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Historians have never resolved a central mystery of the Russian Revolution: How did the Bolsheviks, despite facing a world of enemies andleaving nothing but economic ruin in their path, manage to stay in power through five long years of civil war? In this penetrating book, Sean McMeekin draws on previously undiscovered materials from the Soviet Ministry of Finance and other European and American archives to expose some of the darkest secrets of Russias early days of communism. Building on one archival revelation after another, the author reveals how the Bolsheviks financed their aggression through astonishingly extensive thievery. Their looting included everything from the cash savings of private citizens to gold, silver, diamonds, jewelry, icons, antiques, and artwork.By tracking illicit Soviet financial transactions across Europe, McMeekin shows how Lenins regime accomplished historys greatest heist between 1917 and 1922 and turned centuries of accumulated wealth into the sinews of class war. McMeekin also names names, introducing for the first time the compliant bankers, lawyers, and middlemen who, for a price, helped the Bolsheviks launder their loot, impoverish Russia, and impose their brutal will on millions.

This fascinating book explores Benjamin Franklins social and political thought. Although Franklin is often considered the first American, his intellectual world was cosmopolitan. An active participant in eighteenth-century Atlantic debates over the modern commercial republic, Franklin combined abstract analyses with practical proposals. Houston treats Franklin as shrewd, creative, and engageda lively thinker who joined both learned controversies and political conflicts at home and abroad.Drawing on meticulous archival research, Houston examines such tantalizing themes as trade and commerce, voluntary associations and civic militias, population growth and immigration policy, political union and electoral institutions, freedom and slavery. In each case, he shows how Franklin urged the improvement of self and society.Engagingly written and richly illustrated, this book provides a compelling portrait of Franklin, a fresh perspective on American identity, and a vital account of what it means to be practical.

In this original study, Moshe Idel, an eminent scholar of Jewish mysticism and thought, and the cognitive neuroscientist and neurologist Shahar Arzy combine their considerable expertise to explore the mysteries of the Kabbalah from an entirely new perspective: that of the human brain. In lieu of the theological, sociological, and psychoanalytic approaches that have generally dominated the study of ecstatic mystical experiences, the authors endeavor to decode the brain mechanisms underlying these phenomena. Arzy and Idel analyze first-person descriptions to explore the Kabbalistic techniques employed by most prominent Jewish mystics to effect bodily reduplications, dissociations, and other phenomena, and compare them with recent neurological observations and modern-day laboratory experiments. The resultant study offers readers a scientific, more brain-based understanding of how ecstatic Kabbalists achieved their most precious mystical experiences. The study further demonstrates how these Kabbalists have long functioned as pioneering investigators of the human self.

The 14,500 Polish army officers, police, gendarmes, and civilians taken prisoner by the Red Army when it invaded eastern Poland in September 1939 were held in three special NKVD camps andexecuted at three different sites in spring 1940, of which the one inKatyn Forestis the most famous. Another 7,300 prisoners held in NKVD jails in Ukraine and Belarus werealso shot at this time, although many others disappeared without trace.The murder of these Poles is among the most monstrous mass murders undertaken by any modern government.Three leading historians of the NKVDmassacres of Polish prisoners of war at Katyn, Kharkov, and Tvernow subsumed under Katynpresent 122 documents selected from the published Russian and Polish volumes coedited by Natalia S. Lebedeva and Wojciech Materski.The documents, with introductions and notes by Anna M. Cienciala,detail the Soviet killings, the elaborate cover-up, the admission of the truth, and the Katyn question in Soviet/RussianPolish relations up to the present.

This edition of Book III of Eutropiuss Breviarium ab urbe condita is designed to be a students first encounter with authentic, unabridged Latin prose. Written in a simple and direct style, the Breviarium covers the period of Roman history that students find the most interestingthe Second Punic War fought against Carthageand the original Latin text is supplemented with considerable learning support. Full annotations on every page, detailed commentary on grammar and syntax, and a glossary designed specifically for the text allow students to build both their confidence and their reading skills.The commentary in the back of the book is cross-referenced to the following commonly used textbooks:Wheelocks Latin, 6th EditionLatin: An Intensive Course by Moreland and FleischerEcce Romani II, 3rd EditionLatin for Americans, Level 2Jenneys Second Year LatinAllen and Greenoughs New Latin GrammarMacrons have been added to the entire text in accordance with the vowel quantities used in the Oxford Latin Dictionary. Additional resources include an unannotated version of the text for classroom use, supplementary passages in English from other ancient authors, and appendixes with a timeline of events and maps and battle plans.The text may be used in secondary schools and colleges as early as the first year of study. The copious translation help, notes, and cross-references also make it ideal for independent learners.

