Tag archieven: Amerikaanse historicus

Amerikaanse geschiedenis, Amerikaanse historicus, Amerikaanse politiek, Midden-Oosten

Daniel E. Zoughbie – Kicking the Hornet’s Nest

Daniel E. Zoughbie Kicking the Hornet’s Nest review, recensie en informatie boek over het Amerikaanse buitenlands beleid in het Midden-Oosten van Truman tot Trump. Op 7 oktober 2025 verschijnt bij Simon & Schuster het boek van Daniel E. Zoughbie, de Amerikaanse historicus en schrijver over het Midden-Oostenbeleid van de presidenten van Amerika. Er is geen Nederlandse vertaling van het boek verkrijgbaar.

Daniel E. Zoughbie Kicking the Hornet’s Nest review en recensie

  • “Daniel E. Zoughbie tracks the tensions in foreign policy—the incidentals of urgent personalities and the fundamentals of enduring national interest—between the shallow and the deep. Most importantly, he underscores the need for wisdom and reflection when interfering in the affairs of other nations. I wish I had read his book years ago.” (Mark Allen CMG, former head of MI6 Counter-Terrorism and honorary fellow at St. Antony’s College, Oxford)
  • “This book is a must-read for those wanting to understand the complexities involved in Middle East conflicts and the reasons why our policies have failed.” (General Anthony Zinni, USMC (retired), former commander in chief of CENTCOM, and former US special envoy to Israel and the Palestinian Authority)

Daniel E. Zoughbie Kicking the Hornet's Nest

Kicking the Hornet’s Nest

U.S. Foreign Policy in the Middle East from Truman to Trump

  • Auteur: Daniel E. Zoughbie (Verenigde Staten)
  • Soort boek: Amerikaanse politiek in het Midden-Oosten
  • Taal: Engels
  • Uitgever: Simon & Schuster
  • Verschijnt: 7 oktober 2025
  • Omvang: 432 pagina’s
  • Uitgave: gebonden boek / ebook / luisterboek
  • Prijs: $ 31,00 / $ 16,99 / $ 26,99
  • Boek bestellen bij: Amazon / Bol

Flaptekst boek over buitenlands beleid van Amerikaanse presidenten in het Midden-Oosten

The compelling, groundbreaking investigation of how the choices of twelve US presidents, from Truman to Trump, have fueled turbulence and turmoil in the Middle East. And the one president who chose a better way.

Kicking the Hornet’s Nest is a riveting exploration of how twelve US presidents have shaped the Middle East, often unleashing instability and conflict along the way. It is also the story of one US president who successfully charted a better course. From Truman to Trump, Daniel Zoughbie meticulously unpacks the decisions that have set the stage for today’s unrest. But this book is more than just a history lesson; it’s a sharp analysis of presidential decision-making and its far-reaching consequences.

Today, the Middle East stands as a volatile landscape, more tumultuous than at any time since the fall of the Ottoman Empire. Zoughbie paints a vivid picture of how nearly every major nation-state in the Middle East and North Africa has grappled with existential crises in the recent years, paving the way for terrorist groups to threaten national sovereignty and for local conflicts to destabilize world order.

Drawing on a vast array of primary sources and interviews with world leaders, the narrative explores pressing issues like nuclear proliferation, genocide, and nationalist conflicts fueled by sectarian fervor that have triggered global refugee waves. Kicking the Hornet’s Nest is an eye-opening study of US presidential decision-making and foreign policy. With compassion and insight, Zoughbie reveals the essential information necessary for anyone seeking to understand eight decades of US foreign policy and its profound impact on billions of lives worldwide.

Daniel E. Zoughbie is a complex-systems scientist, a historian, and an expert on presidential decision-making. He is associate project scientist at the Institute of International Studies at UC Berkeley; a faculty affiliate of the UCSF/UCB Center for Global Health Delivery, Diplomacy, and Economics; and a faculty affiliate at the New England Complex Systems Institute in Cambridge. He is also principal investigator of the Middle East and North Africa Diplomacy, Development, and Defense Initiative and author of Indecision Points: George W. Bush and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (MIT Press, 2014). His award-winning research has been published in journals such as PLOS Medicine, PLOS Complex Systems, Mayo Clinic Proceedings, JAIDS, and Social Science and Medicine. Zoughbie has been appointed to positions at Georgetown University, Stanford University, Harvard University, University of Bologna, University College Dublin, University of Athens, and Campus Bio Medico University of Rome. Zoughbie graduated Phi Beta Kappa from UC Berkeley. He studied at Oxford on a Marshall Scholarship and completed his doctorate, also at Oxford, as a Weidenfeld Scholar.

