Title: Tortured confessions: prisons and public recantations in modern Iran 
Author: Abrahamian, Ervand 1940-
Published: University of California Press,  1999
Subjects: History | Middle Eastern History | Politics | Middle Eastern Studies
Publisher's Description: The role of torture in recent Iranian politics is the subject of Ervand Abrahamian's important and disturbing book. Although Iran officially banned torture in the early twentieth century, Abrahamian provides documentation of its use under the Shahs and of the widespread utilization of torture and public confession under the Islamic Republican governments. His study is based on an extensive body of material, including Amnesty International reports, prison literature, and victims' accounts that together give the book a chilling immediacy.According to human rights organizations, Iran has been at the forefront of countries using systematic physical torture in recent years, especially for political prisoners. Is the government's goal to ensure social discipline? To obtain information? Neither seem likely, because torture is kept secret and victims are brutalized until something other than information is obtained: a public confession and ideological recantation. For the victim, whose honor, reputation, and self-respect are destroyed, the act is a form of suicide.In Iran a subject's "voluntary confession" reaches a huge audience via television. The accessibility of television and use of videotape have made such confessions a primary propaganda tool, says Abrahamian, and because torture is hidden from the public, the victim's confession appears to be self-motivated, increasing its value to the authorities.Abrahamian compares Iran's public recantations to campaigns in Maoist China, Stalinist Russia, and the religious inquisitions of early modern Europe, citing the eerie resemblance in format, language, and imagery. Designed to win the hearts and minds of the masses, such public confessions - now enhanced by technology - continue as a means to legitimize those in power and to demonize "the enemy."   [brief]
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Title: Splendid monarchy: power and pageantry in modern Japan
Author: Fujitani, Takashi
Published: University of California Press,  1996
Subjects: History | Cultural Anthropology | Asian Studies | Japan
Publisher's Description: Using ceremonials such as imperial weddings and funerals as models, T. Fujitani illustrates what visual symbols and rituals reveal about monarchy, nationalism, city planning, discipline, gender, memory, and modernity. Focusing on the Meiji Period (1868-1912), Fujitani brings recent methods of cultur . . . [more]
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Title: King Charles I 
Author: Gregg, Pauline
Published: University of California Press,  1984
Subjects: History | European History
Publisher's Description: This is a lucid, fair-minded account of a difficult and tragic man. Pauline Gregg has drawn heavily on original documents, letters, and speeches to show how Charles's heritage, upbringing, and personality, as well as his relationships with friends, advisors, and favorites, all took place against a b . . . [more]
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Title: Pious passion: the emergence of modern fundamentalism in the United States and Iran
Author: Riesebrodt, Martin
Published: University of California Press,  1993
Subjects: Religion | Sociology | Social Theory | Middle Eastern Studies | American Studies | United States History
Publisher's Description: Martin Riesebrodt's unconventional study provides an extraordinary look at religious fundamentalism. Comparing two seemingly disparate movements - in early twentieth-century United States and 1960s and 1970s Iran - he examines why these movements arose and developed. He sees them not simply as protests against "modernity" per se, but as a social and moral community's mobilization against its own marginalization and threats to its way of life. These movements protested against the hallmarks of industrialization and sought to transmit conservative cultural models to the next generation.Fundamentalists desired a return to an "authentic" social order governed by God's law, one bound by patriarchal structures of authority and morality. Both movements advocated a strict gender dualism and were preoccupied with controlling the female body, which was viewed as the major threat to public morality.   [brief]
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Title: The prince and the law, 1200-1600: sovereignty and rights in the western legal tradition
Author: Pennington, Kenneth
Published: University of California Press,  1993
Subjects: History | Medieval History | Law
Publisher's Description: The power of the prince versus the rights of his subjects is one of the basic struggles in the history of law and government. In this masterful history of monarchy, conceptions of law, and due process, Kenneth Pennington addresses that struggle and opens an entirely new vista in the study of Western legal tradition.Pennington investigates legal interpretations of the monarch's power from the twelfth to the seventeenth century. Then, tracing the evolution of defendants' rights, he demonstrates that the origins of due process are not rooted in English common law as is generally assumed. It was not a sturdy Anglo-Saxon, but, most probably, a French jurist of the late thirteenth century who wrote, "A man is innocent until proven guilty."This is the first book to examine in detail the origins of our concept of due process. It also reveals a fascinating paradox: while a theory of individual rights was evolving, so, too, was the concept of the prince's "absolute power." Pennington illuminates this paradox with a clarity that will greatly interest students of political theory as well as legal historians.   [brief]
