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Austro-Hungarian Battleships 1914-18
by Paul Wright Ryan NoppenThe nineteenth century saw the assertion of Habsburg sea power over the Adriatic from the Austrian inheritance of the Venetian fleet in 1797 to Rear Admiral Wilhelm von Tegetthoff's stunning victory over a superior Italian force at the Battle of Lissa in 1866 to the gradual creation of a modern battle fleet beginning in the 1890s. Austria-Hungary did not have an overseas empire; its empire lay within its own boundaries and the primary purpose of its navy until the beginning of the twentieth century was the defense of its coastline. As its merchant marine dramatically grew in the late nineteenth century, Austro-Hungarian admirals believed that the navy should take a more proactive policy of defense, defending not only the coastline but the greater Adriatic and even the Mediterranean waters which the empire's merchant ships plied. The 1890s saw the beginning of a series of naval building programs that would create a well-balanced modern fleet. Cruisers were constructed for the protection of overseas trade and for "showing the flag" but the decisive projection of Austria-Hungary's commitment to control the Adriatic was the construction of a force of modern battleships. Compared to the British, French, Germans, and even Italians, the Austro-Hungarians were relative latecomers to the design and construction of battleships. Austro-Hungarian naval policy tended to be reactionary rather than proactive; its admirals closely followed Italian naval developments and sought appropriate countermeasures even though the two nations were tenuously bound together by the Triple Alliance pact of 1882. Despite the naval arms race throughout Europe at the time, the navy had difficulty obtaining funds for new ships as the Hungarian government was reluctant to fund a fleet that principally served the maritime interests of the ethnically German portion of the empire. The difficulties experienced in battleship funding and construction mirrored the political difficulties and ethnic rivalries within the empire. Nevertheless by August of 1914, the Austro-Hungarian fleet had a force of nine battleships, three pre-dreadnoughts, and one dreadnought (three more in the final stages of construction). This book will survey the five classes of Austro-Hungarian battleships in service during the First World War.
Austro-Hungarian Naval Policy, 1904-1914 (Cass Series: Naval Policy and History)
by Milan VegoThis unique and comprehensive account describes the interplay of internal and external factors in the emergence of the Austro-Hungarian Navy from a coastal defence force in 1904 to a respectable battle force capable of the joint operations with other Triple Alliance fleets in the Mediterranean by the eve of World War I. By 1914 the Austro-Hungarian Navy was the sixth largest navy in the world and the quality of its officers and men was widely recognised by most European naval observers at the time. The book describes the relationships between naval leaders, the heir to the throne Archduke Francis Ferdinand, and the Parliament in shaping the dual Monarchy's naval policy. It also shows how the changes in foreign policy in Italy and underlying animosities between Rome and Vienna led to a naval race in the Adriatic that eventually bolstered Germany's naval position in respect to Great Britain in the North Sea.
Austro-corporatism: Past, Present, Future
by Gunter BischofCorporatism was unpopular in the Europe of the past decade. During a time of neo-conservative resurgence in both the United States and the United Kingdom, macroeconomic steering and statist centralism and regulation were in disfavor. However, Austria's unique Sozialpartnerschaft, its famed system of tripartite informal and formal labor, business, and state cooperation, continued to prosper In spite of such powerful Anglo-American trends. Austro-Corporatism is the fourth volume in the interdisciplinary Contemporary Austrian Studies series. This effort in particular reflects the uniqueness of Austrian corporatism, and looks at its deep historical roots from a comparative continental European perspective.The contributors Include specialists on Austria from all parts of the world, making this a truly international effort. Andrei Markovits provides the larger European context for this analysis of Austrian corporatism. Emmerich Talos and Bernhard Kittel review the historical development of Austrian corporatism, going back to its nineteenth-century roots. Randall Kindley studies the Institutional framework of Austrian corporatism, particularly its post-World War II reincarnation. Hans Seidel looks at the subject from a neo-Keynesian economic perspective, and Ferdinand Karlhofer at the chances of Its survival in a changing international environment.Jonathan Petropoulos presents a fascinating biographical study of Nazi art plunderer Kajetan Muhlmann, and David McIntosh compares Eisenhower's policy vis-a-vis the small friendly countries of Lebanon, Costa Rica, and Austria. A special forum looks at the model character and appeal of tripartite Austrian cooperation among its new eastern democratic neighbors: the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, and Slovenia. A number of reviews of Austrian politics in 1994 complete the volume. Austro-Corporattsm will be of intense interest to foreign policy analysts, historians, and scholars concerned with the unique elements in Central European politics.
