When did Russia become “modern?” Historians of Russia – including even many Russian historians – have long tried to identify Russia’s “modern” moment. While most scholars have looked to economic or ideological transitions, noted historian and critic Paul du Quenoy approaches the problem through culture, and specifically the performing arts, as told through the prism of one of its leading nineteenth-century practitioners, the composer and critic Alexander Serov.

Translator:
Arch Tait, Ph.D.

In this visionary book, Michael O’Neill contends that literary fiction may enable individuals to transcend tribe-centered biases by fostering empathetic understanding. Drawing from a wealth of neuroscience research, it investigates how relatable and emotionally resonant characters can encourage readers to identify with others whose lives are markedly different from their own.

Twenty years after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, we can now see that the War on Terror profoundly affected Western self-understanding and the secular liberal image it sought to project onto a global canvas at what was widely assumed to be the end of history. The dramatic change in awareness that 9/11 brought about was particularly vivid, this book maintains, in the media that sustained and displayed the West’s self-image.

Born in 1853, Jared Flagg was the black sheep of an illustrious New York family. His father, Jared Bradley Flagg, was a noted portraitist and Episcopalian minister who served as Rector of Grace Church, in Brooklyn Heights. His older brothers were prominent, Paris-trained artists. A younger brother became a famous architect, while another went on to found a major Wall Street brokerage.

In the bleak and bitter cold of a copper mine in northern Japan, U.S. Marine Sergeant Major Charles Jackson was allowed to send a postcard his wife. He was allowed ten words—he used three: “I AM ALIVE!” This message, classic in its poignancy of suffering and despair captures only too well what it meant to be a Japanese prisoner-of-war in World War II.

Orthodox Christianity is one of the world’s major religions, and the Russian Orthodox Church is by far its largest denomination. Few know its history and spiritual richness, however. Neil Kent’s comprehensive new book fills that gap. The Russian Orthodox Church’s Eastern roots, including its dogma, canons, and practices, are explored, along with the political and military contexts in which it carried out its mission over the centuries.

In May 1945, as World War II drew to a close in Europe, some 30,000 Russian Cossacks surrendered to British forces in Austria, believing they would be spared repatriation to the Soviet Union. The fate of those among them who were Soviet citizens had been sealed by the Yalta Agreement, signed by the Allied leaders a few months earlier.

In this intrepid study, noted Nigerian historian Onianwa Oluchukwu Ignatus investigates the air war component of the Nigerian-Biafran War, a crucial postcolonial conflict in Africa. It focuses on the Biafra’s air operations against oil installations and facilities owned by multinational oil companies in Nigeria. In addition to exploring global airpower historiography, this study explores the tactical aspects of how the renewed air war changed the military equation of the conflict when both sides were at loggerheads in peace settlement and relief arrangements.

A History of International Oil Politics is both an argument for multi-theoretical pluralism and a proposal for a theory-synergetic approach in international relations. Murad Gassanly, a distinguished international relations scholar and rising British politician, explores how international relations paradigms could be utilized in approaching the vital field of international oil politics, specifically historical issues of international energy politics and comparative case studies of energy transmission networks – the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Pipeline and the Southern Gas Corridor.