Bijpassende boeken

Amerikaanse historicus, Geschiedenisboeken, Joden, Romeinen

Barry Strauss – Opstand in Judea

Barry Strauss Opstand in Judea recensie en informatie boek over het Joods verzet tegen de Romeinen 63 v.Chr.-136 n.Chr. Op 6 november 2025 verschijnt bij Uitgeverij Omniboek, de Nederlandse vertaling van Jews vs. Rome, het boek van de Amerikaanse historicus Barry Strauss. Hier lees je informatie over de inhoud van het geschiedenisboek, de auteur en over de uitgave.

Barry Strauss Opstand in Judea recensie

  • “Strauss is een meester in het belichten van de sterke persoonlijkheden, de complexe motieven en de onrust tijdens de strijd van Rome om de controle over het Midden-Oosten.” (Adrienne Mayor, Stanford University)
  • “Het jodendom zoals we dat vandaag de dag kennen, is niet het jodendom van de Bijbel – het is het jodendom dat ontstond na de vernietiging van het Tweede Joodse Gemenebest door de Romeinen. Zoals Barry Strauss illustreert in dit meeslepende verslag, werd deze cruciale periode gekenmerkt door conflicterende waarden en visies onder Joden, corruptie van hun religieuze instellingen, onderlinge strijd wanneer ze zich dat het minst konden veroorloven, en nog veel meer dat op griezelige wijze weerklinkt in onze eigen tijd. Dit verbluffende verslag geeft ons een veel dieper begrip van niet alleen het verleden van de Joden, maar ook van hun heden, en misschien zelfs van hun toekomst.” (Daniel Gordis)

Barry Strauss Opstand in Judea

Opstand in Judea

Het Joods verzet tegen de Romeinen 63 v.Chr.-136 n.Chr.

  • Auteur: Barry Strauss (Verenigde Staten)
  • Soort boek: Joodse geschiedenis, Romeinse geschiedenis
  • Origineel: Jews vs. Rome (2025)
  • Nederlandse vertaling: Roelof Posthuma
  • Uitgever: Omniboek
  • Verschijnt: 6 november 2025
  • Omvang: 376 pagina’s
  • Uitgave: paperback
  • Prijs: € 34,99
  • Boek bestellen bij: Boekenwereld / Bol / Libris

Flaptekst van het boek over het Joods verzet tegen de Romeinen

Barry Strauss schetst een indringend beeld van de confrontatie tussen geloof en macht in Opstand in Judea.

In 63 v.Chr. werd Judea met de val van Jeruzalem slachtoffer van de Romeinse expansiedrift. In de twee eeuwen daarna voerde het kleine land, geleid door de Joodse meerderheid, een felle strijd tegen het Romeinse Rijk. Zij toonden zich Romes meest onverzettelijke opstandelingen. Vanuit verzet tegen onderdrukking, vooral op religieus gebied, volgden drie grote opstanden. Rome reageerde telkens met ongekende wreedheid, met als tragische hoogtepunten de verwoesting van de Joodse Tempel, de val van Massada en de ondergang van de Bar Kochba-revolte.

In Opstand in Judea biedt historicus Barry Strauss een nieuwe kijk op deze cruciale periode – gebaseerd op recente archeologische vondsten en de nieuwste wetenschappelijke inzichten – en op de blijvende invloed van deze strijd op het jodendom en de wereldgeschiedenis.

Barry Strauss is geboren op 27 november 1953 in New York City. Hij is hoogleraar geschiedenis aan Cornell University. Hij is historicus, schrijver, columnist en eindredacteur van de boekenreeks ‘The Princeton History of the Ancient World’. Van Augustus tot Constantijn, De geschiedenis van het Romeinse Rijk aan de hand van tien keizers was zijn eerste boek dat in het Nederlands is verschenen.

