Department of History
Recent Faculty Publications
Nick Miller
The Nonconformists: Culture, Politics, and Nationalism in a Serbian Intellectual Circle, 1944-1991
Serbia 's national movement of the 1980s and 1990s, the author suggests, was not the product of an ancient, immutable, and aggressive Serbian national identity; nor was it an artificial creation of powerful political actors looking to capitalize on its mobilizing power. Miller argues that cultural processes are too often ignored in favor of political ones; that Serbian intellectuals did work within a historical context, but that they were not slaves to the past. His subjects are Dobrica Cosic (a novelist), Mica Popovic (a painter) and Borislav Mihajlovic Mihiz (a literary critic). These three influential Serbian intellectuals concluded by the late 1960s that communism had failed the Serbian people; together, they helped forge a new Serbian identity that fused older cultural imagery with modern conditions.
Joanne Klein
"The Failure of Force: Policing Terrorism in Northern Ireland" in Uniform Behavior: Police Localism and National Politics, Stacy K. McGoldrick and Andrea McArdle, editors, Palgrave-Macmillan, July 2006
The chapter explores the failure of the British strategy of criminalizing terrorism in Northern Ireland rather than treating it as a political problem. The strategy confused the straightforward need to respond to the specific criminal conduct associated with terrorism with the complicated but crucial issue of remedying the political conditions creating the terrorism.
Lisa McClain
Lest We Be Damned: Practical Innovation and Lived Experience among Catholics in Protestant England, 1559-1642
The book chronicles Catholics living in Protestant England from the reign of Elizabeth I to the English Civil War, bringing forth stories of religious innovation and survival alongside the religious intolerance and state religious policies that often led to persecution and death. Lest We Be Damned is the sixth in a series of books by Routledge looking at religion in history, society, and culture. Through compelling personal stories and rich details of English Catholic lives in the 16th and 17th centuries, the text examines the negotiation between spiritual and secular authorities, and between clergy and laity, drawing parallels to contemporary concerns over religion, zealousness, and even terrorism.
full citation
Lisa McClain, Lest We Be Damned: Practical Innovation and Lived Experience among Catholics in Protestant England, 1559-1642, (London, New York: Routledge, 2004). ISBN 0-415-96790-2. Call Number: BX1492 .M37 2004.
Charles Odahl
Constantine and the Christian Empire
Under Constantine, Christianity was transformed from a persecuted cult into an established religion, and pagan Rome became the Christian empire of Byzantine times. This biography is a detailed, comprehensive, and compelling portrayal of the life and times of arguably the greatest of Roman emperors.
In a seamless combination of vivid narrative and historical analysis, the crisis of the Roman Empire and the Great Persecution, Constantine's political maneuvers and military campaigns, his conversion to and patronage of Christianity, and his church-building programs in Rome, Jerusalem, and Constantinople are brought to life and made understandable for modern readers.
The author's comprehensive knowledge of the literary sources, and his extensive research into the material remains of Constantine's reign, mean that this volume provides a more rounded and accurate portrait of the emperor than ever before. Extensively illustrated and fully documented. Constantine and the Christian Empire is a landmark publication in Roman imperial, early Christian, and Byzantine imperial history.
full citation
Charles Matson Odahl, Constantine and the Christian Empire, (London, New York: Routledge, 2004). ISBN 0-415-17485-6. Call Number: DG315.O33 2004.
Sandra Schackel
Western Women's Lives: Continuity and Change in the Twentieth Century
The seventeen essays reprinted in this anthology address the ways in which western women have experienced the twentieth century. These writings go beyond the standard categorizations of gender, class, race, and ethnicity by providing a deeper understanding of women and the distribution of power through examinations of generations, family and career, religion, sexual orientation, geography, and political preferences. The analysis that emerges is of an increasingly complex mix of experiences, some continuous from the nineteenth century and others unique to modernity, but all powerfully shaping how women lived in the West during the past century.
full citation
Sandra Schackel, editor, Western Women's Lives: Continuity and Change in the Twentieth Century, (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2004). ISBN 0-8263-2245-X.
Todd Shallat
Secrets of the Magic Valley and Hagerman's Remarkable Horse
Winner of the Idaho Library Association's 2003 IDAHO BOOK AWARD.
Finalist for Independent Publishing Award (an "IPPY") in history category. "Simply put,
Secrets of the Magic Valley is better edited and more handsomely designed than any other regional overview yet published in Idaho." Idaho Commission for the Arts.
full citation
Todd Shallat, Kathryn Baxter, et al., Secrets of the Magic Valley and Hagerman's Remarkable Horse (Boise: Black Canyon Communications, 2003).