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Title: The royal image: illustrations of the Grandes chroniques de France, 1274-1422 
Author: Hedeman, Anne Dawson
Published: University of California Press,  1991
Subjects: Art | Art History | Medieval Studies | French Studies
Publisher's Description: The Grandes Chroniques de France is a vernacular, frequently illustrated history of the medieval French monarchs. Originally describing the lives of the kings from their origins in Troy in 1274 to the reign of Philip Augustus, it was updated in several stages to the life of Charles VI. Copied and amended for a variety of royal and courtly patrons, approximately 130 of these manuscripts exist today. Anne Hedeman provides the first critical and comprehensive study of the chronicle's illustrations.Hedeman concentrates on the illustrations in twenty manuscripts, analyzing their artistic and cultural significance and offering new methods for studying illustrated manuscripts. She discusses the chronicle in relation to the political ideology of Louis IX, vernacular history, and the Latin chronicle tradition at Saint-Denis. Looking at the manuscripts of various periods, the author compares their representations of historical events, kingship, and individuals in and around the royal court. She also contrasts the styles of several authors and illustrators of the chronicle. The Royal Image includes a catalogue of over seventy-five illustrated manuscripts, and an appendix listing the artists. An additional appendix lists surviving manuscripts.   [brief]
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Title: Antigonos the One-eyed and the creation of the Hellenistic state
Author: Billows, Richard A
Published: University of California Press,  1997
Subjects: Classics | Ancient History
Publisher's Description: Called by Plutarch "the oldest and greatest of Alexander's successors," Antigonos the One-Eyed (382-301 BC) was the dominant figure during the first half of the Diadoch period, ruling most of the Asian territory conquered by the Macedonians during his final twenty years. Billows provides the first detailed study of this great general and administrator, establishing him as a key contributor to the Hellenistic monarchy and state. After a successful career under Philip and Alexander, Antigonos rose to power over the Asian portion of Alexander's conquests. Embittered by the persistent hostility of those who controlled the European and Egyptian parts of the empire, he tried to eliminate these opponents, an ambition which led to his final defeat in 301. In a corrective to the standard explanations of his aims, Billows shows that Antigonos was scarcely influenced by Alexander, seeking to rule West Asia and the Aegean, rather than the whole of Alexander's Empire.   [brief]
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Title: Fulk Nerra, the neo-Roman consul, 987-1040: a political biography of the Angevin count
Author: Bachrach, Bernard S 1939-
Published: University of California Press,  1993
Subjects: History | Medieval Studies | Medieval History
Publisher's Description: This is the first comprehensive biography of Fulk Nerra, an important medieval ruler, who came to power in his teens and rose to be master in the west of the French Kingdom. Descendant of warriors and administrators who served the French kings, Fulk in turn built the state that provided a foundation for the vast Angevin empire later constructed by his descendants.Bernard Bachrach finds the terms "constructed" and "built" more than metaphorical in relation to Fulk's career. He shows how Fulk and the Angevin counts who followed him based their long-term state building policy on Roman strategies and fortifications described by Vegetius. This creative adaptation of Roman ideas and tactics, according to Bachrach, was the key to Fulk's successful consolidation of political power. Students of medieval and military history will find here a colorful, impressively researched biography.   [brief]
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Title: The last emperors: a social history of Qing imperial institutions
Author: Rawski, Evelyn Sakakida
Published: University of California Press,  1998
Subjects: History | Anthropology | China | Asian History
Publisher's Description: The Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) was the last and arguably the greatest of the conquest dynasties to rule China. Its rulers, Manchus from the north, held power for three centuries despite major cultural and ideological differences with the Han majority. In this book, Evelyn Rawski offers a bold new interpretation of the remarkable success of this dynasty, arguing that it derived not from the assimilation of the dominant Chinese culture, as has previously been believed, but rather from an artful synthesis of Manchu leadership styles with Han Chinese policies.   [brief]
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Title: The ciné goes to town: French cinema, 1896-1914
Author: Abel, Richard 1941-
Published: University of California Press,  1998
Subjects: Cinema and Performance Arts | Film | French Studies | European History | Popular Culture
Publisher's Description: This updated edition of Richard Abel's magisterial history of French cinema between 1896 and 1914 is based on extensive investigation of rare archival films and documents.
