Author: Allan I. Macinnes
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521850797
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 317

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Book Description
A major interpretation of the 1707 Act of Union and the making of the United Kingdom.

Author: Hartmut Behr
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317595106
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Book Description
The European Union’s stalled expansion, the Euro deficit and emerging crises of economic and political sovereignty in Greece, Italy and Spain have significantly altered the image of the EU as a model of progressive civilization. However, despite recent events the EU maintains its international image as the paragon of European politics and global governance. This book unites leading scholars on Europe and Empire to revisit the view of the European Union as an ‘imperial’ power. It offers a re-appraisal of the EU as empire in response to geopolitical and economic developments since 2007 and asks if the policies, practices, and priorities of the Union exhibit characteristics of a modern empire. This text will be of key interest to students and scholars of the EU, European studies, history, sociology, international relations, and economics.

Author: Tania Raffass
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0415688337
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 410

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Book Description
The Soviet Union is often characterised as nominally a federation, but really an empire, liable to break up when individual federal units, which were allegedly really subordinate colonial units, sought independence. This book questions this interpretation, revisiting the theory of federation, and discussing actual examples of federations such as the United States, arguing that many federal unions, including the United States, are really centralised polities. It also discusses the nature of empires, nations and how they relate to nation states and empires, and the right of secession, highlighting the importance of the fact that this was written in to the Soviet constitution. It examines the attitude of successive Soviet leaders towards nationalities, and the changing attitudes of nationalists towards the Soviet Union. Overall, it demonstrates that the Soviet attitude to nationalities and federal units was complicated, wrestling, in a similar way to many other states, with difficult questions of how ethno-cultural justice can best be delivered in a political unit which is bigger than the national state.

Author: Serhii Plokhy
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465097928
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 544

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Book Description
On Christmas Day, 1991, President George H. W. Bush addressed the nation to declare an American victory in the Cold War: earlier that day Mikhail Gorbachev had resigned as the first and last Soviet president. The enshrining of that narrative, one in which the end of the Cold War was linked to the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the triumph of democratic values over communism, took center stage in American public discourse immediately after Bush's speech and has persisted for decades -- with disastrous consequences for American standing in the world. As prize-winning historian Serhii Plokhy reveals in The Last Empire, the collapse of the Soviet Union was anything but the handiwork of the United States. On the contrary, American leaders dreaded the possibility that the Soviet Union -- weakened by infighting and economic turmoil -- might suddenly crumble, throwing all of Eurasia into chaos. Bush was firmly committed to supporting his ally and personal friend Gorbachev, and remained wary of nationalist or radical leaders such as recently elected Russian President Boris Yeltsin. Fearing what might happen to the large Soviet nuclear arsenal in the event of the union's collapse, Bush stood by Gorbachev as he resisted the growing independence movements in Ukraine, Moldova, and the Caucasus. Plokhy's detailed, authoritative account shows that it was only after the movement for independence of the republics had gained undeniable momentum on the eve of the Ukrainian vote for independence that fall that Bush finally abandoned Gorbachev to his fate. Drawing on recently declassified documents and original interviews with key participants, Plokhy presents a bold new interpretation of the Soviet Union's final months and argues that the key to the Soviet collapse was the inability of the two largest Soviet republics, Russia and Ukraine, to agree on the continuing existence of a unified state. By attributing the Soviet collapse to the impact of American actions, US policy makers overrated their own capacities in toppling and rebuilding foreign regimes. Not only was the key American role in the demise of the Soviet Union a myth, but this misplaced belief has guided -- and haunted -- American foreign policy ever since.

Author: John Robertson
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521029889
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 396

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Book Description
Essays by leading historians which explore the political significance of the Anglo-Scottish Union of 1707.

Author: Terry Dean Martin
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 9780801486777
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 532

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Book Description
This text provides a survey of the Soviet management of the nationalities question. It traces the conflicts and tensions created by the geographic definition of national territories, the establishment of several official national languages and the world's first mass "affirmative action" programmes.

Author: Karen Barkey
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429973853
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 212

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Book Description
The Soviet Union was hardly the first large, continuous, land-based, multinational empire to collapse in modern times. The USSR itself was, ironically, the direct result of one such demise, that of imperial Russia, which in turn was but one of several other such empires that did not survive the stresses of the times: the Austro-Hungarian Empire of the Habsburgs and the Ottoman Empire.This ambitious and important volume brings together a group of some of the most outstanding scholars in political science, history, and historical sociology to examine the causes of imperial decline and collapse. While they warn against facile comparisons, they also urge us to step back from the immediacy of current events to consider the possible significance of historical precedents.Is imperial decline inevitable, or can a kind of imperial stasis be maintained indefinitely? What role, if any, does the growth of bureaucracies needed to run large and complex political systems of this type play in economic and political stagnation? What is the balance of power" between the centre and the peripheries, between the dominant nationality and minorities? What coping mechanisms do empires tend to develop and what influence do these have? Is modernization the inexorable source of imperial decline and ultimate collapse? And what resources, including the imperial legacy, are available for political, social, and economic reconstruction in the aftermath of collapse? These are just a few of the tantalizing questions addressed by the contributors to this fascinating and timely volume.

Author: Clyde Norman Wilson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : States' rights (American politics)
Languages : en
Pages : 33

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Book Description

Author: Gerard Koeppel
Publisher: Da Capo Press
ISBN: 0786745444
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 480

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Book Description
In this elegantly written and far-reaching narrative, acclaimed author Gerard Koeppel tells the astonishing story of the creation of the Erie Canal and the memorable characters who turned a visionary plan into a successful venture. Koeppel's long years of research fill the pages with new findings about the construction of the canal and its enormous impact, providing a unique perspective on America's self perception as an empire destined to expand to the Pacific.

Author: Clyde Norman Wilson
Publisher: Foundation for Amer Education
ISBN: 9780962384219
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 343

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Book Description