The great war that never was — 1871–1914
Abstract I.F. Clarke concludes his two-part study of the forecasts of future warfare in the half-century before the outbreak of World War I. He argues that the experts failed to foresee trench warfare and the long stalemate on the Western Front, precisely because they were experts, and that the devastating effects of the new military technologies ended the old-style belief in the uninterrupted forward march of mankind.
‘Civilian experts’ and Russian defence thinking: The renewed relevance of Jan Bloch
The recent trend towards using civilian expertise in military matters has an historical precedent and, noting the parallels between the 1890s and 1990s, the author theorises that following the turbulence of recent years it is inevitable that the Russian military should have turned for inspiration to the Russian Empire.
The Italian Renaissance: Culture and Society in Italy
In this newly revised edition of his widely acclaimed work, Peter Burke presents a social and cultural history of the Italian Renaissance. He discusses the social and political institutions that existed in Italy during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and he analyzes the ways of thinking and seeing that characterized this period of extraordinary artistic creativity. Developing a distinctive approach, the author is concerned not only with the finished works of Michelangelo, Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, and others, but also with the social background, patterns of recruitment, and means of subsistence of this "cultural elite." He thus makes a major contribution both to our understanding of the Italian Renaissance and to our comprehension of the complex relations between culture and society. An excellent social history of the lives and culture of the artists and artisans which made it possible for the arts to flourish.