Bijpassende boeken

Diplomatie, Politiek, Politieke Boeken, Politieke geschiedenis

A. Wess Mitchell – Great Power Diplomacy

A. Wess Mitchell Great Power Diplomacy review, recensie en informatie boek over de vaardigheid van staatsmanschap en diplomatie van Attila de Hun tot Kissinger. Op 14 oktober 2025 verschijnt bij Princeton University Press het boek over de rol van diplomatie, geschreven door A. Wess Mitchell, de Amerikaanse historicus en voormalig diplomaat. Er is geen Nederlandse vertaling van het boek verkrijgbaar.

A. Wess Mitchell Great Power Diplomacy review en recensie

  • “Wess Mitchell’s book continues his fine tradition of writing perceptively and realistically about the confluence of history, diplomacy, and geopolitics.” (Robert D. Kaplan)
  • “Great Power Diplomacy is an indictment, understated but devastating, of the utopian foreign policy pursued by the United States and its allies in the post–Cold War world; an eloquent summons to the study of grand strategy and political, cultural, economic, military, and diplomatic history; and a clarion call for a return to old-fashioned diplomacy aimed at securing the survival and prosperity of one’s own political community. This book is a must-read for those in our foreign policy establishment, and it ought to be on the bedside table of the president of every American college or university that gives short shrift to political, cultural, economic, military and diplomatic history.” (Paul A. Rahe, author of The Grand Strategy of Classical Sparta: The Persian Challenge)
  • “As powers contend with the consequences of today’s era of geopolitical rivalry and face an increasingly dangerous world, Mitchell offers a thoughtful account of the role diplomacy has played across centuries defined by periods of sharper competition. Those seeking insights into the importance of diplomacy in our new era will find much to appreciate in this timely and well-crafted book.” (Walter Russell Mead, author of Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World)

A. Wess Mitchell Great Power Diplomacy

Great Power Diplomacy

The Skill of Statecraft from Attila the Hun to Kissinger

  • Auteur: A. Wess Mitchell (Verenigde Staten)
  • Soort boek: over de diplomatie
  • Taal: Engels
  • Uitgever: Princeton University Press
  • Verschijnt: 14 oktober 2025
  • Omvang; 352 pagina’s
  • Uitgave: gebonden boek / ebook
  • Prijs: $ 35,00
  • Boek bestellen bij: Amazon / Bol

Flaptekst boek over de rol van diplomatie van A. Wess Mitchell

A captivating history of diplomacy—and an urgent reminder of why we need to revive its lost arts to survive in a dangerous era of great power competition.

From the beginning of time, human societies have found themselves confronted by enemies too numerous or ferocious to defeat solely by force of arms. In these dramatic moments, wise leaders have turned to diplomacy to rearrange the gameboard in their favor and stymie seemingly unstoppable foes. In Great Power Diplomacy, American historian and diplomat A. Wess Mitchell recounts the forgotten story of how history’s most legendary empires have used diplomacy as a tool of grand strategy to outwit, outmaneuver, and outlast militarily superior opponents.

Through fifteen centuries of history, Great Power Diplomacy recreates the perilous junctures, colorful personalities, and intricate statecraft that led to some of history’s most stunning diplomatic achievements—and greatest disasters. The protagonists include giants like Richelieu, Metternich, Bismarck, and Kissinger, but also a lesser-known cast of scoundrels, eunuchs, drunkards, and fools. At every turn, fortune favored those great powers with the foresight and dexterity to build winning alliances, splinter enemy coalitions, and, when necessary, make peace with their bitterest foes.

Diplomacy of this kind has become a lost art in recent years as Western elites embraced the illusion that globalization and the spread of democracy would create a borderless world where nations would live in harmony and war would be abolished from the human story. But, as Great Power Diplomacy reveals, we will need to rediscover the secrets of skillful statecraft as the world enters an unstable new era in which continent-sized great powers compete for territory, resources, and prestige. By recalling diplomacy’s rich past, we can equip ourselves for a more dangerous future.

Bijpassende boeken

Amerikaanse geschiedenis, Amerikaanse historicus

David McCullough – History Matters

David McCullough History Matters review, recensie en informatie boek met historische essays over de geschiedenis van de Verenigde Staten. Op 16 september 2025 verschijnt bij Simon & Schuster het laatste boek van David McCullough, de in 2022 overleden gezaghebbende Amerikaanse historicus en schrijver. Er is geen Nederlandse vertaling van het boek verkrijgbaar.

