Bøger i Europe's Legacy in the Modern World serien

This book is open access and available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. It is funded by Knowledge Unlatched.Debates about the legitimacy and ''essence'' of political rule and the search for ''ideal'' forms of government have been at the very heart of political thought ever since antiquity. Caesarism in the Post-Revolutionary Ageexplores the complex relationship between democracy and dictatorship from the 18th century onwards. More concretely, it assesses how democracy emerged as something compatible with dictatorship, both at the level of political thought and practice. Taking Caesarism - a political alternative somewhere between democracy and dictatorship - as its key concept, the book considers: * To what extent was Caesarism seen as a new post-revolutionary form of rule?* What were the flaws and perils, strengths and promises of Caesaristic regimes?* Can 19th-century Caesarism be characterised as a ''prelude'' to 20th-century totalitarianism?* What is the legacy and ongoing appeal of Caesarism in the contemporary world? This study will be of value to anyone interested in modern political history, but also contemporary politics.

Historical Teleologies in the Modern World tracks the fragmentation and proliferation of teleological understandings of history - the notion that history had to be explained as a goal-directed process - in Europe and beyond throughout the 19th and into the 20th century. Historical teleologies have profoundly informed a variety of other disciplines, including modern philosophy, natural history, literature, humanitarian and religious philanthropism, the political thought and practice of revolution, emancipation, imperialism, colonialism and anti-colonialism, the conceptualization of universal humankind, and the understanding of modernity in general. By exploring the extension and plurality of historical teleology, the essays in this volume revise the history of historicity in the modern period. Historical Teleologies in the Modern World casts doubt on the idea that a single, if powerful, conception of time could function as the unifying principle of all modern historicity, instead pursuing an investigation of the plurality of modern historicities and its underlying structures. By bringing together Western and non-Western histories, this book provides the first extended treatment of the idea of historical teleology. It will be of great value to students and scholars of modern global and intellectual history.

This book explores the transformation of political culture in northwest Spanish America during the age of the Atlantic revolutions and the subsequent period of nation building. It examines these transformations by focusing on the meaning and intellectual importance of social difference, both as a resource and as an obstacle, for diverse political and intellectual actors. Francisco A. Ortega follows key political debates in several spheres of cultural and political negotiation, including constitutional theory, social anthropology and ethnography, political economy and education. These spheres constituted intense venues of debate and creativity, as the new republics made strenuous efforts to build the material and intellectual basis of new states. The book discusses the powerful independent projects and ambitious institutional efforts within these spheres and shows how they draw from a shared Euro-American history in order to respond to the post-colonial challenge of constructing representative republics with heterogeneous populations.

Roman law is widely considered to be the foundation of European legal culture and an inherent source of unity within European law. Roman Law and the Idea of Europe explores the emergence of this idea of Roman law as an idealized shared heritage, tracing its origins among exiled German scholars in Britain during the Nazi regime. The book follows the spread and influence of these ideas in Europe after the war as part of the larger enthusiasm for European unity. It argues that the rise of the importance of Roman law was a reaction against the crisis of jurisprudence in the face of Nazi ideas of racial and ultranationalistic law, leading to the establishment of the idea of Europe founded on shared legal principles. With contributions from leading academics in the field as well as established younger scholars, this volume will be of immense interests to anyone studying intellectual history, legal history, political history and Roman law in the context of Europe. Available via Open Access on Bloomsbury Collections (https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/).