Authentic American Indian Beadwork and How to Do It: With 50 Charts for Bead Weaving and 21 Full-Size Patterns for Applique
by Pamela Stanley-MillnerCraftspeople who admire striking Indian designs can now create beautiful, colorful beadwork originated by the Chippewa, Iroquois, Pawnee, Seminole, Winnebago, and other American Indian tribes.This book is a complete guide to this time-honored handicraft, offering step-by-step instructions, clear diagrams, and 71 tribal designs for two types of traditional bead applications -- bead weaving and appliqué beading. You'll find fifty versatile designs charted on graph paper for bead weaving and twenty-one full-size patterns for appliqué, including transfer instructions and color keys. Easy-to-follow directions tell you how to construct your own bead loom.Choose from a rich array of motifs rendered from authentic American Indian artifacts found in museum collections -- stars, exciting geometrics, sunbursts, exquisite florals, and much more.Beadcrafting is surprisingly easy to learn, offering hours of enjoyment and satisfaction. Follow the charts to weave belts, headbands, sashes, necklaces, and other eye-catching accessories. Use the appliqué patterns to decorate leather, denim, and other fabrics for handbags, vests, blouses...anything that would be enhanced by a touch of distinctive Indian beadwork.With this inexpensive do-it-yourself book, you can create beautiful projects for yourself and your family and memorable gifts -- for a fraction of the price you'd pay in a store.
Authentic Blackness/ "Real" Blackness: Essays on the Meaning of Blackness in Literature and Culture
by Martin Japtok Jerry Rafiki JenkinsIncluding reflections on hip-hop, comedy, literature, intellectual history, and autobiography, the collection gives both a broad overview of and intervenes in the debates concerning blackness.
Authentic Chicago: The Fairway Flapper, the Lincolnwood Lone Ranger, the Wandering Church and Other Quirky History (The History Press)
by John R. SchmidtDiscover the history most Chicagoans don't know---the real Chicago Way.The Windy City is full of forgotten landmarks and unusual stories that rarely get the benefit of a guided tour. Meet the African-American congressman who paved the way for Harold Washington and Barack Obama, the South Side Jewish girl who became the president of a South American country, and the visiting Romanian queen who charmed the city. Learn when Chicagoans were paid to smile, how furniture sprouts on Windy City streets after a blizzard and why Smell-O-Vision seemed like a good idea. From an in-city ski resort to the nation's greatest train robbery, author John R. Schmidt offers a glimpse of the overlooked scenery of Chicago's past.
Authentic Color Schemes for Victorian Houses: Comstock's Modern House Painting, 1883
by E. K. Rossiter F. A. WrightWhen the authors, a pair of respected architects, first published this beautiful book in the late Victorian era, they meant it as a wakeup call to the forward-looking homeowners of the time — inviting them to eschew "the old puritanical hatred of color, which found its natural outcome in white houses with green blinds" and join in the revolutionary trend toward "advanced notions, in which the more positive colors find a chance of expression." The book helped homeowners to attain this goal through its presentation of full-color illustrations of attractive, up-to-date color schemes for houses, with special attention given to the refined lines of Queen Anne-style homes.The heart of the book is the section of 20 exquisite color plates — each reproducing a flawlessly executed architectural drawing that shows the color possibilities for a specific house, and each accompanied by an extensive written description of the colors to be used for exterior walls and trim. An informative introductory section gives a clear explanation of how to mix primary and secondary colors to achieve such popular, mellow tones of the period as olive, russet, citrine, buff, plum, and sage. This authentic source of inspiration and suggestions will be prized by restorationists, architects, home-builders, and lovers of Victoriana.
