The Atlantic monthly, 1857-1909

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Mark Stephen Jendrysik

As we search for greater understanding of the origins of liberalism, religious toleration, and modern democratic thought, Mark Jendrysik's timely work examines the political and religious ideals that buttressed the first 'modern' revolution. Explaining the English Revolution studies the years 1649 to 1653, from regicide to the establishment of the Cromwellian Commonwealth, during which time English writers "took stock" of a disordered England stripped of the traditional ideas of political, moral, and social order and considered the possibilities for a politically and religiously reordered state. Jendrysik provides--through a rich comparative analysis of the work of Thomas Hobbes and his contemporaries Filmer, Winstanley, Cromwell, and Milton--a new understanding of the Civil War-era intelligentsia's assessment of the crisis in the body politic and their varied prescriptions and plans for a new post-revolutionary England.

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Jason Tomes

This is a study of the foreign policy views of Arthur James Balfour (1848-1930), British Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary, which examines his understanding of foreign relations, his perception of contemporary foreign and Imperial affairs, and his prescriptions for British policy. The book spans international thought, diplomatic history, and biography. Theory is, however, not divorced from practice, still less practice from people. In elucidating Balfour's mind, the author touches on most of the major issues of four decades of international history and some fundamental questions of international relations. Little attention has been paid hitherto to Balfour's political thought, but here he is shown as an intellectual with a deep and coherent philosophy, which led him to emphasise the importance of Anglo-American partnership in world affairs.

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Richard Mullin

"Much has been written about the activity of Lenin and his colleagues on the editorial board of the Iskra newspaper, whereas little has been said about the opponents of Leninism, who unsuccessfully fought for control of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party during the Iskra period. To redress the balance, Richard Mullin has translated 25 documents from this period, most of which express an anti-Lenin view. They include articles from Rabochee Delo, the Jewish Bund's Poslednie Izvestiia and the post-Lenin Iskra, pamphlets by Plekhanov and Martov, the resolutions of Party meetings and some very revealing private correspondence. However, the result is not an anti-Bolshevik polemic: through these documents a clearer, and curiously flattering picture of Lenin's thought and activity is obtained"--Provided by publisher.

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Stephen George

The role of individual states within the European Community is one of the most important and least studied areas of European politics. The contributors to this collection apply a 'domestic politics' approach to European affairs in an attempt to shed light on the bases of British policy in the European Community. They identify and pursue three major themes: the attempts of central government to act as a gatekeeper between the British political system and the EC to protect British sovereignty; the emergence of varying speeds of adaptation to membership in different sections of government and politics; and Britain's apparent 'semi-detachment' from the mainstream of European integration. Within this framework they examine the ways in which central departments of state, local government, parliament, interest groups, political parties, and public opinion all have influence on policy.