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Title: Roots of North Indian Shīʿism in Iran and Iraq: religion and state in Awadh, 1722-1859 
Author: Cole, Juan Ricardo
Published: University of California Press,  1989
Subjects: Asian Studies
Publisher's Description: In this pioneering study of the Twelver Shi'i branch of Islam prevalent in Iraq and Iran, J. R. I. Cole traces the influence of Shi'i rule on the development of religious communalism and conflict in the North Indian State of Awadh (Oudh). He also examines the relationship of the Shi'i clergy to the state and the clerical reaction to British imperialism and capitalism.Based on research in rare manuscripts and in archives, the book reveals that the Shi'i clergy advocated policies that caused resentment among Sunnis and Hindus, thereby promoting religious communalism and setting the stage for modern communal conflict. The Shi'i learned men took government posts in support of Awadh's Shi'i nawabs and shahs; Awadh state support, in turn, helped transform Shi'ism from a persecuted "sect" to a dominant, if still minority, religious establishment.Sociologically, the book draws attention to the specific role of the state in defining "sect" and "church." It also argues the importance of class divisions within the Shi'i community, showing that the dominant clerical ideology was often not accepted by the laboring strata. Cole's study supports the view that Muslim communalism in Northern India had genuine historical roots and was not simply an elite strategy of modern Muslim politicians. Contrary to the arguments of some writers and to the image projected by Iran's current ayatullahs, he claims that most Shi'i clergy did not play a role of opposition to the state.   [brief]
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Title: Muslim rulers and rebels: everyday politics and armed separatism in the southern Philippines 
Author: McKenna, Thomas M 1952-
Published: University of California Press,  1998
Subjects: Anthropology | Politics | Islam | Southeast Asia | Asian History
Publisher's Description: In this first ground-level account of the Muslim separatist rebellion in the Philippines, Thomas McKenna challenges prevailing anthropological analyses of nationalism as well as their underlying assumptions about the interplay of culture and power. He examines Muslim separatism against a background of more than four hundred years of political relations among indigenous Muslim rulers, their subjects, and external powers seeking the subjugation of Philippine Muslims. He also explores the motivations of the ordinary men and women who fight in armed separatist struggles and investigates the formation of nationalist identities. A skillful meld of historical detail and ethnographic research, Muslim Rulers and Rebels makes a compelling contribution to the study of protest, rebellion, and revolution worldwide.   [brief]
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Title: Nomad: a year in the life of a Qashqa'i tribesman in Iran
Author: Beck, Lois 1944-
Published: University of California Press,  1991
Subjects: Anthropology | Cultural Anthropology | Middle Eastern Studies | Middle Eastern History
Publisher's Description: Borzu Qermezi was the headman and political leader of a group of nomadic pastoralists who were part of the Qashqa'i confederacy of southwest Iran. Proud, complex, strong-willed, witty, and cunning, Borzu successfully led his people on their annual migrations for many years. He regulated their travel; mediated conflicts; intervened in (and sometimes exacerbated) tense situations between his people and other nomads; and dealt with the government police agency. Structuring the account around the four seasons, Lois Beck recounts the day-to-day activities of Borzu during the year she spent traveling with his people. She describes the rigors of nomadic life and the consequences of decisions made in haste.During 1970 to 1971, Borzu and his people were faced with many difficulties. When the expected winter rains did not fall, pastures and crops shriveled. Unable to sell their starving livestock for any profit, Borzu's people saw their debts to urban merchants and moneylenders increase. At the same time, Iran exercised more bureaucratic control over the Qashqa'i by applying new policies over migratory schedules and the allocation of scarce pastures, and by introducing non-Qashqa'i agriculturalists and livestock investors as legitimate land users. All these measures threatened the nomad's way of life and eventually undermined the role of headmen such as Borzu. Lois Beck details the vicissitudes endured by Borzu's people and the strategies he devised to cope with them.Blending ethnographic and historical material, this book contains information unavailable for other tribal and nomadic pastoral groups in the Middle East and central Asia. Through Beck's deft analysis, we come to understand why nomadic pastoralism was once an important part of this vast region, and why tribal society has endured.   [brief]
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Title: Louis XIII, the Just
Author: Moote, A. Lloyd (Alanson Lloyd)
Published: University of California Press,  1989
Subjects: History | European History | Autobiographies and Biographies
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Title: Khubilai Khan: his life and times
Author: Rossabi, Morris
Published: University of California Press,  1989
Subjects: Asian Studies | History | Asian History | China | Autobiographies and Biographies
Publisher's Description: Living from 1215 to 1294 Khubilai Khan is one of history's most renowned figures. Here for the first time is an English-language biography of the man. Morris Rossabi draws on sources from a variety of East Asian, Middle Eastern, and European languages as he focuses on the life and times of the great . . . [more]
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Title: Khomeinism: essays on the Islamic Republic 
Author: Abrahamian, Ervand 1940-
Published: University of California Press,  1993
Subjects: History | Politics | Middle Eastern History | Middle Eastern Studies