David McCullough History Matters review en recensie

Als er in de media een boekbespreking, recensie of review verschijnt van History Matters, het laatste boek van David McCullough, dan besteden we er op deze pagina aandacht aan.

David McCullough History Matters

History Matters

  • Auteur: David McCullough (Verenigde Staten)
  • Soort boek: Amerikaanse geschiedenis
  • Taal: Engels
  • Uitgever: Simon & Schuster
  • Verschijnt: 16 september 2025
  • Omvang: 192 pagina’s
  • Uitgave: gebonden boek / ebook /
  • Prijs: $ 27.00 / $ 12,99 / $ 18.99
  • Boek bestellen bij: Amazon / Bol / Libris

Flaptekst van het laatste boek van de Amerikaanse historicus David McCullough

In this posthumous collection of thought-provoking essays—many never published before—Pulitzer Prize–winning historian and bestselling author David McCullough affirms the value of history, how we can be guided by its lessons, and the enduring legacy of American ideals.

History Matters brings together selected essays by beloved historian David McCullough, some published here for the first time, written at different points over the course of his long career but all focused on the subject of his lifelong passion: the importance of history in understanding our present and future. Edited by McCullough’s daughter, Dorie McCullough Lawson, and his longtime researcher, Michael Hill, History Matters is a tribute to a master historian and offers fresh insights into McCullough’s enduring interests and writing life. The book also features a foreword by Jon Meacham.

McCullough highlights the importance of character in political leaders, with Harry Truman and George Washington serving as exemplars of American values like optimism and determination. He shares his early influences, from the books he cherished in his youth to the people who mentored him. He also pays homage to those who inspired him, such as writer Paul Horgan and painter Thomas Eakins, illustrating the diverse influences on his writing as well as the influence of art.

Rich with McCullough’s signature grace, curiosity, and narrative gifts, these essays offer vital lessons in viewing history through the eyes of its participants, a perspective that McCullough believed was crucial to understanding the present as well as the past. History Matters is testament to McCullough’s legacy as one of the great storytellers of this nation’s history and of the lasting promise of American ideals.

David McCullough was born on 7 July 1933 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He twice received the Pulitzer Prize, for Truman and John Adams, and twice received the National Book Award, for The Path Between the Seas and Mornings on Horseback. His other acclaimed books include The Johnstown Flood, The Great Bridge, Brave Companions, 1776, The Greater Journey, The American Spirit, The Wright Brothers, and The Pioneers. He was the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award. He died on 7 August 2022 in Hingham, Massachusetts, at the age of 89.

Bijpassende boeken

Amerikaanse historicus, Geschiedenisboeken, Romeinen

Kim Bowes – Surviving Rome

Kim Bowes Surviving Rome review, recensie en informatie boek over het economische leven van negentig procent van de Romeinen. Op 4 november 2025 verschijnt bij Princeton University Press het boek van Kim Bowes, hoogleraar archeologie en oude geschiedenis aan de Universiteit van Pennsylvania, over de gewone Romein. Er is geen Nederlandse vertaling van het boek verkrijgbaar.

Kim Bowes Surviving Rome review en recensie

  • “Finally, someone has written an economic history of Rome for the twenty-first century! In Surviving Rome, Kim Bowes does no less than challenge the whole field of ancient economic history, presenting us with a summons to think more empathetically about how ordinary Romans hustled, borrowed, and scraped to get by. She answers her own call with a radically new but highly current account of the Roman economy. This is a firecracker of a book, deeply researched and marvelously written, and I could not recommend it more.” (Seth Bernard, author of Building Mid-Republican Rome: Labor, Architecture, and the Urban Economy)
  • “Surviving Rome explores the stress and strains, precarities and strategies of the people—the ordinary men, women, and children, enslaved and free—who shaped the world’s first ‘global’ economy. This is a brilliantly insightful microeconomic history that brings working people and their practices back into the Roman economy. Everyone interested in premodern economies should read this deeply perceptive and engagingly written book.” (Claire Taylor, author of Poverty, Wealth, and Well-Being)

Kim Bowes Surviving Rome

Surviving Rome

The Economic Lives of the Ninety Percent

  • Auteur: Kim Bowes (Verenigde Staten)
  • Soort boek: Amerikaanse geschiedenis
  • Taal: Engels
  • Uitgever: Princeton University Press
  • Verschijnt: 4 november 2025
  • Omvang: 512 pagina’s
  • Uitgave: gebonden boek / ebook
  • Prijs: $ 39,95
  • Boek bestellen bij: Amazon / Bol / Libris

Flaptekst van het boek van Kim Bowes over de gewone Romein

A radical revision—and worker’s-eye view—of everything we thought we knew about the ancient Roman economy.

