The horrific series of conflicts known as the Thirty Years War (1618-48) tore the heart out of Europe, killing perhaps a quarter of all Germans and laying waste to whole areas of Central Europe to such a degree that many towns and regions never recovered. All the major European powers apart from Russia were heavily involved and, while each country started out with rational war aims, the fighting rapidly spiralled out of control, with great battles giving way to marauding bands of starving soldiers spreading plague and murder. The war was both a religious and a political one and it was this tangle of motives that made it impossible to stop. Whether motivated by idealism or cynicism, everyone drawn into the conflict was destroyed by it. At its end a recognizably modern Europe had been created but at a terrible price. Peter Wilson's book is a major work, the first new history of the war in a generation, and a fascinating, brilliantly written attempt to explain a compelling series of events. Wilson's great strength is in allowing the reader to understand the tragedy of mixed motives that allowed rulers to gamble their countries' future with such horrifying results. The principal actors in the drama (Wallenstein, Ferdinand II, Gustavus Adolphus, Richelieu) are all here, but so is the experience of the ordinary soldiers and civilians, desperately trying to stay alive under impossible circumstances. The extraordinary narrative of the war haunted Europe's leaders into the twentieth century (comparisons with 1939-45 were entirely appropriate) and modern Europe cannot be understood without reference to this dreadful conflict.

Our contemporary world presents a seemingly inexplicable paradox. It is a world where interaction among societies of different cultural traditions has never been easier. A world in which modern technology has visibly overcome the physical barriers that had long condemned the majority of men to relative isolation from one another. Yet, our world is also one in which the illusion of a lost “original” cultural or religious identity, grounded by a metaphysical absolute, pits men against one another. A physically more accessible world has thus become an increasingly fundamentalist one. In this book, written in the wake of such influential European thinkers as Nietzsche, Heidegger, Foucault, Derrida, and Vattimo, Simon Oliai analyzes the conceptual underpinnings of this paradox and argues that, unless the “European” affirmation of man’s finite existence becomes universal, we shall never rid ourselves, to echo Nietzsche, of the repressive shadow of a long dead metaphysical idol.

This volume examines the property transformations in post-communist Central Eastern Europe (CEE) and focuses on the role of restitution and privatisation in such transformations. It argues that the theorisation of ‘restitution’ in post-communist CEE is incomplete in the transitional justice scholarship and in the literature on correction of historical wrongs. The book also argues that, for a more complete theorisation of (post-communist) restitution, the transformations of property in post-communist societies ought to be studied in a more holistic way. The main legal vehicles used for such transformations, privatisation and restitution, should not be studied separately and in abstract, but in their reciprocal relationship, and in connection to the dimension of justice which each could achieve. Finally, the book integrates ‘privatisation’ in a theory of post-communist transformation of property.

An analysis of how responsive governance has shaped the evolution of global fisheries in cyclical patterns of depletion and rebuilding dubbed the “management treadmill.” The oceans are heavily overfished, and the greatest challenges to effective fisheries management are not technical but political and economic. In this book, D. G. Webster describes how the political economy of fisheries has evolved and highlights patterns that are linked to sustainable transitions in specific fisheries. Grounded in the concept of responsive governance, Webster's interdisciplinary analysis goes beyond the conventional view of the "tragedy of the commons.” Using her Action Cycle/Structural Context framework, she maps long-running patterns that cycle between depletion and rebuilding in a process that she terms the management treadmill. Webster documents the management treadmill in settings that range from small coastal fishing communities to international fisheries that span entire oceans. She identifies the profit disconnect, in which economic incentives are out of sync with sustainable use, and the power disconnect, in which those who experience the costs of overexploitation are politically marginalized. She examines how these disconnects shaped the economics of expansion and documents how political systems failed to prevent related cycles of serial resource depletion. Webster also traces the increasing use of restrictive management in response to worsening fisheries crises and the emergence of new, noncommercial interests that demand greater management but also generate substantial conflict. She finds that the management treadmill is speeding up with population growth and economic development, and so concludes that sustainable fisheries can only exist within a sustainable global economic system.

'Mak is the history teacher everyone should have had' Financial Times From the author of the internationally acclaimed In Europe, a stunning history of our present, examining the first two decades of this most fragile and fraught new millennium. How did the great European dream turn sour? And where do we go from here? In this illuminating book, Geert Mak - one of Europe's best-loved commentators - charts the seismic events that have shaped people's lives over the past twenty years. He moves through the rocky expansion of the EU, the aftermath of 9/11 and terrorist attacks across Europe, the 2008 financial crash and the euro crisis, and on to the rise of right-wing populism and Brexit. Like no other, Mak blends history, politics and culture with the stories and experiences of the many Europeans he meets on his travels. He brings this continent to life, and asks: what role does Europe now play, and how might we face our fresh challenges together? 'A powerful, humane and serious mind' Guardian 'Mak is a truly cosmopolitan chronicler' Independent

The book analyses the collective career of the artistic profession in Brno and Vilnius and the necessity to copy the behavior of the elites of the Old Regime. The "noble" values, which shaped the artistic careers in the 19th century press, were charity, good taste, cosmopolitism and patriotism. The newspaper discourse disposed potential to integrate and to smuggle novelties by exposing old values.

This study deals with the internal socio-political changes that the traditional political structures have not been able to incorporate, the perspectives of the superpowers and surveys of the debate on European security in each of 11 states. The book begins and ends with a theoretical overview.

Politics in Europe, Seventh Edition introduces students to the power of the European Union as well as seven political systems—the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Russia, Poland—within a common analytical framework that enables students to conduct both single-case and cross-national analysis. Each case addresses the most relevant questions of comparative political analysis: who governs, on behalf of what values, with the collaboration of what groups, in the face of what kind of opposition, and with what socioeconomic and political consequences? Packed with captivating photos and robust country descriptions from regional specialists, the Seventh Edition enables students to think critically about these questions and make meaningful cross-national comparisons.

A surge of political trends and upheavals all over the world confronts German foreign policy with a world that is dramatically different from Berlin Republic unification in 1990. Brexit, American de-commitment to Europe and the rise of isolationist, populist forces within Germany as well as in other European countries and the U.S. have undermined the foundations of Germany's foreign policy. Germany is suddenly faced with another historical shift that is starting to shake the bedrock of its foreign policy. A council of experts for strategic foresight can address Germany's strategic cultural deficit, its civilian power fixation, its resorts principle of ministerial independence, and its coalition governance conflicts.