France had the second largest empire in the world after Britain, but one with very different origins and purposes. Over more than four centuries, the French empire explained itself in many different ways through many different colonial regimes. Beginning in the early modern period, a vast mercantile empire based on furs and fish in the New World and sugar cultivated by the enslaved in the Caribbean rose and fell. At intervals thereafter, the French seemed to have an empire simply as an att...

"As we hoped, Hintze's further development made him one of the great ones in the discipline. To be sure, he was one of those who was only known in the circle of experts, like a very high mountain in a mountain range which one first noticed from the vantage point of a high pass." --Friedrich Meinecke, 1941 (translated by Leonard S. Smith) "What we call historicism is a new, unique, categorical-structure of the mind [des Geistes] that began to arise in the West in the eighteenth century and ...

Like Leonard Smith's larger study, Religion and the Rise of History, this essay, Martin Luther's Two Ways of Viewing Life, asserts that Luther's well-known "at-the-same-time," simul, or paradoxical way of viewing life does not capture Luther's thought as a whole, because it does not represent his deeply incarnational and dynamic, mystical and holistic, particularizing and historical way of viewing life based on the power of the Word and the Spirit of God either in his own life or in human ...

As a historical inquiry and synthesis, this intellectual history is the first study to apply the ideal-type or model-building methodology of Otto Hintze (1861-1940) to Western historical thought or to what R. G. Collingwood called "The Idea of History," for it contains succinct and useful models for seeing and teaching classical, Christian, and modern professional historiography. Religion and the Rise of History is also the first work to suggest that, in addition to his well-known paradoxi...

Chaos exists in systems all around us. Even the simplest system of cause and effect can be subject to chaos, denying us accurate predictions of its behaviour, and sometimes giving rise to astonishing structures of large-scale order. Our growing understanding of Chaos Theory is having fascinating applications in the real world - from technology to global warming, politics, human behaviour, and even gambling on the stock market. Leonard Smith shows that we all have an intuitive understanding...

How did the soldiers in the trenches of the Great War understand and explain battlefield experience, and themselves through that experience? Situated at the intersection of military history and cultural history, The Embattled Self draws on the testimony of French combatants to explore how combatants came to terms with the war. In order to do so, they used a variety of narrative tools at hand—rites of passage, mastery, a character ...

A Dysfunctional Legacy presents a retelling of the defining events that occur in the family of Abraham from the time subsequent to the eviction of Ishmael and Hagar to the time of Jacobs death. Offering a realistic, down-to earth picture of this chosen family rather than the sanctimonious treatment of them that is sometimes presented, the story begins with the end of Abraham and Sarahs marriage and his subsequent marriage to Keturah.When he is instructed by God to sacrific...

We have known for many decades that the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 "failed", in the sense that it did not prevent the outbreak of World War II. This book investigates not whether the Paris Peace Conference succeeded or failed, but the historically specific international system it created. It explores the rules under which that system operated, and the kinds of states and empires that inhabited it. Deepening the dialogue between history and international relations theory makes it possib...

Lunatic Hospitals in Georgian England, 1750–1830 constitutes the first comprehensive study of the philanthropic asylum system in Georgian England. Using original research and drawing upon a wide range of expertise on the history of mental health this book demonstrates the crucial role of the lunatic hospitals in the early development of a national system of psychiatric institutions.These hospitals were to form an essential historical link in the emergence of a national sys...

The Green Library: 26 Classic Books to Enrich Your Botanical Knowledge is an enlightening collection that traverses the vast terrain of botanical literature, offering readers a kaleidoscope of insights into the world of plants. This anthology brings together an eclectic mix of styles, from descriptive botanical treatises to narrative-rich expeditions into plant life, and showcases the critical exploration of the relationship between humanity and nature. Amid these pages, readers will disco...

This short history of Unitarianism concisely explores the origins and progress of a worldwide liberal religious tradition committed to principles of freedom, reason, and tolerance.Unitarians have exercised an influence out of proportion to their minority status. Through their agency, Poland and Transylvania enjoyed periods of religious toleration. In Great Britain, as pioneers of early modern higher education in Dissenting Academies, they applied Enlightenment reasoning to the stud...

This short history of Unitarianism concisely explores the origins and progress of a worldwide liberal religious tradition committed to principles of freedom, reason, and tolerance.Unitarians have exercised an influence out of proportion to their minority status. Through their agency, Poland and Transylvania enjoyed periods of religious toleration. In Great Britain, as pioneers of early modern higher education in Dissenting Academies, they applied Enlightenment reasoning to the stud...