Halperin traces the persistence of traditional class structures during the development of industrial capitalism in Europe, and the way in which these structures shaped states and state behavior and generated conflict. She documents European conflicts between 1789 and 1914, including small and medium scale conflicts often ignored by researchers and links these conflicts to structures characteristic of industrial capitalist development in Europe before 1945. This book revisits the historical terrain of Karl Polanyi's The Great Transformation (1944), however, it argues that Polanyi's analysis is, in important ways, inaccurate and misleading. Ultimately, the book shows how and why the conflicts both culminated in the world wars and brought about a 'great transformation' in Europe. Its account of this period challenges not only Polanyi's analysis, but a variety of influential perspectives on nationalism, development, conflict, international systems change, and globalization.

A collection of essays supported by statistics on the social consequences of the two world wars. It covers the main European countries and a range of major issues including the levels of economic activity, women's employment and the extent of executions of collaborators.

A fresh look at the effects of war on state and society in the Middle East, challenging traditional assumptions based on European experience. The authors argue that war has destabilized Middle Eastern states and eroded national cohesion.

Collective experiences in the former Yugoslavia documents and analyses how social representations and practices are shaped by collective violence in a context of ethnic discourse. What are the effects of violence and what are the effects of collectively experienced victimisation on societal norms, attitudes and collective beliefs? This volume stresses that mass violence has a de- and re-structuring role for manifold psychosocial processes. A combined psychosocial approach draws attention to how most people in the former Yugoslavia had to endure and cope with war and dramatic societal changes and how they resisted and overcame ethnic rivalry, violence and segregation. It is a departure from the mindset that depict most people in the former Yugoslavia as either blind followers of ethnic war entrepreneurs or as intrinsically motivated for violence by deep-rooted intra-ethnic loyalties and inter-ethnic animosities.

The processes of social change in the late colonial period and early years of the new Republic made a dramatic imprint on the character of American society. These changes over a century or more were rooted in the origins of the United States, its rapid expansion of people and territory, its patterns of economic change and development, and the conflicts that led to its cataclysmic division and reunification through the Civil War. Christopher Clark's brilliant account of these changes in the social relationships of Americans breaks new ground in its emphasis on the connections between the crucial importance of free and unfree labor, regional characteristics, and the sustained tension between arguments for geographic expansion versus economic development. Mr. Clark traces the significance of families and households throughout the period, showing how work and different kinds of labor produced a varied access to power and wealth among free and unfree, male and female, and how the character of social elites was confronted by democratic pressures. He shows how the features of the different regions exercised long-term influences in American society and politics and were modified by pressures for change. And he explains how the widening gap between the claims of free labor and those of slavery fueled the continuing dispute over the best economic course for the nation's future and led ultimately to the Civil War. Like other long-running divisions in American society, however, this dispute was not fully resolved by the war's outcome. Social Change in America is a compelling new overview of the social dynamics of America's early years.

The women who tell their stories in this extraordinary oral history worked in World War II defense plants.