A Cultural History of Western Empires in the Modern Age

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A Cultural History of Western Empires in the Modern Age covers the period from 1918 to the present. Through the lens of the political and international events shaping the period, the introduction traces the gradual demise of the cultural importance of European empires and the emergence of the United States as the predominant cultural model. The following eight chapters of the volume, authored by a diverse range of experts, highlight different aspects of this cultural shift while indicating the historiographical controversies and conceptual developments that shaped the century-long evolution related to each of the specific topics. This richly-illustrated and accessible volume provides deep historical context to the rise of the US as a major cultural force in the modern era. In so doing, it gives the reader a backdrop to the shift of Western empire from the European model of 18th and 19th century imperialism, to the emergence of the US as a cultural hegemon. A feature of contemporary geopolitics that continues to play a key role in the dynamics of cultural exchange and influence playing out on the world stage today.

Reviews

Each volume could successfully stand alone as a reference work on an era: Antiquity, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Age of Enlightenment, the Age of Empire, and the Modern Age ... The introductory essay to each is a valuable resource for comparing traditional political and economic histories with the more critical and cultural works presented in subsequent chapters. Accompanying each volume is a list of illustrations, notes, further reading, and an index ... Overall, students seeking a comparative, interdisciplinary, and compelling account of the spread of Western empires will find much of interest here. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty * CHOICE *

Author Bio

Patricia M.E. Lorcin is the Samuel Russell Chair in Humanities and Professor of History at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, USA. She is the author of Imperial Identities (1995; revised edition 2014), Historicizing Colonial Nostalgia: European Womens Narratives of Algeria and Kenya 1900-Present (2013), and numerous edited and co-edited volumes on Western empires. She is currently working on a project tentatively entitled: The Cold War, Art, Politics and Transnational Activism during the period of Decolonization.