their familial, social, and educational networks, their career paths, relationships with secular lords, and the papacy. It brings together research on bishops in central, southern, and northern Europe, by early career and established scholars. The first part features five case-studies of individual bishops' identities, careers, and networks. Then we turn to examine contact with the papacy and its role in three regions: northern Italy, the archbishopric of Split, and Sweden. Part III focuses on five main issues: royal patronage, reforming bishops, nepotism, social mobility, and public assemblies. Finally Part IV explores how episcopal networks in Poland, Siguenza, and the Nidaros church province helped candidates achieve promotion. These contributions will thus enhance of our understanding of how bishops fit into the religious, political, social, and cultural fabrics of medieval Europe.


Behaving Like Fools

Behaving Like Fools

Author: Lucy Perry

Publisher: Brepols Publishers

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9782503531571

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The period from 1200 to 1600 was the golden age of fools. From representations of irreverent acts to full-blown insanity, fools appeared on the misericords of gothic churches and in the plots of Arthurian narratives, before achieving a wider prominence in literature and iconography in the decades around 1500. But how are we to read these figures appropriately? Is it possible to reconstruct the fascination that fools exerted on the medieval and early modern mind? While modern theories give us the analytical tools to explore this subject, we are faced with the paradox that by striving to understand fools and foolishness we no longer accept their ways but impose rational categories on them. Together these essays propose one way out of this dilemma. Instead of attempting to define the fool or trying to find the common denominator behind his many masks, this volume focuses on the qualities, acts, and gestures that signify foolishness. By investigating different manifestations of foolery rather than the figure of the fool himself, we can begin to understand the proliferation of fools and foolish behaviour in the texts and illustrations of manuscripts and early books.


Languages of Love and Hate

Languages of Love and Hate

Author: Sarah Lambert

Publisher: Brepols Publishers

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9782503520643

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This book probes the nature of the clash of cultures as a process of identification and classification of the unknown. 'There is no world of thought that is not a world of language and one sees of the world only what is provided for by language' (Walter Benjamin, 1936). In the medieval Mediterranean, cultural groups were frequently labelled, fixed, and identified by language, and these linguistic groupings were consistently in states of conflict and/or exchange. This collection explores various expressions of cultural clash and exchange, and examines some of the ways in which language was used to express difference, to mark out cultural difference, and to further label those cultures - often as alien and inferior, but sometimes as different and worthy of respect. This theme unites scholars coming from a range of perspectives and engaging with a whole series of cultural interchanges and conflicts. It brings together work on a wide range of peoples - Latins, Byzantines, Muslims, and Jews - commenting on and writing about each other, as well as a wide variety of different genres, from theology to farce. This volume seeks to offer a broad and wide-ranging approach to understanding the world at the time of the crusades through the words of participants and observers.