Revolutions and the Collapse of Monarchy
Zhand Shakibi
IB Tauris (hardcover), 2007
PRs 10,330
What caused revolution among the last major monarchies of the modern period? Why were Louis XVI, Nicholas II and Mohammad Reza Pahlavi all overthrown and was this the result of their historical background or individual action? This powerful and original book is the first comparative study of the implosion of the monarchical regimes in Bourbon France, Romanov Russia and Pahlavi Iran. Seeking to understand fully the causes and timing of the French, Russian and Iranian revolutions, Shakibi examines the complex interaction between the personality and behavior of the monarchs and the different problems faced by their regimes which turned a potentially revolutionary situation into the revolutions which engulfed France in the eighteenth century, Russia in 1917 and Iran in 1978-8. Drawing on a huge amount of primary and archival research throughout the world, Revolutions and the Collapse of the Monarchy argues that it is human agency which often provides the vital spark which produces revolution. An ambitious and important counter-blast to traditional theories of revolution.
About the Author
Zhand Shakibi is a Fellow in the Department of Government at the London School of Economics and Political Science in the University of London. He has written widely on the modern history and political ideas of Europe, Russia, the Middle East and the Caucasus and taught and researched at universities in Iran, Russia, Uzbekistean, the USA and Britain.
Between Mars and Mammon
Douglas M Peers
Tauris Academic Studies (hardcover), 1995
PRs 7100
While popular images of the British Raj are saturated with images and memories of military campaigns, remarkably few scholarly studies have considered the direct impact that the army exerted on the day-to-day operations of the British in India. Douglas Peer’s book demonstrates not only how important the army was to the establishment of British domination but also to its subsequent form and operation.
Soldiers and civilians, with rare exception, were united by the truism that British rule could only be retained by the sword. A rationale and a programme for the Raj emerged that emphasized the precariousness of British rule and showed that its security could only be assured by constant preparedness for war. Consequently, military imperatives and the army’s demands for resources were given priority in peacetime as well as wartime. This accounts for the origin of the Burma War (1824-26) and the capture of Bhartpur (1825-26), neither of which would appear at first glance to be strategically vital or economically desirable.
Authorities in London viewed this militarization of the colonial administration and its treasury with misgivings, recognizing not only the financial costs involved, but the political consequences of an increasingly autonomous army. Their efforts to restrain the army were only partially successful. Even William Bentinck (1828-1835), long famous for ushering in a period of reform in India, could only temporarily curb military spending and the influences of the army. He left the military chastened but undefeated; the army’s interests were too deeply entrenched and even Bentinck was forced to concede Britain’s dependence on the Indian army.
Two Faiths, One Banner
Ian Almond
IB Tauris (hardcover), 2009
PRs 3500
When, in our turbulent day, we hear of a “clash of civilizations,” it’s easy to imagine an unbridgeable chasm between the Islamic world and Christendom stretching back through time. But such assumptions crumble before the drama that unfolds in this book. Two Faiths, One Banner shows how in Europe, the heart of the West, Muslims and Christians were often comrades-in-arms, repeatedly forming alliances to wage war against their own faiths and peoples.
Here we read of savage battles, deadly sieges, and acts of individual heroism; of Arab troops rallying by the thousands to the banner of a Christian emperor outside the walls of Verona; of Spanish Muslims standing shoulder to shoulder with their Christian Catalan neighbors in opposition to Castilians; of Greeks and Turks forming a steadfast bulwark against Serbs and Bulgarians, their mutual enemy; of tens of thousands of Hungarian Protestants assisting the Ottomans in their implacable and terrifying march on Christian Vienna; and finally of Englishman and Turk falling side by side in the killing fields of the Crimea.
This bold book reveals how the idea of a “Christian Europe” long opposed by a “Muslim non-Europe” grossly misrepresents the facts of a rich, complex, and?above all?shared history. The motivations for these interfaith alliances were dictated by shifting diplomacies, pragmatic self-interest, realpolitik, and even genuine mutual affection, not by jihad or religious war. This insight has profound ramifications for our understanding of global politics and current affairs, as well as of religious history and the future shape of Europe.
Sanctioning Iran: Anatomy
of a Failed Policy
Hossein Alikhani
IB Tauris (hardcover), 2000
PRs 8900
Sanctioning Iran examines the past, present, and future of US sanctions policy against Iran. Sanctions have become an increasingly important plank in US foreign policy: according to Richard Cheney, former US Secretary of Defense, over 70 countries, two-thirds of the world’s population, now come under their influence. Hossein Alikhani details the process by which the noose has steadily tightened on US-Iran trade since the overthrow of the Shah and the hostage crisis of 1979–80.
Review
“...Hossein Alikhani has successfully organized a useful source that includes various ways to understand the American sanction policy” - International Journal of Middle East Studies
The Birth of Modern Turkey: The Ottoman Military and the March to World War 1
Handan Nezir Akmese
IB Tauris (hardcover), 2005
PRs 8000
The guide and mentor to the Ottoman military was Imperial Germany as the military developed its version of the Prussian ‘School of Empire’ - a set of ideas and practices which in the eyes of the officer corps saw the military as the embodiment of the Ottoman Turkish nation state. The military had intervened decisively in the 1908 Constitutional Revolution and were vital in bringing the Ottoman Empire into World War I on the side of the Central Powers. Based on original Ottoman and German sources. The Birth of Modern Turkey shows how military thinking and policy contributed to the triumph of Ataturk and the founding of the modern Turkish state.
About the Author
Handan Nezir-Akmese carried out her research at the Department of Middle East Studies, University of Manchester.