The prominent historian Karl Bosl, who during World War II had been a high school teacher in Ansbach, Franconia, intimated that he had been critical of the Nazis and asserted that he had belonged to a small group that engaged in active resistance; one of its members, Robert Limpert, was apprehended by the Nazis and brutally put to death just hours before the Americans arrived. The present study, based on a large number of unpublished official and private documents, records Bosl’s manifold links to the Nazi regime and reveals that as late as December 1944 he delivered a stirring lecture before Ansbach’s Nazi leadership in which he extolled the struggle for the preservation of Hitler’s Greater German Reich; yet as early as September 1945 he vigorously condemned Nazism at a ceremony at Limpert’s grave. The documents attest also to how Bosl succeeded in persuading Ansbach’s Denazification Tribunal that he had risked his life opposing the Nazis. An unpublished account allows for a detailed reconstruction of the daring, little-known activities of young Limpert and his three classmates.

Giving gifts for its merits and expression in the different periods can create friendship and closeness, or alternatively lead to quarrels and discord. The gift is sometimes a voluntary action and sometimes fulfilling an obligation. Some of it is in terms of giving a bribe and some of it is an expression of gratitude. Many times, it paves the way for social advancement or political engagement. The giving of the gifts was accompanied by significant etiquette and created special patterns. How can we differentiate between a gift and a bribe? What is the place of gifts in alliances and conflicts in society and in the family? How do they affect economic relations, politics and religion? These questions are important for understanding past and present social relations, and they are at the heart of this book. The Gift in Sixteenth-Century France offers a new way of understanding the subject of gifts, which took a permanent place in social relations throughout the various periods. The book examines the ways and meanings of gift exchange in French society in the sixteenth century, from the generosity of kings to the beggar's contribution. This fascinating book proves that examining the meaning of gifts can help us understand not only the social relationships in the past but also how to behave pleasantly with others nowadays.

This book presents seventeen analytic art historical studies of the various meanings of laterality in pictures, drawings, and prints as well as reliefs and sculptures. The discussion describes the effects of the spontaneous projection upon an artistic composition of the human experience of laterality and refers also to the beholder's habit of directional reading. The survey of the works of art ranges from the Late Antique murals of Dura Europos and religious imagery of the Middle Ages to the works of great Renaissance masters such as Giotto, Piero della Francesca, Leonardo, Raphael and Michelangelo as well as those of the Mannerists painters; two chapters on the graphic work of Albrechr Durer and of Rembrandt are followed by a study of some seldom considered aspects of the paintings of Ingres; contemporary art is represented by the expressionist works of Soutine, a selection of Italian Futurist paintings and some of the most representative works by Piet Mondrian. Referring to the iconographical traditions of the various subjects as well as the cultural and psychological backgrounds of each artist the author offers fresh insights into the works meaning.

Terres promises? Terre promise? Entre ce pluriel et ce singulier se situe l’enjeu du présent numéro de Perspectives . La Terre promise serait-elle une terre rêvée parmi d’autres? Une Terre unique parmi les nations? Pour les nations? Ces questions qui ont préoccupé plus d’un penseur se posent tout au long de ces pages, qu’il s’agisse de reconsidérer la notion de Terre promise ou de la retrouver dans la vision de Théodore Herzl ou plus largement de la rattacher aux rapports qu’entretiennent souvent le rêve et la réalité.

"History, Rhetoric, Proof... the idea that historians need or can prove something is, in the eyes of many, an idea that has lost its necessity, and is perhaps even downright ridiculous. However, even those who feel uncomfortable in the face of the prevailing intellectual atmosphere, almost always believe that rhetoric and proof are not consistent. I, on the other hand, wish to show, first, that proof was considered an inseparable part of rhetoric in the past. Second, that this fact, which was self-evident in the past, and has been forgotten in the meantime, alludes to an image of the working methods of historians, including contemporary historians, which is much more realistic and complex than that reflected in contemporary fashion." With these words, Carlo Ginzburg, one of the most innovative historians of our generation, opens his fascinating essay on the relationship between rhetoric and history. While looking originally at a wide variety of texts belonging to different periods, cultures and types, Ginzburg seeks to show that rhetoric, if the compromise is understood correctly, concerns not only the style of the historian, but a garden for his pursuit of proof and historical truth.

The Nation in History describes the main historiographical controversies about the place of the nation in history, and presents in greater detail the advantages of the ethnic-symbolic approach, of which Smith is one of the prominent representatives. For thirty years and more, Anthony Smith has been considered one of the central theorists in the study of nationalism. One by one, he published an impressive series of books that are considered landmarks in understanding the phenomenon of nations and ethnicities. His research work excels both in conceptual sharpness and theoretical sophistication as well as in extensive historical knowledge and understanding. His writing is characterized by a consistent search for the connection between pre-modern ethnicity and the nationalism that came after it, and a tireless pursuit of a unifying theory or an agreed-upon paradigm that would encompass most of the problems and issues included in nationalism. In his book The Nation in History , some of his guiding ideas on these topics matured and reached the point of formation.

When Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837, Britain was home to only 30,000 Jews and they did not yet have full political rights. By the end of the century their numbers had increased about sevenfold, and practising Jews had taken their places in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords. Victoria's reign therefore saw a tremendous change in the profile of Jews within British society. The Victorian period was also one of economic transition for British Jews. While initially in a narrow range of predominantly working-class or marginal occupations with only a small upper-class elite, Jews became increasingly middle-class during these years; they began to enter the professions, and to move from inner London to fashionable suburbs. Increasingly, Britain's Jews were British-born and of British descent, and proclaimed their loyalty to British ideals. From 1881 on, however, the position changed dramatically: a mass of Jewish immigrants arriving from Russia, made conspicuous by their foreign dress, appearance, language, and habits, prompted the emergence of an 'Aliens Question' into the British political arena. The image of Jews changed yet again. All these developments were picked up in the illustrated magazines of the time: the object of a magazine is to interest its readers, and the unfamiliar may be more compelling reading than the commonplace. To illustrate the social history of the Jews in Victorian Britain, the authors therefore combed the Illustrated London News, Punch, and The Graphic and selected nearly 150 illustrations, with commentary, to show how the British image of the Jew developed in this period. The topics considered include early Victorian attitudes to Jews; the leading Jewish families and other prominent Jews; the Jewish way of life; immigrant Jews; Jewish life abroad; and the Jew in art. The book includes an introductory essay by V. D. Lipman, late Director of Ancient Monuments and Historic Buildings for England.