A common- sense understanding of the ‘longue durée’ might be that it simply refers to the long term, a long period of chronological time. This notion of clock or objective chronological time is ultimately uninteresting and helps us to explain and understand nothing. It is empty time, time as a container segmented by dates and events, befores and afters.The Annales approach to t…
ooking back upon the operations of 1916, and in anticipation of the battles to come, the French prime minister, Aristide Briand, remarked that military offensives had become ‘really like a great industrial undertaking. There were so many miles of front, so many troops, and so many guns required; all had to be calculated to a nicety, and all kinds of preparations made’.1 In the…
The contributors to Made in Asia/America explore the historical entanglements of video games, Asia, and America, showing how examining games offer new ways of imagining empire, race, and coalition.
Postmodernism has become the buzzword of contemporary society over the last decade. But how can it be defined? In this highly readable introduction the mysteries of this most elusive of concepts are unraveled, casting a critical light upon the way we live now, from the politicizing of museum culture to the cult of the politically correct. The key postmodernist ideas are explored and challenged,…
The Roman Empire was a remarkable achievement. It had a population of sixty million people spread across lands encircling the Mediterranean and stretching from northern England to the sun-baked banks of the Euphrates, and from the Rhine to the North African coast. It was, above all else, an empire of force--employing a mixture of violence, suppression, order, and tactical use of power to develo…
Japan is arguably today's most successful industrial economy, combining almost unprecedented affluence with social stability and apparent harmony. Japanese goods and cultural products--from animated movies and computer games to cars, semiconductors, and management techniques--are consumed around the world. In many ways, Japan is an icon of the modern world, and yet it remains something of an en…
The jewel of the Veneto, Venice is a dreamlike city filled with architectural wonders and incredible collections of art. But this region offers far more than this watery oasis. Lake Garda boasts beautiful scenery, Verona features the world's third-largest Roman Arena, and the Dolomites are rich with alpine forests and verdant hills.
A perusal of academic books in fashion studies over the last decade reveals that the term “fad” itself may have fallen out of style. Even Arthur Berger’s text Ads, Fads, and Consumer Culture includes little mention of fads. Still, popular media feature lists of “what’s hot” versus “what’s not.” Why aren’t these called fads? Perhaps the timespace nexus associated with contemp…
Until recently the least-known nation in Southeast Asia, Myanmar is finally getting the attention it deserves.
Energy poverty refers to issues that span access to energy, energy depri-vation, and its under-use within daily life. Broadly, the central concern ofresearch and policy in this space is with the negative outcomes that a lackof energy use has for wellbeing. Within the UK and many other globalcontexts, the focus has often been on those that cannot afford to heattheir homes, with solutions posed a…