The story of ancient Rome is predominantly one of great men with great fortunes. Surviving Rome unearths another history, one of ordinary Romans, who worked with their hands and survived through a combination of grit and grinding labor.

Focusing on the working majority, Kim Bowes tells the stories of people like the tenant farmer Epimachus, Faustilla the moneylender, and the pimp Philokles. She reveals how the economic changes of the period created a set of bitter challenges and opportunistic hustles for everyone from farmers and craftspeople to day laborers and slaves. She finds working people producing a consumer revolution, making and buying all manner of goods from fine pottery to children’s toys. Many of the poorest working people probably pieced together a living from multiple sources of income, including wages. And she suggests that Romans’ most daunting challenge was the struggle to save. Like many modern people, saving enough to buy land or start a business was a slow, precarious slog. Bowes shows how these economies of survival were shared by a wide swath of the populace, blurring the lines between genders, ages, and legal status.

Drawing on new archaeological and textual evidence, Surviving Rome presents a radical new perspective on the economy of ancient Rome while speaking to the challenges of today’s laborers and gig workers surviving in an unforgiving global world.

Bijpassende boeken

Amerikaanse geschiedenis, Amerikaanse historicus, Geschiedenisboeken, Slavernij

David McNally – Slavery and Capitalism

David McNally Slavery and Capitalism review, recensie en informatie boek met een nieuwe Marxistisch geschiedenis van de slavernij. Op 2 september 2025 verschijnt bij University of California Press het boek van David McNally, Professor of History and Business aan de University of Houston. Er is geen Nederlandse vertaling van het boek verkrijgbaar.

David McNally Slavery and Capitalism review en recensie

  • “What a remarkable book. Grown from the theoretical soil of C.L.R. James, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Sylvia Wynter, Slavery and Capitalism nourishes readers with example after thrilling example of how to think dialectically. McNally’s archival evidence tells stories he uses to make a compelling, cumulative argument about class composition centered on the chattel proletariat. Suggesting critical elements of internationalism, the book invites methodological extension and substantive debate to connect his cases to the vast South Atlantic world where most enslaved people lived, worked, and fought. Fresh historical understanding of past social reality can refocus contemporary political analysis of racial capitalism. McNally sharpens dynamic awareness of highly differentiated sectors and regions of value production and social reproduction—the overlapping and interlocking realities where people self-consciously make freedom by remaking place.” (Ruth Wilson Gilmore, author of Abolition Geography)
  • “David McNally’s deft application of Marx’s theory and method not only unearths the hidden dynamics of slavery’s political economy but radically broadens our understanding of modern capitalism and its class struggles. The result: a new history of slavery that centers the enslaved—the chattel proletariat—not as ‘constant capital’ or fungible cogs in the machine but as its gravediggers.” (Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class)

David McNally Slavery and Capitalism

Slavery and Capitalism

A New Marxist Theory

  • Auteur: David McNally (Verenigde Staten)
  • Soort boek: slavernijgeschiedenis
  • Taal: Engels
  • Uitgever: University of California Press
  • Verschijnt: 2 september 2025
  • Omvang: 368 pagina’s
  • Uitgave: gebonden boek / ebook
  • Prijs: $ 32,95
  • Boek bestellen bij: Amazon / Bol / Libris

Flaptekst van het boek van David McNally over slavernij en kapitalisme

The first systematic Marxist account of the capitalist character of Atlantic slavery.

Karl Marx’s writings on enslavement and labor have fallen out of favor among historians, but David McNally injects new life into them. Slavery and Capitalism gives the first systematic Marxist account of the capitalist character of Atlantic slavery—using colonial travel literature, planter records and diaries, and slave narratives—to support the provocative claim for enslaved labor in the plantation system as capitalist commodity production.

Weaving together history, political economy, and radical abolitionism, McNally demonstrates that plantation slaves formed a modern working class. Unlike those scholars who insist that enslaved people were too sensible to set their sights on liberty, he highlights the self-activity of enslaved people fighting for their freedom and reframes their resistance as labor struggles over production and reproduction, with significant implications for US and Atlantic history and for understanding the roots of racial capitalism.