Publisher's Description: "Fanatic," "dogmatic," "fundamentalist" - these are the words most often used in the West to describe the Ayatollah Khomeini. The essays in this book challenge that view, arguing that Khomeini and his Islamic movement should be seen as a form of Third World political populism - a radical but pragmatic middle-class movement that strives to enter, rather than reject, the modern age.Ervand Abrahamian, while critical of Khomeini, asks us to look directly at the Ayatollah's own works and to understand what they meant to his principal audience - his followers in Iran. Abrahamian analyzes political tracts dating back to 1943, along with Khomeini's theological writings and his many public statements in the form of speeches, interviews, proclamations and fatwas (judicial decrees). What emerges, according to Abrahamian, is a militant, sometimes contradictory, political ideology that focuses not on issues of scripture and theology but on the immediate political, social, and economic grievances of workers and the middle class.These essays reveal how the Islamic Republic has systematically manipulated history through televised "recantations," newspapers, school textbooks, and even postage stamps. All are designed to bolster the clergy's reputation as champions of the downtrodden and as defenders against foreign powers. Abrahamian also discusses the paranoia that permeates the political spectrum in Iran, contending that such deep distrust is symptomatic of populist regimes everywhere.   [brief]
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Title: From savage to Negro: anthropology and the construction of race, 1896-1954
Author: Baker, Lee D 1966-
Published: University of California Press,  1998
Subjects: Anthropology | Cultural Anthropology | Ethnic Studies | African American Studies | United States History | Sociology
Publisher's Description: Lee D. Baker explores what racial categories mean to the American public and how these meanings are reinforced by anthropology, popular culture, and the law. Focusing on the period between two landmark Supreme Court decisions - Plessy v. Ferguson (the so-called "separate but equal" doctrine established in 1896) and Brown v. Board of Education (the public school desegregation decision of 1954) - Baker shows how racial categories change over time.Baker paints a vivid picture of the relationships between specific African American and white scholars, who orchestrated a paradigm shift within the social sciences from ideas based on Social Darwinism to those based on cultural relativism. He demonstrates that the greatest impact on the way the law codifies racial differences has been made by organizations such as the NAACP, which skillfully appropriated the new social science to exploit the politics of the Cold War.   [brief]
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Title: One king, one faith: the Parlement of Paris and the religious reformations of the sixteenth century 
Author: Roelker, Nancy L. (Nancy Lyman)
Published: University of California Press,  1996
Subjects: History | European History | Christianity | European Studies | French Studies
Publisher's Description: This book, the culmination of a lifelong career in French history, tackles head-on the central question of the French Religious Wars: Why did France prove so consistently hostile and resistant to Protestantism? Distinguished scholar Nancy Lyman Roelker claims that what ultimately motivated the passion and violence of the civil wars was religion. She demonstrates that not only the body politic but also the body social was defined by Gallican Catholicism.Roelker underscores the role the Parlement played in shaping and safeguarding the social, as well as the political, order. Her study is based on extensive research in the correspondence, memoirs, and tracts of mainstream Catholic magistrates as well as dissenters. It creates an overview of the mentalitè s of the Parlement, analyzes religious attitudes toward major events of the period, and examines the Parlement's role in the triumph of Henri IV. Along the way, it sheds light on the inner workings of the Parlement and other political institutions, on social structures, and on collective ideas. And above all, this distinguished work brilliantly illuminates the role of religion in society and the state. It will be the definitive work on the subject for many years to come.   [brief]
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Title: The memoirs of Lady Hyegyŏng: the autobiographical writings of a Crown Princess of eighteenth-century Korea
Author: Hyegyŏnggung Hong Ssi 1735-1815
Published: University of California Press,  1996
Subjects: Literature | Asian Literature | Autobiography | Women's Studies | East Asia Other
Publisher's Description: Lady Hyegyong's memoirs, which recount the chilling murder of her husband by his father, is one of the best known and most popular classics of Korean literature. From 1795 until 1805 Lady Hyegyong composed this masterpiece, which depicts a court life whose drama and pathos is of Shakespearean proportions. Presented in its social, cultural, and historical contexts, this first complete English translation opens a door into a world teeming with conflicting passions, political intrigue, and the daily preoccupations of a deeply intelligent and articulate woman.JaHyun Kim Haboush's accurate, fluid translation captures the intimate and expressive voice of this consummate storyteller. The Memoirs of Lady Hyegyong is a unique exploration of Korean selfhood and of how the genre of autobiography fared in premodern times.   [brief]
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Title: The courtier and the King: Ruy Gómez de Silva, Philip II, and the court of Spain 
Author: Boyden, James M 1954-
Published: University of California Press,  1995
Subjects: History | European History | Autobiographies and Biographies
Publisher's Description: Ruy Gómez de Silva, or the prince of Eboli, was one of the central figures at the court of Spain in the sixteenth century. Thanks to his oily affability, social grace, and an uncanny knack for anticipating and catering to the desires of his prince, he rose from obscurity to become the favorite and chief minister of Philip II.From the scattered surviving sources James Boyden weaves a vivid, compelling narrative: one that breathes life not only into Ruy Gómez, but into the court, the era, and the enigmatic character of Phillip II as well. Elegantly written and highly readable, this book discovers in the career of Gómez the techniques, aspirations, and mentality of an accomplished courtier in the age of Castiglione.   [brief]
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