Authentic Indian Designs (Dover Pictorial Archive)
by Maria NaylorLargest collection anywhere: 2,500 authentic illustrations of bowls, bottles and pipes, geometric and floral patterns on beadwork, pictographs, symbolic tipi decorations, masks, basket weaves, Hopi katchina figures, much more.
Authentic Indians: Episodes of Encounter from the Late-Nineteenth-Century Northwest Coast
by Paige RaibmonIn this innovative history, Paige Raibmon examines the political ramifications of ideas about "real Indians. " Focusing on the Northwest Coast in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth, she describes how government officials, missionaries, anthropologists, reformers, settlers, and tourists developed definitions of Indian authenticity based on such binaries as Indian versus White, traditional versus modern, and uncivilized versus civilized. They recognized as authentic only those expressions of "Indianness" that conformed to their limited definitions and reflected their sense of colonial legitimacy and racial superiority. Raibmon shows that Whites and Aboriginals were collaborators--albeit unequal ones--in the politics of authenticity. Non-Aboriginal people employed definitions of Indian culture that limited Aboriginal claims to resources, land, and sovereignty, while Aboriginals utilized those same definitions to access the social, political, and economic means necessary for their survival under colonialism. Drawing on research in newspapers, magazines, agency and missionary records, memoirs, and diaries, Raibmon combines cultural and labor history. She looks at three historical episodes: the participation of a group of Kwakwaka'wakw from Vancouver in the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago; the work of migrant Aboriginal laborers in the hop fields of Puget Sound; and the legal efforts of Tlingit artist Rudolph Walton to have his mixed-race step-children admitted to the white public school in Sitka, Alaska. Together these episodes reveal the consequences of outsiders' attempts to define authentic Aboriginal culture. Raibmon argues that Aboriginal culture is much more than the reproduction of rituals; it also lies in the means by which Aboriginal people generate new and meaningful ways of identifying their place in a changing modern environment.
Authentic Victorian Fashion Patterns: A Complete Lady's Wardrobe
by Kristina HarrisRich selection of scaled dressmaker's patterns from the popular late 19th-century magazine The Voice of Fashion details 50 garments for women, from handsome daytime and evening dresses to casual tennis outfits, a riding habit, and undergarments. Of practical use for costume designers and students of fashion; will also delight browsers. 498 illustrations.
Authentic Victorian Villas and Cottages: Over 100 Designs with Elevations and Floor Plans
by Isaac H. HobbsMore than 100 magnificent home plans provide lovers of Victoriana the finest examples of period architecture. Compiled by Isaac Hobbs, a prominent Philadelphia architect of the period, the book also offers an informative discussion on the principles and practices of practical home design and construction. Designs and floor and ground plans for villas, cottages, and other residences are revealed in 122 detailed engravings, among them a six-room ornamental cottage (without bathroom facilities) for $1,500; an elegant Elizabethan villa, with entry hall, library, china closet, and five bedrooms, for $27,000; and an ornate Gothic suburban residence, complete with parlor, sitting room, dressing rooms, six bedrooms, and two bathrooms, at a cost of $33,000.Invaluable to architects, preservationists, and home restorers, this authentic guide to a wealth of house styles from the late 1800s will also delight anyone intrigued by Victorian life.
