Lorna Arnold, OBE, is a noted British nuclear historian who worked for the UK Atomic Energy Authority for nearly 40 years. She has written seminal books on the Windscale accident, nuclear weapons tests in Australia, and Britain's H-Bomb programme. After a childhood of rural poverty in the south of England, she studied at the University of London and at Cambridge. Her work at the War Office and the Foreign Office during World War II led to postings to Berlin and Washington. A decade later, a chance encounter resulted in her joining the UKAEA, where she worked with many of the scientists and leaders who established Britain's nuclear agenda.
The historian John Lukacs offers a concise history of the twentieth century—its two world wars and cold war, its nations and leaders. The great themes woven through this spirited narrative are inseparable from the author’s own intellectual preoccupations: the fading of liberalism, the rise of populism and nationalism, the achievements and dangers of technology, and the continuing democratization of the globe. The historical twentieth century began with the First World War in 1914 and ended seventy-five years later with the collapse of the Soviet Empire in 1989. The short century saw the end of European dominance and the rise of American power and influence throughout the world. The twentieth century was an American century—perhaps the American century. Lukacs explores in detail the phenomenon of national socialism (national socialist parties, he reminds us, have outlived the century), Hitler’s sole responsibility for the Second World War, and the crucial roles played by his determined opponents Churchill and Roosevelt. Between 1939 and 1942 Germany came closer to winning than many people suppose. Lukacs casts a hard eye at the consequences of the Second World War—the often misunderstood Soviet-American cold war—and at the shifting social and political developments in the Far and Middle East and elsewhere. In an eloquent closing meditation on the passing of the twentieth century, he reflects on the advance of democracy throughout the world and the limitations of human knowledge.
Here, Gunter Grass writes of great events and seemingly trivial ones, of technical developments and scientific discoveries, of achievements in culture, sport, of megolamania, persecution and murder, war and disasters and of new beginnnings.
In February 1941, Henry Luce announced the arrival of “The American Century.” But that century—extending from World War II to the recent economic collapse—has now ended, victim of strategic miscalculation, military misadventures, and economic decline. Here some of America’s most distinguished historians place the century in historical perspective.
This dual-language anthology features more than a dozen, 20th-century tales translated into English for the first time. Contents include "The Fugitive" by Vladimir A. Gilyarovsky, "The Present" by Leonid Andreev, "Trataton" by D. Mamin-Sibiryak, and "The Life Granted" by Alexander Grin, plus stories by Vasily Grossman, Alexander Kuprin, Arkady Gaidar, and others.
What are the grand dynamics that drive the accumulation and distribution of capital? Questions about the long-term evolution of inequality, the concentration of wealth, and the prospects for economic growth lie at the heart of political economy. But satisfactory answers have been hard to find for lack of adequate data and clear guiding theories. In this work the author analyzes a unique collection of data from twenty countries, ranging as far back as the eighteenth century, to uncover key economic and social patterns. His findings transform debate and set the agenda for the next generation of thought about wealth and inequality. He shows that modern economic growth and the diffusion of knowledge have allowed us to avoid inequalities on the apocalyptic scale predicted by Karl Marx. But we have not modified the deep structures of capital and inequality as much as we thought in the optimistic decades following World War II. The main driver of inequality--the tendency of returns on capital to exceed the rate of economic growth--today threatens to generate extreme inequalities that stir discontent and undermine democratic values if political action is not taken. But economic trends are not acts of God. Political action has curbed dangerous inequalities in the past, the author says, and may do so again. This original work reorients our understanding of economic history and confronts us with sobering lessons for today.
"Ideal for students, this affordable anthology features expert new translations of a dozen works previously unavailable in English. The translations appear alongside the original German text of such stories as "Beauty and the Beast" by Irmtraud Morgner, Gabriele Wohmann's "Good Luck and Bad Luck," and tales by other modern authors, including Grunert, Inneberger, and Klockmann"--
Janet Vaughan was a woman of huge energy and passion, who sought to improve the lives of others throughout her life. As a UK doctor and medical researcher, and also a social and educational reformer, she aimed to relieve suffering and to enable people - especially women - to develop and use their talents so as to live useful, fulfilled lives.
In this edition of Telos we have asked distinguished contributors to offer articles inspired from the "annus mirabilis" of 1989 and linked to their own personal and professional experiences.Salvino Busuttil examines the recent credit crunch in the perspective of Marx's vision of the end of capitalism. Janos Bogardi recounts his escape from Hungary into the West and the significance of 1989 to him. Jean-Pierre Massué explains the changes in East-West technological cooperation in the build-up to 1989 and its aftermath. Giovanni Bonello relates his experiences at the European Court of Human Rights following the ratification of the European Convention on Human Rights by nearly all the Eastern Block. Awni Behnam takes a look at the changes in UNCTAD and at reinvesting in international institutions. Finally, Karol Vasak analyses the changes in Central and Eastern Europe post-1989 and underlines the importance of not forgetting the memory of the past.
