Operetta developed in the second half of the 19th century from the French opéra-comique and the more lighthearted German Singspiel. As the century progressed, the serious concerns of mainstream opera were sustained and intensified, leaving a gap between opéra-comique and vaudeville that necessitated a new type of stage work. Jacques Offenbach, son of a Cologne synagogue cantor, established himself in Paris with his series of opéras-bouffes. The popular success of this individual new form of entertainment light, humorous, satirical and also sentimental led to the emergence of operetta as a separate genre, an art form with its own special flavour and concerns, and no longer simply a "little opera". Attempts to emulate Offenbach's success in France and abroad generated other national schools of operetta and helped to establish the genre internationally, in Spain, in England, and especially in Austria Hungary. Here it inspired works by Franz von Suppé and Johann Strauss II (the Golden Age), and later Franz Lehár and Emmerich Kálmán (the Silver Age). Viennese operetta flourished conterminously with the Habsburg Empire and the mystique of Vienna, but, after the First World War, an artistically vibrant Berlin assumed this leading position (with Paul Lincke, Leon Jessel and Edouard Künnecke). As popular musical tastes diverged more and more during the interwar years, with the advent of new influences—like those of cabaret, the revue, jazz, modern dance music and the cinema, as well as changing social mores—the operetta genre took on new guises. This was especially manifested in the musical comedy of London's West End and New York's Broadway, with their imitators generating a success that opened a new golden age for the reinvented genre, especially after the Second World War. This source book presents an overview of the operetta genre in all its forms. The first volume provides an introduction, a representative chronology of the genre from 1840 to 2013, and a survey of the national schools of France and Austria-Hungary. The principal composers are considered in chronological sequence, with biographical material and a list of stage works, selected synopses and some commentary.

This Element examines women warriors as vehicles of mobilisation. It argues that women warrior figures from the mid-nineteenth century until the end of the Second World War are best understood as examples of 'palimpsestic memory', as the way they were represented reflected new contexts while retaining traces of legendary models such as Joan of Arc, and of 'travelling memory', as their stories crossed geographical borders and were re-told and re-imagined. It considers both the instrumentalisation of women warriors by state actors to mobilise populations in the world wars, and by non-state actors in resistance, anti-colonial and feminist movements. Fell's analysis of a broad range of global conflicts helps us to understand who these actors were, what motivated them, and what meanings armed women embodied for them, enabling a fresh understanding of the woman warrior as an archetype in modern warfare.

A small and extremely poor Islamic country, Yemen is located on the edge of the Arab world in the southernmost corner of the Arabian Peninsula. It was the product of the unification of the Yemen Arab Republic and the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen in May 1990. The location of the two Yemens on the world's busiest sea-lane at the southern end of the Red Sea where Asia almost meets Africa gave them strategic significance from the start of the age of imperialism through the Cold War. More vital today is the fact that Yemen shares a long border with oil-rich Saudi Arabia and is a key to efforts both to spread and to end global revolutionary Islam and its use of terror. The second edition of the Historical Dictionary of Yemen has been thoroughly updated and greatly expanded. Through its list of acronyms and abbreviations, a chronology, an introductory essay, a bibliography, and over 800 cross-referenced dictionary entries, greater attention has been given to foreign affairs, economic institutions and policies, social issues, religion, and politics.

This book investigates Australia’s relationship with the Eurovision Song Contest over time and place, from its first screening on SBS in 1983 to Australia's inaugural national selection in 2019. Beginning with an overview of Australia’s Eurovision history, the contributions explore the contest’s role in Australian political participation and international relations; its significance for Australia’s diverse communities, including migrants and the LGBTQIA+ community; racialised and gendered representations of Australianness; changing ideas of liveness in watching the event; and a reflection on teaching Australia’s first undergraduate course dedicated to the Eurovision Song Contest. The collection brings together a group of scholar-fans from a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives — including history, politics, cultural studies, performance studies, and musicology — to explore Australia’s transition from observer to participant in the first thirty-six years of its love affair with the Eurovision Song Contest.

Hendrik Petrus Berlage, the Dutch architect and architectural philosopher, created a series of buildings and a body of writings from 1886 to 1909 that were among the first efforts to probe the problems and possibilities of modernism. Although his Amsterdam Stock Exchange, with its rational mastery of materials and space, has long been celebrated for its seminal influence on the architecture of the 20th century, Berlage's writings are highlighted here. Bringing together Berlage's most important texts, among them "Thoughts on Style in Architecture", "Architecture's Place in Modern Aesthetics", and "Art and Society", this volume presents a chapter in the history of European modernism. In his introduction, Iain Boyd Whyte demonstrates that the substantial contribution of Berlage's designs to modern architecture cannot be fully appreciated without an understanding of the aesthetic principles first laid out in his writings.