The state is central to social scientific and historical inquiry today, reflecting its importance in domestic and international affairs. States kill, coerce, fight, torture, and incarcerate, yet they also nurture, protect, educate, redistribute, and invest. It is precisely because of the complexity and wide-ranging impacts of states that research on them has proliferated and diversified. Yet, too many scholars inhabit separate academic silos, and theorizing of states has become dispersed and disjointed. This book aims to bridge some of the many gaps between scholarly endeavors, bringing together scholars from a diverse array of disciplines and perspectives who study states and empires. The book offers not only a sample of cutting-edge research that can serve as models and directions for future work, but an original conceptualization and theorization of states, their origins and evolution, and their effects.

U.S. History is designed to meet the scope and sequence requirements of most introductory courses. The text provides a balanced approach to U.S. history, considering the people, events, and ideas that have shaped the United States from both the top down (politics, economics, diplomacy) and bottom up (eyewitness accounts, lived experience). U.S. History covers key forces that form the American experience, with particular attention to issues of race, class, and gender.

This book consists of two titles: 1 - Age of Discovery: The epoch often referred to as The Age of Discovery, alternatively known as The Age of Exploration, characterizes a pivotal era spanning the transition from the 15th century to the 18th century in European history. It was a time brimming with maritime expeditions led by intrepid European sailors, venturing into uncharted territories across the globe. Foremost among these adventurers were the Portuguese and Spanish, whose expansive voyages overseas left an indelible mark on European culture. Notably, their encounters with and subsequent colonization of the Americas signified a profound shift in global dynamics. This era also witnessed the ascendancy of colonialism as a prevailing governmental doctrine in various European realms, earning it the moniker of the inaugural wave of European colonization. The dawn of European exploration can be traced back to Portugal's ventures beyond the confines of the Mediterranean, with their pioneering expeditions to the Canary Islands in 1336 marking a significant turning point. 2 - The New World: Castile, the Iberian rival of Portugal, commenced its dominance over the Canary Islands in 1402, situated off the west African coast. However, its attention was divided by internal Iberian politics and the defense against Islamic invasions and raids throughout the 15th century. With the consolidation of the Castilian and Aragonese crowns towards the end of the century, a nascent modern Spain became singularly focused on exploring new trade routes beyond its borders. The Crown of Aragon wielded significant maritime influence in the Mediterranean, boasting territories in eastern Spain, southwestern France, key islands like Sicily and Malta, and control over the Kingdoms of Naples and Sardinia, extending its reach as far as Greece. In 1492, the joint monarchs achieved the conquest of Granada, a Moorish kingdom that had long provided Castile with African goods in exchange for tribute. Subsequently, they decided to sponsor Christopher Columbus' voyage, aiming to bypass Portugal's monopoly on west African sea routes and reach the fabled "Indies" (comprising east and south Asia) by sailing westward. Columbus had previously proposed the idea to King John II of Portugal twice, in 1485 and 1488, both times facing rejection.

The Spanish Empire was a complex web of places and peoples. Through an expansive range of essays that look at Africa, the Americas, Asia, the Caribbean, and the Pacific, this volume brings a broad range of regions into conversation. The contributors focus on nuanced, comparative exploration of the processes and practices of creating, maintaining, and transforming cultural place making within pluralistic Spanish colonial communities. The Global Spanish Empire argues that patterned variability is necessary in reconstructing Indigenous cultural persistence in colonial settings. The volume’s eleven case studies include regions often neglected in the archaeology of Spanish colonialism. The time span under investigation is extensive as well, transcending the entirety of the Spanish Empire, from early impacts in West Africa to Texas during the 1800s. The contributors examine the making of a social place within a social or physical landscape. They discuss the appearance of hybrid material culture, the incorporation of foreign goods into local material traditions, the continuation of local traditions, and archaeological evidence of opportunistic social climbing. In some cases, these changes in material culture are ways to maintain aspects of traditional culture rather than signifiers of new cultural practices. The Global Spanish Empire tackles broad questions about Indigenous cultural persistence, pluralism, and place making using a global comparative perspective grounded in the shared experience of Spanish colonialism. Contributors Stephen Acabado Grace Barretto-Tesoro James M. Bayman Christine D. Beaule Christopher R. DeCorse Boyd M. Dixon John G. Douglass William R. Fowler Martin Gibbs Corinne L. Hofman Hannah G. Hoover Stacie M. King Kevin Lane Laura Matthew Sandra Montón-Subías Natalia Moragas Segura Michelle M. Pigott Christopher B. Rodning David Roe Roberto Valcárcel Rojas Steve A. Tomka Jorge Ulloa Hung Juliet Wiersema

Twenty essays examine the themes of exploration and colonization in literature, including works such as "The Iliad" and "Things Fall Apart."

The Age of Reconnaissance, as J. H. Parry so aptly named it, was the period in which Europe discovered the rest of the world. It began with Henry the Navigator and the Portuguese voyages in the mid-fifteenth century and ended 250 years later when the 'reconnaissance' was all but complete. This book is less concerned with the voyages of discovery themselves than with an analysis of the factors that made the voyages possible in the first place. Dr Parry examines the inducements - political, economic, religious - to overseas enterprises at the time, and analyses the nature and problems of the various European settlements in the new lands. At the beginning of the period central to this book, the middle of the fifteenth century, the normal educated man believed that the Ancients were more civilized, more elegant, wiser and, except in religious matters, better informed than his contemporaries. But gradually as the reconnaissance proceeded, the European picture became fuller and more detailed and with it the idea of continually expanding knowledge became more familiar and the links between science and practical life became closer. The unprecedented power which it produced would eventually lead Europe from reconnaissance to worldwide conquest.