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The Apple of His Eye: Converts from Islam in the Reign of Louis IX

William Chester Jordan

The thirteenth century brought new urgency to Catholic efforts to convert non-Christians, and no Catholic ruler was more dedicated to this undertaking than King Louis IX of France. His military ... More

The thirteenth century brought new urgency to Catholic efforts to convert non-Christians, and no Catholic ruler was more dedicated to this undertaking than King Louis IX of France. His military expeditions against Islam are well documented, but there was also a peaceful side to his encounter with the Muslim world, one that has received little attention until now. This book shines new light on the king's program to induce Muslims to voluntarily convert to Christianity and resettle in France. It recovers a forgotten but important episode in the history of the Crusades while providing a rare window into the fraught experiences of the converts themselves. This book transforms our understanding of medieval Christian–Muslim relations by telling the stories of the Muslims who came to France to live as Christians. Under what circumstances did they willingly convert? How successfully did they assimilate into French society? What forms of resistance did they employ? In examining questions like these, the book weaves a richly detailed portrait of a dazzling yet violent age whose lessons still resonate today. Until now, scholars have dismissed historical accounts of the king's peaceful conversion of Muslims as hagiographical and therefore untrustworthy. This book takes these narratives seriously, and uncovers archival evidence to back them up. It brings these findings to life; setting them in the context of the Seventh Crusade and the universalizing Catholic impulse to convert the world.Less

The Grand Strategy of the Habsburg Empire

A. Wess Mitchell

The Empire of Habsburg Austria faced more enemies than any other European great power. Flanked on four sides by rivals, it possessed few of the advantages that explain successful empires. Yet somehow ... More

The Empire of Habsburg Austria faced more enemies than any other European great power. Flanked on four sides by rivals, it possessed few of the advantages that explain successful empires. Yet somehow Austria endured, outlasting Ottoman sieges, Frederick the Great, and Napoleon. This book tells the story of how this cash-strapped, polyglot empire survived for centuries in Europe’s most dangerous neighborhood without succumbing to the pressures of multisided warfare. It shows how the Habsburgs played the long game in geopolitics, corralling friend and foe alike into voluntarily managing the empire’s lengthy frontiers and extending a benign hegemony across the turbulent lands of middle Europe. The book offers lessons on how to navigate a messy geopolitical map, stand firm without the advantage of military predominance, and prevail against multiple rivals.Less

The Interrogation Rooms of the Korean War: The Untold History

Monica Kim

Traditional histories of the Korean War have long focused on violations of the thirty-eighth parallel, the line drawn by American and Soviet officials in 1945 dividing the Korean peninsula. But this ... More

Traditional histories of the Korean War have long focused on violations of the thirty-eighth parallel, the line drawn by American and Soviet officials in 1945 dividing the Korean peninsula. But this book presents an entirely new narrative, shifting the perspective from the boundaries of the battlefield to inside the interrogation room. The book demonstrates how the Korean War evolved from a fight over territory to one over human interiority and the individual human subject, forging the template for the US wars of intervention that would predominate during the latter half of the twentieth century and beyond. The book looks at how, during the armistice negotiations, the United States and their allies proposed a new kind of interrogation room: one in which prisoners of war could exercise their “free will” and choose which country they would go to after the ceasefire. The global controversy that erupted exposed how interrogation rooms had become a flashpoint for the struggles between the ambitions of empire and the demands for decolonization, as the aim of interrogation was to produce subjects who attested to a nation's right to govern. The complex web of interrogators and prisoners that the book uncovers contradicts the simple story in US popular memory of “brainwashing” during the Korean War. Bringing together a vast range of sources that track two generations of people moving between three continents, the book delves into an essential yet overlooked aspect of modern warfare in the twentieth century.Less

Secret Reports on Nazi Germany: The Frankfurt School Contribution to the War Effort

Franz Neumann, Herbert Marcuse, and Otto Kirchheimer

Raffaele Laudani (ed.)

During World War II, three prominent members of the Frankfurt School—Franz Neumann, Herbert Marcuse, and Otto Kirchheimer—worked as intelligence analysts for the Office of Strategic Services, the ... More

During World War II, three prominent members of the Frankfurt School—Franz Neumann, Herbert Marcuse, and Otto Kirchheimer—worked as intelligence analysts for the Office of Strategic Services, the wartime forerunner of the CIA. This book brings together their most important intelligence reports on Nazi Germany, most of them published here for the first time. These reports provide a fresh perspective on Adolf Hitler's regime and the Second World War, and a fascinating window on Frankfurt School critical theory. They develop a detailed analysis of Nazism as a social and economic system and the role of anti-Semitism in Nazism, as well as a coherent plan for the reconstruction of postwar Germany as a democratic political system with a socialist economy. These reports played a significant role in the development of postwar Allied policy, including denazification and the preparation of the Nuremberg Trials. They also reveal how wartime intelligence analysis shaped the intellectual agendas of these three important German–Jewish scholars who fled Nazi persecution prior to the war. The book features a foreword and a comprehensive general introduction that puts these writings in historical and intellectual context.Less

Who Fights for Reputation

Keren Yarhi-Milo

This book provides an original framework, based on insights from psychology, to explain why some political leaders are more willing to use military force to defend their reputation than others. ... More

This book provides an original framework, based on insights from psychology, to explain why some political leaders are more willing to use military force to defend their reputation than others. Rather than focusing on a leader's background, beliefs, bargaining skills, or biases, the book draws a systematic link between a trait called self-monitoring and foreign policy behavior. It examines self-monitoring among national leaders and advisers and shows that while high self-monitors modify their behavior strategically to cultivate image-enhancing status, low self-monitors are less likely to change their behavior in response to reputation concerns. Exploring self-monitoring through case studies of foreign policy crises during the terms of US presidents Carter, Reagan, and Clinton, the book disproves the notion that hawks are always more likely than doves to fight for reputation. Instead, it demonstrates that a decision-maker’s propensity for impression management is directly associated with the use of force to restore a reputation for resolve on the international stage. This book offers a brand-new understanding of the pivotal influence that psychological factors have on political leadership, military engagement, and the protection of public prestige.Less