Authentically Jewish: Identity, Culture, and the Struggle for Recognition
by Stuart Z. CharméThis book analyzes the different conceptions of authenticity that are behind conflicts over who and what should be recognized as authentically Jewish. Although the concept of authenticity has been around for several centuries, it became a central focus for Jews since existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre raised the question in the 1940s. Building on the work of Sartre, later Jewish thinkers, philosophers, anthropologists, and cultural theorists, the book offers a model of Jewish authenticity that seeks to balance history and tradition, creative freedom and innovation, and the importance of recognition among different groups within an increasingly multicultural Jewish community. Author Stuart Z. Charmé explores how debates over authenticity and struggles for recognition are a key to understanding a wide range of controversies between Orthodox and liberal Jews, Zionist and diaspora Jews, white Jews and Jews of color, as well as the status of intermarried and messianic Jews, and the impact of Jewish genetics. In addition, it discusses how and when various cultural practices and traditions such as klezmer music, Israeli folk dance, Jewish yoga and meditation, and others are recognized as authentically Jewish, or not.
Authentically Orthodox: A Tradition-Bound Faith in American Life
by Zev EleffWith a fresh perspective, Authentically Orthodox: A Tradition-Bound Faith in American Life challenges the current historical paradigm in the study of Orthodox Judaism and other tradition-bound faith communities in the United States.Paying attention to "lived religion," the book moves beyond sermons and synagogues and examines the webs of experiences mediated by any number of American cultural forces. With exceptional writing, Zev Eleff lucidly explores Orthodox Judaism’s engagement with Jewish law, youth culture and gender, and how this religious group has been affected by its indigenous environs. To do this, the book makes ample use of archives and other previously unpublished primary sources. Eleff explores the curious history of Passover peanut oil and the folkways and foodways that battled in this culinary arena to both justify and rebuff the validity of this healthier substitute for other fatty ingredients. He looks at the Yeshiva University quiz team’s fifteen minutes of fame on the nationally televised College Bowl program and the unprecedented pride of young people and youth culture in the burgeoning Modern Orthodox movement. Another chapter focuses on the advent of women’s prayer groups as an alternative to other synagogue experiences in Orthodox life and the vociferous opposition it received on the grounds that it was motivated by "heretical" religious and social movements. Whereas past monographs and articles argue that these communities have moved right toward a conservative brand of faith, Eleff posits that Orthodox Judaism—like other like-minded religious enclaves—ought to be studied in their American religious contexts. The microhistories examined in Authentically Orthodox are some of the most exciting and understudied moments in American Jewish life and will hold the interest of scholars and students of American Jewish history and religion.
Authenticating Culture in Imperial Japan: Kuki Shuzo and the Rise of National Aesthetics (Twentieth Century Japan: The Emergence of a World Power #5)
by Leslie PincusDuring the interwar years in Japan, discourse on culture turned sharply inward after generations of openness to Western ideas. The characterizations that arose—that Japanese culture is unique, essential, and enduring—came to be accepted both inside and outside Japan. Leslie Pincus focuses on the work of Kuki Shuzo, a philosopher and the author of the classic "Iki" no Kozo, to explore culture and theory in Japan during the interwar years. She shows how Japanese intellectual culture ultimately became complicit, even instrumental, in an increasingly repressive and militaristic regime that ultimately brought the world to war.Pincus provides an extensive critical study of Kuki's intellectual lineage and shows how it intersects with a number of central figures in both European and Japanese philosophy. The discussion moves between Germany, France, and Japan, providing a guide to the development of culture in a number of national settings from the turn of the century to the 1930s.Inspired by the work of Foucault, the Marxist culturalists, and the Frankfurt School, Pincus reads against the grain of traditional interpretation. Her theoretically informed approach situates culture in a historical perspective and charts the ideological dimensions of cultural aesthetics in Japan. Authenticating Culture in Imperial Japan makes an important contribution to our understanding of modernity, nationalism, and fascism in the early twentieth century.