David McNally is Cullen Distinguished Professor of History and Business at the University of Houston, where he directs the Project on Race and Capitalism. He is the author of seven previous books and more than sixty scholarly articles.

Bijpassende boeken

Amerikaanse historicus, Geschiedenisboeken, Taiwan

Evan N. Dawley – Taiwan A People’s History

Evan N. Dawley Taiwan A People’s History review, recensie en informatie boek over de geschiedenis van het land en de Taiwanezen. Op 1 maart 2026 verschijnt bij Reaktion Books het boek over de Taiwanese geschiedenis, geschreven door Evan N. Dawley, hoogleraar geschiedenis aan het Coucher College in Maryland. Er is geen Nederlandse vertaling van het boek verkrijgbaar.

Evan N. Dawley Taiwan A People’s History review en recensie

Als er in de media een boekbespreking, recensie of review verschijnt van Taiwan, A People’s History, geschreven door Evan N. Dawley, dan besteden we er op deze pagina aandacht aan.

Evan N. Dawley Taiwan A People's History

Taiwan

A People’s History

  • Auteur: Evan N. Dawley (Verenigde Staten)
  • Soort boek: geschiedenis van Taiwan
  • Taal: Engels
  • Uitgever: Reaktion Books
  • Verschijnt: 1 maart 2026
  • Omvang: 312 pagina’s
  • Uitgave: gebonden boek
  • Prijs: £ 20,00
  • Boek bestellen bij: Amazon / Bol

Flaptekst van het boek van Evan N. Dawley over de geschiedenis van Taiwan

Taiwan’s story told through its people – their origins, struggles and transformations.

While most English-language histories of Taiwan focus on its geopolitical role, this history centres on the people of Taiwan themselves and explores how they have formed a unique polity, telling the story of the Indigenous Taiwanese, the Hoklo and Hakka who came from China before the twentieth century, Japanese colonialism and the Chinese who arrived after 1945.

Historian Evan N. Dawley describes how successive waves of immigration changed Taiwan and how these diverse groups of Indigenous tribes and settlers interacted economically and culturally, creating new Taiwanese identities in the process. Over the last century Taiwan has developed from an authoritarian state to one of the world’s most vibrant democracies and advanced economies, a successful independent society, albeit one whose existence remains under a shadow.

Evan N. Dawley is Associate Professor of History at Goucher College, Maryland. He is the author of Becoming Taiwanese: Ethnogenesis in a Colonial City, 1880s–1950s (2019).

Bijpassende boeken en informatie

Amerikaanse historicus, Arabische geschiedenis, Geschiedenisboeken

Michael Cook – A History of the Muslim World

Michael Cook A History of the Muslim World review, recensie en informatie boek over de geschiedenis van de Islam. Op 28 oktober 2025 verschijnt bij Princeton University Press het boek van de Professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University. Er is geen Nederlandse vertaling van het boek verkrijgbaar.

Michael Cook A History of the Muslim World review en recensie

  • “Michael Cook has written a masterpiece that will inform and inspire generations of readers. Seldom has the history of the Muslim world been told so well.” (Roy P. Mottahedeh, Harvard University)
  • “Glorious … Necessarily a dense work, it is also delightful in its sheer scope and variety. This is especially true in a writer as witty as Cook, who sustains a breezy, Socratic style throughout … The payoff for writing a book this ambitious and successful is that, for anyone interested in the history of Islam, Cook is now a must-read.” (Andrew Bernard, Washington Examiner)
  • “A fascinating work. It is written in a lucid and witty style that always tempts you to carry on reading to the bottom of the page, and then to turn over to the next one.” (John McHugo, interLib)

Michael Cook A History of the Muslim World

A History of the Muslim World

From Its Origins to the Dawn of Modernity

  • Auteur: Michael Cook (Verenigde Staten)
  • Soort boek: geschiedenis van de moslimwereld
  • Taal: Engels
  • Uitgever: Princeton University Press
  • Verschijnt: 28 oktober 2025
  • Omvang: 960 pagina’s
  • Uitgave: paperback / ebook
  • Prijs: $ 27.95
  • Boek bestellen bij: Amazon / Bol

Flaptekst van het boek over de geschiedenis van de moslimwereld

This book describes and explains the major events, personalities, conflicts, and convergences that have shaped the history of the Muslim world. The body of the book takes readers from the origins of Islam to the eve of the nineteenth century, and an epilogue continues the story to the present day. Michael Cook thus provides a broad history of a civilization remarkable for both its unity and diversity.

