Bøger i Harvard Historical Studies serien

In an illuminating study that blends diplomatic, military, technology, and business history, Winkler shows how U.S. officials during World War I discovered the enormous value of global communications. Winkler sheds light on the early stages of the global infrastructure that helped launch the U.S. as the predominant power of the century.

Drawing on political oratory, diplomatic correspondence, crusade propaganda, and historical treatises, Meserve shows how research into the origins of Islamic empires sprang from-and contributed to-contemporary debates over the threat of Islamic expansion in the Mediterranean.

In the late 1770s, as a wave of revolution and republican unrest swept across Europe, scholars looked with urgency on the progress of European civilization. Carhart examines their approaches to understanding human development by investigating the invention of a new analytic category, "culture."

Anderson uses one man's compelling story to explore the collision of Christianity with Native religion in colonial North America. Pastedechouan's story illuminates struggles to retain and impose religious identity on both sides of the 17th-century Atlantic, even as it has relevance to the contemporary encounter between native and nonnative peoples.

The ending of absolute monarchy and the start of political combat between nobles and commoners make 1787-1788 the first stage of the French Revolution. In a detailed look at this critical transition, Gruder explores how the French people became engaged in an opposition movement that culminated in demands for the public's role in government.

Innovative in its historical use of hagiographical literature, this work advances our understanding of early Normandy and the Vikings' transformation from pagan raiders to Christian princes, shedding light on the intersection of religious tradition, identity, and power.

Keys offers the first major study of the political and cultural ramifications of international sports competitions in the 1930s. Focusing on the U.S., Nazi Germany, and the Soviet Union, she examines the transformation of events like the Olympics and the World Cup from small-scale events to the expensive, political, global extravaganzas of today.

Challenging standard interpretations of American dominance and French weakness in postwar Western Europe, Creswell argues that France played a key role in shaping the cold war order. He sketches the successful French challenge to the U.S. that ultimately resulted in security arrangements preferred by the French but acceptable to the Americans.