Authenticity and Belonging in the Northern Soul Scene: The Role of History and Identity in a Multigenerational Music Culture (Palgrave Studies in the History of Subcultures and Popular Music)
by Sarah RaineThis book, which builds on a three-year immersive ethnographic study, argues that what scene participants do and say within the northern soul scene constitutes a claim to belong. For younger members, making claims to belong is problematic in a scene where dominant notions of authenticity held by insiders are rooted in a particular past: the places, people, events, and soundscapes of particular venues during the 1970s. In order to engage with this past, young men and women participate in a range of discursive practices. This book argues that these practices, and the ways they intersect and deviate from dominant notions of authenticity, represent shared and individual negotiations of the 'true soulie'. In doing so, it reveals the rich experiences of the younger generation of this multigenerational music scene, and the ways they establish a claim to belong to a scene first formed before they were born.
Authenticity and Victimhood after the Second World War: Narratives from Europe and East Asia (German and European Studies)
by Hansen, Randall, et al.The shadow of the Second World War was filled with many terrible crimes, crimes, such as genocide, forced migration and labour, human-made famine, forced sterilizations, and dispossession, that. None of these atrocities were new, but they all occurred on an unprecedented scale. Authenticity and Victimhood after the Second World War examines victim groups constructed in the twentieth century in the aftermath of these experiences. The collection explores the concept of authenticity through an examination of victims’ histories and the construction of victimhood in Europe and East Asia. Chapters consider how notions of historical authenticity influence the self-identification and public recognition of a given social group, the tensions arising from individual and group experiences of victimhood, and the resulting, sometimes divergent, interpretation of historical events. Drawing from case studies on topics including the Holocaust, the siege of Leningrad, American air raids on Japan, and forced migrations from Eastern Europe, Authenticity and Victimhood after the Second World War shows demonstrates the trends towards a victim-centred collective memory as well as the interand the role trends play of in memory politics and public commemorative culture.
Authenticity, Autonomy and Multiculturalism (Routledge Studies in Social and Political Thought)
by Geoffrey Brahm LeveyThe concept of "authenticity" enters multicultural politics in three distinct but interrelated senses: as an ideal of individual and group identity that commands recognition by others; as a condition of individuals’ autonomy that bestows legitimacy on their values, beliefs and preferences as being their own; and as a form of cultural pedigree that bestows legitimacy on particular beliefs and practices (commonly called "cultural authenticity"). In each case, the authenticity idea is called on to anchor or legitimate claims to some kind of public recognition. The considerable work asked of this concept raises a number of vital questions: Should "authenticity" be accorded the importance it holds in multicultural politics? Do its pitfalls outweigh its utility? Is the notion of "authenticity" avoidable in making sense of and evaluating cultural claims? Or does it, perhaps, need to be rethought or recalibrated? Geoffrey Brahm Levey and his distinguished group of philosophers, political theorists, and anthropologists challenge conventional assumptions about "authenticity" that inform liberal responses to minority cultural claims in Western democracies today. Discussing a wide range of cases drawn from Britain and continental Europe, North America, Australia and the Middle East, they press beyond theories to consider also the practical and policy implications at stake. A helpful resource to scholars worldwide in Political and Social Theory, Political Philosophy, Legal Anthropology, Multiculturalism, and, more generally, of cultural identity and diversity in liberal democracies today.
Authenticity: The Cultural History of a Political Concept
by Maiken Umbach Mathew HumphreyAuthenticity is everywhere: political leaders invoke the idea to gain our support, advertisers use it to sell their products. But is authenticity a dangerous hoax? What is, and is not, authentic has been hotly debated ever since the concept was invented. Many academics have sought to "unmask" authenticity claims as deceptive. This book takes a different approach. In chapters covering historical and contemporary examples, the authors explore why authenticity, real or imagined, exercises such a powerful hold on our imaginations. The chapters trace how invocations of authenticity borrow from one another, across arenas such as philosophy and theology, encounters with nature, leisure, and mass consumption, political and corporate leadership, left-wing and right-wing ideologies. This cultural history of authenticity is of interest to academic and lay readers alike, who are interested in the significance and history of a concept that shapes how we understand ourselves and the world we live in.