After setting the scene in the Middle East of late antiquity, the book depicts the rise of Islam as one of the great black swan events of history. It continues with the spectacular rise of the Caliphate, an empire that by the time it broke up had nurtured the formation of a new civilization. It then goes on to cover the diverse histories of all the major regions of the Muslim world, providing a wide-ranging account of the key military, political, and cultural developments that accompanied the eastward and westward spread of Islam from the Middle East to the shores of the Atlantic and the Pacific.

At the same time, A History of the Muslim World contains numerous primary-source quotations that expose the reader to a variety of acutely insightful voices from the Muslim past.

Michael Cook is the Class of 1943 University Professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University. His books include Ancient Religions, Modern Politics: The Islamic Case in Comparative Perspective (Princeton), A Brief History of the Human Race, and The Koran: A Very Short Introduction.

Bijpassende boeken

Amerikaanse historicus, Geschiedenisboeken, Joden, Romeinen

Barry Strauss – Jews vs. Rome

Barry Strauss Jews vs. Rome review, recensie en informatie Engelstalig boek over twee eeuwen opstand tegen het machtigste rijk ter wereld. Op 19 augustus 2025 verschijnt bij Simon & Schuster het nieuwe boek van Barry Strauss, de Amerikaanse historicus die is gespecialiseerd in de militaire geschiedenis van de oudheid. Bij Uitgeverij Omniboek verschijnt begin november 2025 de Nederlandse vertaling van het boek verschijnen met als titel Opstand in Judea.

Barry Strauss Jews vs. Rome review en recensie

  • “Historian Strauss hits another home run with this thorough account of the tumultuous relations between Rome and its most contentious subjects, the Jews, in ancient times … There is no better history of this important but little-known subject.” (Library Journal)
  • “Judaism as we know it today is not the Judaism of the Bible–it is the Judaism that emerged from the destruction of the Second Jewish Commonwealth at the hands of the Romans. As Barry Strauss illustrates in this riveting account, this pivotal period was defined by conflicting values and visions among Jews, corruption of their religious institutions, infighting when they could least afford it and much more that our own time eerily echoes. This stunning account leaves us with a much deeper understanding of not only the Jews’ past, but their present as well, and perhaps even their future.” (Daniel Gordis)

Jews vs. Rome

Two Centuries of Rebellion Against the World’s Mightiest Empire

  • Auteur: Barry Strauss (Verenigde Staten)
  • Soort boek: Joodse geschiedenis, Romeinse geschiedenis
  • Taal: Engels
  • Uitgever: Simon & Schuster
  • Verschijnt: 19 augustus 2025
  • Omvang: 394 pagina’s
  • Uitgave: gebonden boek / ebook / luisterboek
  • Prijs: $ 29,99 / $ 14,99 / $ 29,99
  • Boek bestellen bij: Amazon / Bol / Libris

Flaptekst van het boek Barry Strauss over het Joodse verzet tegen de Romeinen

A new history of two centuries of Jewish revolts against the Roman Empire, drawing on recent archeological discoveries and new scholarship by leading historian Barry Strauss.

Jews vs. Rome is a gripping account of one of the most momentous eras in human history: the two hundred years of ancient Israel’s battles against Rome that reshaped Judaism and gave rise to Christianity. Barry Strauss vividly captures the drama of this era, highlighting the courageous yet tragic uprisings, the geopolitical clash between the empires of Rome and Persia, and the internal conflicts among Jews.

Between 63 BCE and 136 CE, the Jewish people launched several revolts driven by deep-seated religious beliefs and resentment towards Roman rule. Judea, a province on Rome’s eastern fringe, became a focal point of tension and rebellion. Jews vs. Rome recounts the three major uprisings: the Great Revolt of 66–70 CE, which led to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, culminating in the Siege of Masada, where defenders chose mass suicide over surrender; the Diaspora Revolt, ignited by heavy taxes across the Empire; and the Bar Kokhba Revolt. We meet pivotal figures such as Simon Bar Kokhba but also some of those lesser-known women of the era like Berenice, a Jewish princess who played a major role in the politics of the Great Revolt and was improbably the love of Titus—Rome’s future emperor and the man who destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple.

