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"A Social History of Twentieth-Century Europe offers a systematic overview on major aspects of social life, including population, family and households, social inequalities and mobility, the welfare state, work, consumption and leisure, social cleavages in politics, urbanization as well as education, religion and culture. It also addresses major debates and diverging interpretations of historical and social research regarding the history of European societies in the past one hundred years. Organized in ten thematic chapters, this book takes an interdisciplinary approach, making use of the methods and results of not only history, but also sociology, demography, economics and political science. Béla Tomka presents both the diversity and the commonalities of European societies looking not just to Western European countries, but Eastern, Central and Southern European countries as well. A perfect introduction for all students of European history."--Publisher's website.

Today sea power, or to be more precise, naval power is just as much one of the most important prerequisites of political, social, and economic stability in Germany as it is in the whole West. The threats of terrorism and piracy have highlighted the vulnerability of Western Society in every respect. In a globalized world, without safe passage of food and goods these societies would suffer heavy losses threatening the proper working of highly industrialized societies dependent upon the timely supply of raw materials or spare parts as well as the safe passage of manufactured goods and food. Unlike the history of the other Western powers, the history of Germany and sea power is – at least as far as the first half of the 20th century is concerned – a history of failure and seminal disaster. One of the main reasons for this judgment is that Germany developed a concept of world and sea power, which eventually contributed to the tensions leading to the outbreak of World War I. In the last decades of the 19th century Germany's political and naval leadership decided to revolutionize the international system in order to bequeath Britain as the world's leading power. Since sea power was the main pillar of Britain's power, they tried to follow her example by building up a powerful fleet. This strategy failed completely. The assumption that Britain could not out-build the Imperial Navy for lack of both finances as well as of men to man the vessels was a prerequisite of Tirpitz's progamme. This assumption, however, soon proved wrong. In 1908/09 the British Admiralty took up the gauntlet which Tirpitz had thrown into its face by ordering not only four, but even eight new vessels of the "Dreadnought"-type, thus effectively doubling Germany's annual building-rate at that time. More importantly, the Admiralty soon accepted the offer of some of Britain's colonies and dominions to share the financial burden of their mother country to defend the empire.

'Complicated Entanglements: Rethinking Pluralism in the 21st Century' is an interdisciplinary conference that aims to examine the recent resurgence of discourse around multiculturalism in the cultural sphere. This conference brings together major scholars from Anthropology, Art History, Canadian Studies, English, French, Political Science and Sociology as well as artists, community activists, cultural policy makers, and an exciting group of emerging young curators. Our intention, through the conference, related exhibition, international co-publication and creation of a web-based community is to consolidate current work being done on pluralism in the arts, and to foster a collective and on-going forum for debate. While much has been written on multiculturalism in the social sciences, comparatively little has been done in the arts, where artists, writers, filmmakers and performers imagine and define who we are as a nation. Timed to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the Canadian Multiculturalism Act and recent discussions of race, religion and culture around events such as 9/11 and the Bouchard-Taylor commission, this conference could not be more relevant or more timely. ; Complicated Entanglements: Rethinking Pluralism in the 20th Century , conference, ICI Berlin, 4–6 April 2008