Authentocrats: Culture, Politics and the New Seriousness
by Joe Kennedy"The Authentocrats" claim to the be the new voice of common sense that speak for the common man and woman; right-wing, traditional and dangerous, Joe Kennedy argues that they are everything but what they purport to be.In contemporary Britain, a lot has been said about what it is that “real people” want politically. Forgotten by elites and sick of globalisation, so the story goes, they demand patriotism, respect for the military, assurances on defence, and controls on immigration. In trying to meet these supposed wishes, politicians attempt to appear normal, salt-of-the-earth, authentic. Authentocrats examines the function of this “authenticity” in a centrist politics which, paradoxically, often defines itself as cosmopolitan, technocratic and opposed to populism. Casting a doubtful eye over – amongst other things – latter-day James Bond films, contemporary nature writing and stand-up comedy, Authentocrats suggests that the sooner we can break with the sententiousness of a skewed conception of authenticity in aesthetics and politics the better.
Author Unknown: The Power of Anonymity in Ancient Rome
by Tom GeueClassical scholarship tends to treat anonymous authorship as a problem or game—a defect to be repaired or mystery to be solved. But anonymity can be a source of meaning unto itself, rather than a gap that needs filling. Tom Geue’s close readings of Latin texts show what the suppression or loss of a name can do for literature.
Author in Chief: The Untold Story of Our Presidents and the Books They Wrote
by Craig Fehrman&“One of the best books on the American presidency to appear in recent years.&” —Thomas Mallon, The Wall Street Journal &“Fun and fascinating…It&’s witty, charming, and fantastically learned. I loved it.&” —Rick Perlstein Based on a decade of research and reporting, Author in Chief tells the story of America&’s presidents as authors—and offers a delightful new window into the public and private lives of our highest leaders. Most Americans are familiar with Abraham Lincoln&’s famous words in the Gettysburg Address and the Emancipation Proclamation. Yet few can name the work that helped him win the presidency: his published collection of speeches entitled Political Debates between Hon. Abraham Lincoln and Hon. Stephen A. Douglas. Lincoln labored in secret to get his book ready for the 1860 election, tracking down newspaper transcripts, editing them carefully for fairness, and hunting for a printer who would meet his specifications. Political Debates sold fifty thousand copies—the rough equivalent of half a million books in today&’s market—and it reveals something about Lincoln&’s presidential ambitions. But it also reveals something about his heart and mind. When voters asked about his beliefs, Lincoln liked to point them to his book. In Craig Fehrman&’s groundbreaking work of history, Author in Chief, the story of America&’s presidents and their books opens a rich new window into presidential biography. From volumes lost to history—Calvin Coolidge&’s Autobiography, which was one of the most widely discussed titles of 1929—to ones we know and love—Barack Obama&’s Dreams from My Father, which was very nearly never published—Fehrman unearths countless insights about the presidents through their literary works. Presidential books have made an enormous impact on American history, catapulting their authors to the national stage and even turning key elections. Beginning with Thomas Jefferson&’s Notes on the State of Virginia, the first presidential book to influence a campaign, and John Adams&’s Autobiography, the first score-settling presidential memoir, Author in Chief draws on newly uncovered information—including never-before-published letters from Andrew Jackson, John F. Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan—to cast fresh light on the private drives and self-doubts that fueled our nation&’s leaders. We see Teddy Roosevelt as a vulnerable first-time author, struggling to write the book that would become a classic of American history. We see Reagan painstakingly revising Where&’s the Rest of Me?, a forgotten memoir in which he sharpened his sunny political image. We see Donald Trump negotiating the deal for The Art of the Deal, the volume that made him synonymous with business savvy. Alongside each of these authors, we also glimpse the everyday Americans who read them. Combining the narrative felicity of a journalist with the rigorous scholarship of a historian, Fehrman delivers a feast for history lovers, book lovers, and everybody curious about a behind-the-scenes look at our presidents.
