Walter Laqueur

Terrorism

Past, Present, Future

Fascism

From one of the most distinguished historians of our time comes the definitive general history of the Zionist movement. of illustrations.

A History of Zionism

A timely, topical book grounding Russia's recent turn towards conservativism in pre-1917 culture and explaining what this shift could mean for the rest of the world.

Russia and Its Future with the West

Putinism

The term "Weimar culture," while generally accepted, is in some respects unsatisfactory, if only because political and cultural history seldom coincides in time. Expressionism was not born with the defeat of the Imperial German army, nor is there any obvious connection between abstract painting and atonal music and the escape of the Kaiser, nor were the great scientific discoveries triggered off by the proclamation of the Republic in 1919. As the eminent historian Walter Laqueur demonstrates, the avant-gardism commonly associated with post-World War One precedes the Weimar Republic by a decade.It would no doubt be easier for the historian if the cultural history of Weimar were identical with the plays and theories of Bertolt Brecht; the creations of the Bauhaus and the articles published by the Weltbühne. But there were a great many other individuals and groups at work, and Laqueur gives a full and vivid accounting of their ideas and activities. The realities of Weimar culture comprise the political right as well as the left, the universities as well as the literary intelligentsia. It would not be complete without occasional glances beyond avant-garde thought and creation and their effects upon traditional German social and cultural attitudes and the often violent reactions against "Weimar" that would culminate with the rise of Hitler and the fall of the republic in 1933.This authoritative work is of immense importance to anyone interested in the history of Germany in this critical period of the country's life.

A Cultural History

Weimar

The author reviews the new body of evidence around the towering figure of the former Soviet leader: his rise to power, his ruthless collectivization of agriculture; ;the period of the purges and show trials and his role in the war.

The Glasnost Revelations

Stalin

A memoir by a prominent and highly respected historian and political commentator

Memoirs of a Political Education

Best of Times, Worst of Times

Essays af en række officerer, historikere, m.fl., som bl.a. på baggrund af nyligt deklassificeret officielt materiale har taget en række af 2. Verdenskrig's forhold og begivenheder op til fornyet vurdering. Fra indholdet: Philip M. Taylor: If war should come; preparing til fifth arm for total war, 1935-1939. Patric Salmon: British plans for economic warfare against Germany, 1937-1939. The problem of the Swedish Iron Ore. Mark M. Lowenthal: Roosevelt and the coming of war; the search for United States Policy, 1937-1942. P.M. Baldwin: Clausewitz in Nazi Germany. Gerhard Hirschfeld: Collaboration and Attentism in the Netherlands, 1940-1941. A.J. Trythall: The downfall of Leslie Hore-Belisha. David G. Haglund: George C. Marshall and the question of military aid to England, maj-juni 1940. E.F. Gueritz: Nelson's blood: attitudes and actions of the Royal Navy, 1939-1945. B.B. Schofield:The defeat of the u-boats during World War II. Ronald Lewin: A signal-intelligence war. Mark Wheeler: The SOE phenomenon. Paul Kramer: Nelson Rockefeller and british security coordination. Ralph Bennett: Ultra and some command decisions. Michael R.D. Foot: Was SOE any good? Graham Ross: Foreing Office attitudes to the Soviet Union, 1941-1945. Alan Foster: The Times and appeasement: the second phase. Joe Daniel Langer: The Harriman-Beaverbrook mission and the debate over unconditional aid for the Soviet Union, 1941. Hugh De Santis: In search of Yoguslavia: Anglo-American policy and policy-making, 1943-1945. Gerald Kirwin: Waiting for retaliation - a study in Nazi propaganda behaviour and german civile morale. Frank King: Allied negotiations and the disemberment of Germany. Milan Hauner: One man against the Empire: the Faqir of Ipi and the British in Central Asia on the eve of and during the second World War.

Essays in Military and Political History

The Second World War

Survey

»Walter Laqueur zählt zu den fruchtbarsten und einflussreichsten Zeitgeschichtlern der westlichen Welt.« Die Zeit WORUM GEHT ES? Der Russland-Experte Walter Laqueur beleuchtet Putins neue Großmachtpolitik. Er zeigt, wie sich nach dem Ende der Sowjetunion ein neuer gesellschaftlicher Konsens gebildet hat, antiwestlich, antiliberal und staatshörig, der an tief verwurzelte Traditionen Russlands anknüpft. Putin, Vorreiter dieser fatalen Entwicklung, findet breite Zustimmung im Lande. Sein Kurs, durch die Destabilisierung Osteuropas verlorenen Einfluss zurückzugewinnen, führt unweigerlich in eine gefährliche Konfrontation mit dem Westen. WAS IST BESONDERS? Jenseits journalistischer Schnellschüsse ein historisch fundiertes, über den Tag hinaus gültiges Porträt des heutigen Russlands und der gefährlichen Politik Putins. WER LIEST? • Alle, denen der neue Kalte Krieg in Europa Sorgen bereitet • Wer sich für die Hintergründe der aktuellen Konflikte in Osteuropa interessiert • Wer wissen will, wohin sich Russland unter Putin bewegt

Wohin treibt Russland?