Today, echoes of those battles resonate as the Jewish nation faces new challenges and conflicts. Jews vs. Rome offers a captivating narrative that connects the past with the present, appealing to anyone interested in Rome, Jewish history, or the compelling true tales of resilience and resistance.

Bij Uitgeverij Omniboek verschijnt begin november 2025 de Nederlandse vertaling van het boek verschijnen met als titel Opstand in Judea.

Barry Strauss is born 27 November 1953 in New York City. He is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, the Bryce and Edith M. Bowmar Professor in Humanistic Studies Emeritus at Cornell University, and a leading expert on ancient military history. He has written or edited several books, including The War That Made the Roman Empire, The Battle of Salamis, The Trojan War, The Spartacus War, Masters of Command, The Death of Caesar, and Ten Caesars.

Een aantal van de boeken van Barry Strauss over de Romeinse en Griekse geschiedenis is in Nederlandse vertaling uitgegeven.

Bijpassende boeken

Geschiedenisboeken, Rusland, Sovjet-Unie

Tricia Starks – Cigarettes and Soviets

Tricia Starks Cigarettes and Soviets review, recensie en informatie boek over roken in de Sovjet-Unie. Op 15 december 2025 verschijnt bij Cornell University Press het boek van de Amerikaanse historicus Tricia Starks. Er is geen Nederlandse vertaling van het boek verkrijgbaar.

Tricia Starks Cigarettes and Soviets review en recensie

  • “Cigarettes and Soviets makes important contributions to recent work on the global history of tobacco use, along with adding to our understanding of socialist consumption and everyday life. Most delightfully, Starks’s book demonstrates a keen understanding of Soviet visual culture in all its unex- pected and paradoxical dimensions, and her beautiful prose evokes the sights and smells of ordinary places in the USSR.” (Russian Review)
  • “Tricia Starks tells the story of tobacco and smoking during the Soviet period. But perhaps it is more accurate to say that she tells part of the history of the Soviet Union through the prism of smoking.” (Moscow Times)

Tricia Starks Cigarettes and Soviets

Cigarettes and Soviets

Smoking in the USSR

  • Auteur: Tricia Starks (Verenigde Staten)
  • Soort boek: Sovjetgeschiedenis
  • Taal: Engels
  • Uitgever: Cornell University Press
  • Verschijnt 15 december 2025
  • Omvang: 324 pagina’s
  • Uitgave: paperback / ebook
  • Prijs: $ 32.95
  • Boek bestellen bij: Amazon / Bol / Libris

Flaptekst boek van Tricia Starks over roken in de Sovjet-Unie

Enriched by color reproductions of tobacco advertisements, packs, and antismoking propaganda, Cigarettes and Soviets provides a comprehensive study of the Soviet tobacco habit. Tricia Starks examines how the Soviets maintained the first mass smoking society in the world while simultaneously fighting it. The book is at once a study of Soviet tobacco deeply enmeshed in its social, political, and cultural context and an exploration of the global experience of the tobacco epidemic.

Starks examines the Soviet antipathy to tobacco yet capitulation to market; the development of innovative cessation techniques and clinics and the late entry into global antitobacco work; the seeming lack of cultural stimuli alongside massive use; and the expansion of smoking without the conventional prompts of capitalist markets. She tells the story of Philip Morris’s “Mission to Moscow” campaign for the Soviet market, the triumph of the quintessential capitalist product—the cigarette—in a communist system, and the successes and failures of the world’s first national antismoking campaign. The interplay of male habits and health against largely female tobacco producers and medical professionals adds a gendered dimension.

Smoking developed, continued, and grew in the Soviet Union without mass production, intensive advertising, seductive industrial design, or product ubiquity. The Soviets were early to condemn tobacco, and yet, by the end of the twentieth century Russians smoked more heavily than most most other nations in the world. Cigarettes and Soviets challenges interpretations of how tobacco use rose in the past and what leads to mass use today.

Tricia Starks is Director of the Humanities Center and Professor of History at the University of Arkansas. She is also the author of  Smoking under the Tsars.

Bijpassende boeken