Japan is on the verge of a sea change. After more than fifty years of national pacifism and isolation including the "lost decade" of the 1990s, Japan is quietly, stealthily awakening. As Japan prepares to become a major player in the strategic struggles of the 21st century, critical questions arise about its motivations. What are the driving forces that influence how Japan will act in the international system? Are there recurrent patterns that will help explain how Japan will respond to th...

The decision to use atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki has been considered the most important – and perhaps most controversial - event in twentieth-century history. It ushered in many of the major developments of our time: the end of World War II, the beginning of the atomic age, the establishment of the American world order, and the start of the Cold War arms race. Kenneth B. Pyle illuminates both the complexities of the event itself and the debates among historians that continue toda...

No nation was more deeply affected by America’s rise to world power than Japan. President Franklin Roosevelt’s uncompromising policy of unconditional surrender led to the catastrophic finale of the Asia-Pacific War and the most intrusive international reconstruction of another nation in modern history. Japan in the American Century examines how Japan, with its deeply conservative heritage, responded to the imposition of a new liberal order.The price Japan paid to end the o...

A young boy rides the train through Tennessee's beautiful, historic, and interesting landscapes. From the Blue Ridge to the Appalachian Ridge and Valley Region, the Cumberland Plateau, the Highland Rim, and the Nashville Basin, the narrator experiences the marvels of his home state. He hikes, fishes, and even tours Graceland! This is Maggie Bunn's fifth project and she is looking forward to sharing and creating more stories. Rosalind Bunn is the author of nine children's books and is excit...

This volume analyzes the concerns that must be addressed if Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) is to be a viable component of the post-Cold War international order, such as what the future role of the USA who made Asia's transformation possible since 1945, is as a leader in that region. The economic analysis of legal and regulatory issues need not be limited to the neoclassical economic approach. The expert contributors to this work employ a variety of heterodox legal-economic theori...

Written in the fervent summer of 1917, just months before the October Revolution, Vladimir Lenin's 'State and Revolution' is a burning manifesto born from a desperate desire for profound human liberation. While often viewed through the dense lens of political theory, at its core, this book is an urgent, impassioned argument against the systemic oppression of the working class.Lenin forcefully argues that the modern state is not a neutral peacemaker, but an instrument designed by th...

In July 1917, when the Provisional Government issued a warrant for his arrest, Lenin fled from Petrograd; later that year, the October Revolution swept him to supreme power. In the short intervening period he spent in Finland, he wrote his impassioned, never-completed masterwork The State and Revolution. This powerfully argued book offers both the rationale for the new regime and a wealth of insights into Leninist politics. It was here that Lenin justified his personal interpretation of Ma...

What is fascism? Is it revolutionary? Or is it reactionary? Can it be both? Fascism is notoriously hard to define. How do we make sense of an ideology that appeals to streetfighters and intellectuals alike? That is overtly macho in style, yet attracts many women? That calls for a return to tradition while maintaining a fascination with technology? And that preaches violence in the name of an ordered society? In the new edition of this Very Short Introduction, Kevin Passmore brilli...

From one of our greatest historians, a magnificent reckoning with the modern world's most fateful idea.With astonishing authority and clarity, Richard Pipes has fused a lifetime's scholarship into a single focused history of Communism, from its hopeful birth as a theory to its miserable death as a practice.At its heart, the book is a history of the Soviet Union, the most comprehensive reorganization of human society ever attempted by a nation-state. Drawing on much new info...

Almost twenty years after the Soviet Unions' end, what are we to make of its existence? Was it a heroic experiment, an unmitigated disaster, or a viable if flawed response to the modern world? Taking a fresh approach to the study of the Soviet Union, this Very Short Introduction blends political history with an investigation into the society and culture at the time. Stephen Lovell examines aspects of patriotism, political violence, poverty, and ideology; and provides answers to so...

Any consideration of the 20th century would be incomplete without a discussion of Nazi Germany, an extraordinary regime which dominated European history for 12 years, and left a legacy that still echoes with us today. The incredible force of the destructive vision at the heart of Nazi Germany led to a second world war when the world was still aching from the first one, and an incomprehensible death count, both at home and abroad. In this Very Short Introduction, Jane Caplan's insi...

Antisemitism, as hatred of Jews and Judaism, has been a central problem of Western civilization for millennia, and its history continues to invite debate. This Very Short Introduction untangles the history of the phenomenon, from ancient religious conflict to 'new' antisemitism in the 21st century. Steven Beller reveals how Antisemitism grew as a political and ideological movement in the 19th century, how it reached its dark apogee in the worst genocide in modern history - the Hol...