Author, Reader, Book
by Stephen Partridge Erik KwakkelThe current focus on the theme of authorship in Medieval and Early Modern studies reopens questions of poetic agency and intent. Bringing into conversation several kinds of scholarship on medieval authorship, the essays in Author, Reader, Book examine interrelated questions raised by the relationship between an author and a reader, the relationships between authors and their antecedents, and the ways in which authorship interacts with the physical presentation of texts in books.The broad chronological range within this volume reveals the persistence of literary concerns that remain consistent through different periods, languages, and cultural contexts. Theoretical reflections, case studies from a wide variety of languages, examinations of devotional literature from figures such as Bishop Reginald Pecock, and analyses of works that are more secular in focus, including some by Chaucer and Christine de Pizan, come together in this volume to transcend linguistic and disciplinary boundaries.
Authoring Female Identities in Spanish and Latin American Art and Media
by Fiona Noble Nadia Albaladejo GarcíaThis edited volume places the work of Spanish and Latin American female artists in, between, and across genres, media, spaces, identities, disciplines, and worlds. Its aim is to curate a series of interconnected studies on women artists across diverse media, and to position and redefine our understanding of female authorship. This is a timely intervention both in and beyond the fields of Hispanic Studies and Film and Cultural Studies, given the continued lack of visibility and persistent inequities experienced by individuals who identify as women.
Authoring the Past: History, Autobiography, and Politics in Medieval Catalonia
by Jaume AurellAuthoring the Past surveys medieval Catalan historiography, shedding light on the emergence and evolution of historical writing and autobiography in the Middle Ages, on questions of authority and authorship, and on the links between history and politics during the period. Jaume Aurell examines texts from the late twelfth to the late fourteenth century--including the Latin Gesta comitum Barcinonensium and four texts in medieval Catalan: James I's Llibre dels fets, the Crònica of Bernat Desclot, the Crònica of Ramon Muntaner, and the Crònica of Peter the Ceremonious--and outlines the different motivations for the writing of each. For Aurell, these chronicles are not mere archaeological artifacts but rather documents that speak to their writers' specific contemporary social and political purposes. He argues that these Catalonian counts and Aragonese kings were attempting to use their role as authors to legitimize their monarchical status, their growing political and economic power, and their aggressive expansionist policies in the Mediterranean. By analyzing these texts alongside one another, Aurell demonstrates the shifting contexts in which chronicles were conceived, written, and read throughout the Middle Ages. The first study of its kind to make medieval Catalonian writings available to English-speaking audiences, Authoring the Past will be of interest to scholars of history and comparative literature, students of Hispanic and Romance medieval studies, and medievalists who study the chronicle tradition in other languages.
Authoring the Past: History, Autobiography, and Politics in Medieval Catalonia
by Jaume AurellAuthoring the Past surveys medieval Catalan historiography, shedding light on the emergence and evolution of historical writing and autobiography in the Middle Ages, on questions of authority and authorship, and on the links between history and politics during the period. Jaume Aurell examines texts from the late twelfth to the late fourteenth century—including the Latin Gesta comitum Barcinonensium and four texts in medieval Catalan: James I’s Llibre dels fets, the Crònica of Bernat Desclot, the Crònica of Ramon Muntaner, and the Crònica of Peter the Ceremonious—and outlines the different motivations for the writing of each. For Aurell, these chronicles are not mere archaeological artifacts but rather documents that speak to their writers’ specific contemporary social and political purposes. He argues that these Catalonian counts and Aragonese kings were attempting to use their role as authors to legitimize their monarchical status, their growing political and economic power, and their aggressive expansionist policies in the Mediterranean. By analyzing these texts alongside one another, Aurell demonstrates the shifting contexts in which chronicles were conceived, written, and read throughout the Middle Ages.The first study of its kind to make medieval Catalonian writings available to English-speaking audiences, Authoring the Past will be of interest to scholars of history and comparative literature, students of Hispanic and Romance medieval studies, and medievalists who study the chronicle tradition in other languages.