The uncovering in the mid-1700s of fossilized mastodon bones and teeth at Big Bone Lick, Kentucky, signaled the beginning of a great American adventure. The West was opening up and unexplored lands beckoned. Unimagined paleontological treasures awaited discovery: strange horned mammals, birds with teeth, flying reptiles, gigantic fish, diminutive ancestors of horses and camels, and more than a hundred different kinds of dinosaurs. This exciting book tells the story of the grandest period of fossil discovery in American history, the years from 1750 to 1890.The volume begins with Thomas Jefferson, whose keen interest in the American mastodon led him to champion the study of fossil vertebrates. The book continues with vivid descriptions of the actual work of prospecting for fossils--a pick in one hand, a rifle in the other--and enthralling portraits of Joseph Leidy, Ferdinand Hayden, Edward Cope, and Othniel Marsh among other major figures in the development of the science of paleontology. Shedding new light on these scientists feuds and rivalries, on the connections between fossil studies in Europe and America, and on paleontologys contributions to Americas developing national identity, The Legacy of the Mastodon is itself a fabulous discovery for every reader to treasure.

Fyodor Dostoevsky completed his final novel The Brothers Karamazovin 1880. A work of universal appeal and significance, his exploration of good and evil immediately gained an international readership and today remains harrowingly alive in the face of our present day worries, paradoxes, and joys, observes Dostoevsky scholar Robin Feuer Miller. In this engaging and original book, she guides us through the complexities of Dostoevskys masterpiece, offering keen insights and a celebration of the authors unparalleled powers of imagination.Millers critical companion to The Brothers Karamazov explores the novels structure, themes, characters, and artistic strategies while illuminating its myriad philosophical and narrative riddles. She discusses the historical significance of the book and its initial reception, and in a new preface discusses the latest scholarship on Dostoevsky and the novel that crowned his career.

This highly original work explores a previously unknown financial conspiracy at the start of the American Civil War. The book explains the reasons for the puzzling intensity of Missouris guerrilla conflict, and for the states anomalous experience in Reconstruction. In the broader history of the war, the book reveals for the first time the nature of military mobilization in the antebellum United States.

It would seem unlikelythat one coulddiscover tolerant religious attitudes in Spain, Portugal, and the New World colonies during the era of the Inquisition, when enforcement of Catholic orthodoxy was widespread and brutal. Yet this groundbreaking book does exactly that. Drawing on an enormous body of historical evidenceincluding records of the Inquisition itselfthe historian Stuart Schwartz investigates the idea of religious tolerance and its evolution in the Hispanic world from 1500 to 1820. Focusing on the attitudes and beliefs of common people rather than those of intellectual elites, the author finds that no small segment of the population believed in freedom of conscience and rejected the exclusive validity of the Church.The book explores various sources of tolerant attitudes, the challenges that the New World presented to religious orthodoxy, the complex relations between popular and learned culture, and many related topics. The volume concludes with a discussion of the relativist ideas that were taking hold elsewhere in Europe during this era.

This book offers a fresh perspective on the role of multinational enterprises (MNEs) in development. Alan M. Rugman and Jonathan P. Doh challenge traditional assumptions about economic development and address the controversies that surround MNEs. For example, how do foreign multinationals affect overall economic growth in emerging economies, and how does this process lead to the subsequent rise of new emerging-economy MNEs? The authors focus on the mechanisms by which MNEs influence economic development. They evaluate the impact of MNEs on the processes and outcomes of development, as well as the influence of civil society, NGOs, and government policies on multinationals, especially in Asia. And they discuss the rise of emerging-economy MNEs from Asian economies, especially yang MNEs from China and Korea. Arriving at a far more nuanced understanding of MNEs today, the authors also offer observations about the role of multinationals in the future.

This breakthrough book provides a detailed reconstruction of Stalins leadership from the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 to his death in 1953. Making use of a wealth of new material from Russian archives, Geoffrey Roberts challenges a long list of standard perceptions of Stalin: his qualities as a leader; his relationships with his own generals and with other great world leaders; his foreign policy; and his role in instigating the Cold War. While frankly exploring the full extent of Stalins brutalities and their impact on the Soviet people, Roberts also uncovers evidence leading to the stunning conclusion that Stalin was both the greatest military leader of the twentieth century and a remarkable politician who sought to avoid the Cold War and establish a long-term detente with the capitalist world.By means of an integrated military, political, and diplomatic narrative, the author draws a sustained and compelling personal portrait of the Soviet leader. The resulting picture is fascinating and contradictory, and it will inevitably change the way we understand Stalin and his place in history. Roberts depicts a despot who helped save the world for democracy, a personal charmer who disciplined mercilessly, a utopian ideologue who could be a practical realist, and a warlord who undertook the role of architect of post-war peace.