Category Archives: Political Culture

Religion, Politics, and Money

Posted on January 29, 2012 by briansandberg

Religion, politics, and money are often intertwined in curious ways. Religious and political alliances between Jewish Zionists and Christian Evangelicals are baffling to many people. My students frequently express confusion about intersections between Jewish and Protestant messianic and apocalyptic beliefs. … Continue reading →

Posted in European Wars of Religion, Political Culture, Religious Violence | Leave a comment

Imperial Rivalry in the Modern Mediterranean

Posted on January 15, 2012 by briansandberg

France and Turkey are now contending for political and economic dominance in the Mediterranean in the wake of the Arab Spring revolutions. Soner Cagaptay, a Senior Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, argues that the imperial legacies … Continue reading →

Posted in Comparative Revolutions, Early Modern Europe, Early Modern World, Empires and Imperialism, Mediterranean World, Political Culture | 2 Comments

Libraries and E-book Demand

Posted on January 15, 2012 by briansandberg

All the kinks have certainly not been worked out of the ongoing electronic publishing “revolution”. Public and university libraries are experimenting with various forms of e-book borrowing, but a number of problems with e-borrowing have not yet been sorted out. … Continue reading →

Posted in Academic Publishing, Digital Humanities, Humanities Education, Political Culture | Leave a comment

France Loses AAA Credit Rating

Posted on January 14, 2012 by briansandberg

France has lost its AAA credit rating as Standard & Poor’s cut its rating a notch to AA+. Eleanor Beardsley of NPR reports that “Standard & Poor’s downgraded the sovereign debt of France, Italy, Spain and six other European countries … Continue reading →

Posted in European Union, French History, Political Culture | Leave a comment

New Diplomatic History and Neorealism

Posted on January 13, 2012 by briansandberg

Historians of the “new” Diplomatic History tend to clash with Political Science approaches to International Relations, and especially with Neorealists—who often depict states as “billiard balls” acting against each other on a global pool table. Paul W. Schroeder, a prominent … Continue reading →

Posted in European History, Globalization, Political Culture, State Development Theory, War, Culture, and Society | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Anti-French Attitudes and American Politics

Posted on January 13, 2012 by briansandberg

French historians and literary scholars are all too aware of the anti-French attitudes in American society.  Anti-French references have long been rife in American popular culture, but took on new virulence in the wake of Franco-German opposition to the Bush … Continue reading →

Posted in Comparative Revolutions, French History, History in the Media, Political Culture | Leave a comment

Contested Figure of Jeanne d’Arc

Posted on January 9, 2012 by briansandberg

The image and historical legacy of Jeanne d’Arc (Joan of Arc) continues to be highly contested in France.  The 2012 Presidential Election in France is now fueling a new round of debates about the figure of Jeanne d’Arc and the … Continue reading →

Posted in Civil Conflict, French History, Gender and Warfare, Political Culture, Religious Violence, Women and Gender History | Leave a comment

Children’s Reading and Political Culture

Posted on December 14, 2011 by briansandberg

Julia Mickenberg (University of Texas at Austin) was interviewed recently on television about how children’s views are shaped by reading children’s books. Julia is the author of Learning from the Left: Children’s Literature, The Cold War, and Radical Politics in … Continue reading →

Posted in Political Culture | Leave a comment

What’s a Poor French Noble to Do?

Posted on October 6, 2011 by briansandberg

Poor nobles apparently abound in today’s France. There are still many nobles living in 21st-century France, and supposedly a number of them have fallen on hard times. Luckily for these poor nobles there is a charitable association, the Association d’Entreaide … Continue reading →

Posted in Early Modern Europe, European History, European Union, French History, Languedoc and Southern France, Noble Culture and History of Elites, Political Culture | 1 Comment

Why Leaders Lie

Posted on August 3, 2011 by briansandberg

John Mearsheimer, professor of political science at the University of Chicago, has published a new book on Why Leaders Lie: The Truth About Lying in International Politics. Worldview  interviewed Mearsheimer about the book yesterday on WBEZ. Students in HIST 390 … Continue reading →

Posted in Historical Film, Political Culture, War in Film | Leave a comment