Putinismus

epitaffio per un vecchio continente

Gli ultimi giorni dell'Europa

The essays collected in Fin de SiÃ¨cle and Other Essays on America and Europe cover the political and cultural spectrum of our time, specifically the rise, fall, and reemergence of radical movements of what was once called the extreme left and right. If the essays have a common denominator, it is that they do not join in the chorus of rejoicing after the end of the cold war. When the Soviet Empire collapsed and the cold war came to an end, there was a general celebration similar to the joy expressed after World Wars I and II. Walter Laqueur, in contrast to many of his peers, realized that Russia's and Eastern Europe's road to freedom would be, at best, protracted and arduous with many setbacks. And, as he shows, ten years after the reforms in the communist world, power, such as it is, is again in the hands of the communists, or of nationalists closely cooperating with communists. While they may not be old Stalinists, their style remains authoritarian, and no one can say for certain whether the conversion to democracy is lasting. Throughout Europe the extreme right has reemerged in force in France, Italy, Russia, and Austria these parties are among the strongest. While only a few years have passed since the demise of communism, there is already nostalgia among many in Russia with regard to the good old days, when vodka was cheap and order prevailed in the streets. In the West, the positive aspects of Nazism and fascism are being rediscovered. One might argue that it should have been obvious that the end of the cold war would in many ways create new and greater uncertainties rather than a new world order in international affairs. In certain nations, including the United States, there has been an unmistakable trend toward isolationism. How to explain such attitudes? In a brilliant assemblage of published and hitherto unpublished essays, Laqueur brings his concerns about these issues in a post-cold war environment. Essays include: "The Long Way to Europe," "Russian Nationalism," "In Praise of Menshevism," "The End of the Cold War," "Feuchtwanger and Gide," and "The Empire Strikes Out." Laqueur includes a profile of Andrei Sakharov, who played such a crucial role in the movement of democratic dissent in the Soviet Union. Fin de SiÃ¨cle and Other Essays on America and Europe will be of significant interest to historians of European and American culture, sociologists, economists, and political scientists.

Fin de SiÃ¨cle and Other Essays on America and Europe

Walter Laqueur as been hailed as "one of our most distinguished scholars of modern European history" in the New York Times Book Review. Robert Byrnes, writing in the Journal of Modern History, called him "one of the most remarkable men in the Western world working in the field." Over a span of three decades, in books ranging from Russia and Germany to the recent Black Hundred, he has won a reputation as a major writer and a provocative thinker. Now he turns his attention to the greatest enigma of our time: the rise and fall of the Soviet Union. In The Dream that Failed, Laqueur offers an authoritative assessment of the Soviet era--from the triumph of Lenin to the fall of Gorbachev. In the last three years, decades of conventional wisdom about the U.S.S.R. have been swept away, while a flood of evidence from Russian archives demands new thinking about old assumptions. Laqueur rises to the challenge with a critical inquiry conducted on a grand scale. He shows why the Bolsheviks won the struggle for power in 1917; how they captured the commitment of a young generation of Russians; why the idealism faded as Soviet power grew; how the system ultimately collapsed; and why Western experts have been so wrong about the Communist state. Always thoughtful and incisive, Laqueur reflects on the early enthusiasm of foreign observers and Bolshevik revolutionaries--then takes a piercing look at the totalitarian nature of the Soviet Union. We see how Communist society stagnated during the 1960s and '70s, as the economy wobbled to the brink; we also see how Western observers, from academic experts to CIA analysts, made wildly optimistic estimates of Moscow's economic and political strength. Just weeks before the U.S.S.R. disappeared from the earth, scholars were confidently predicting the survival of the Soviet Union. But in underscoring the rot and repression, he also notes that the Communist state did not necessarily have to fall when it did, and he examines the many factors behind the collapse (the pressure from Reagan's Star Wars arms program, for instance, and ethnic nationalism). Some of these same problems, he finds, continue to shape the future of Russia and the other successor states. Only now, in the rubble of this lost empire, are we coming to grips with just how wrong our assumptions about the U.S.S.R. had been. In The Dream That Failed, an internationally renowned historian provides a new understanding of the Soviet experience, from the rise of Communism to its sudden fall. The result of years of research and reflection, it sheds fresh light on a central episode in our turbulent century.

Reflections on the Soviet Union

The Dream that Failed

Out of the Ruins of Europe

A Reader's Guide : Analyses, Interpretations, Bibliography

First published in the 1980s, The Political Psychology of Appeasement contains some of the most influential political journalism of the 1970s. The author, a leading contemporary historian and commentator on international affairs, provides an incisive critique of the weaknesses and inconsistencies of U.S. foreign policy in the 1970s as well as a diagnosis of the malaise of Western Europe.Laqueur's essays range from the subject of Finlandization to the problems of peace in the Middle East and the origins of political terrorism. To each of these areas he brings a deep and compassionate sensibility, the knowledge of a professional historian, and the sharp eye of an experienced journalist. Not only is Laqueur a global thinker, but his thought is undergirded by the experiences of world travel and an intimate knowledge of world leaders.Most of this book's essays are pessimistic because the author addresses his topics bluntly and pragmatically. Many of Laqueur's predictions have been borne out by subsequent events. As he ruefully says in his original preface, there is nothing so conducive to lack of popularity than to be right prematurely. Made timeless by their insightful honesty, his essays teach us about the art of political appeasement and prediction in the modern geopolitical landscape.

Finlandization and Other Unpopular Essays

The Political Psychology of Appeasement

Assassinations, bombings, hijackings, diplomatic kidnappings-terrorism is the most publicized form of political violence. The history of terrorism goes back a very long time, but the very fact that there is such a history has frequently been ignored, even suppressed. This may be because terrorism has not appeared with equal intensity at all times. When terrorism reappeared in the late twentieth century after a period of relative calm, there was the tendency to regard it as a new phenomenon, without precedent. The psychological study of terrorism has never been much in fashion. But this neglect has left a number of crucial questions unanswered. Among these are why some people who share the same convictions turn to terrorism and others do not. What is terrorism's true impact on international politics? What influence might it exert in the future? A History of Terrorism completes Walter Laqueur's pioneering and authoritative study of guerilla warfare and terrorist activity. He charts the history of political terror from nineteenth-century Europe, through the anarchists of the 1880s and 1890s, the left- and right-wing clashes during the twentieth century, and the multinational operations of Arab and other groups today. Laqueur examines the sociology of terrorism: funding, intelligence gathering, weapons and tactics, informers and countermeasures, and the crucial role of the media. He probes the "terrorist personality" and how terrorists have been depicted in literature and films. The doctrine of systematic terrorism and current interpretations of terrorism, its common patterns, motives, and aims, are unflinchingly faced and clearly explicated. Finally, Laqueur considers the effectiveness of terrorism and examines the ominous possibility of nuclear blackmail. Challenging accepted assumptions, forecasting the changes in terrorist activity that will affect tomorrow's headlines, Walter Laqueur demystifies terrorism without belittling its importance. Together with its companion volume, Guerrilla Warfare, also available from Transaction, A History of Terrorism is an essential tool for assessing and understanding this all-too-often sensationalized modern expression of extreme political action.

A History of Terrorism

This is a selection of essays written during the first decade of the twenty-first century, by a figure widely acknowledged as the conscience of European liberalism. In Walter Laqueur’s lifetime, there have been more acutely dangerous situations, such as the coming of a world war or the seemingly unstoppable march to victory of totalitarian regimes, than in any other previous epoch. Such immediate dangers may not exist at the present time. But long-term trends are equally or even more threatening, as we now see in the ability of small groups of people, unprecedented in history, to inflict enormous damage. This is the underlying essence of Laqueur’s thinking, as expressed in this new volume. As Laqueur observes, one learns from long experience that the worst does not always happen, and if it does, probably not in one’s lifetime. Ideas and intellectual fashions emerging from the groves of academe, particularly in America can seem wrongheaded and often out of touch with the real world. This growing isolation causes growing bitterness, alienation, and a feeling of impotence on the part of intellectuals, which turns into greater radicalization and farfetched thinking. Laqueur fortunately does not fall into this trap. The articles and essays selected for this volume deal with a variety of topics. They do not entirely reflect Laqueur’s interests, which during this period were more in the cultural field than in politics. However, politics intrude irrespective of the author’s predilections. Laqueur deals with unpleasant truths in concrete geopolitical settings, but poignantly takes his stand with the men and women who strive to overcome self-censorship in the search for accurate judgment.

Disraelia and Other Essays

Harvest of a Decade

Chairman International Research Council Walter Laqueur

The historian-author of The Changing Face of Anti-Semitism assesses the dramatic demographic and cultural upheaval that is transforming twenty-first-century Europe, looking at the implications of uncontrolled immigration from Asia, Africa, and the Middle East that has led to an influx of foreigners with no desire to assimilate into European society but that take full advantage of the host nations' social benefits. 15,000 first printing.

Walter Laqueur

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