Novedades del último mes en libros de Historia por países

No es un país más, es el país del siglo XXI. Historia, poder y futuro de China, la nación que redefine el mundo. ¿Estás listo para entender China? Con una historia milenaria, una cultura deslumbrante y un modelo de desarrollo que desafia todas las categorias, China esta transformando el mundo a una velocidad dificil de asimilar. Ya no es solo la fabrica del planeta; es tambien el mayor mercado global, un laboratorio politico unico y una potencia tecnologica que redefine los equilibrios internacionales. Y, sin embargo, seguimos sabiendo sorprendentemente poco sobre su realidad. Este libro ofrece una mirada profunda y sin filtros sobre China, explorando su historia, su cultura, su sistema politico y su economia. A traves de un analisis accesible, el autor examina las claves de un pais que, ahora mas que nunca, se presenta como el motor del futuro. En estas paginas no hay espacio para prejuicios ni mitificaciones: aqui solo encontraras el deseo de comprender una nacion compleja, cuya influencia y desafios marcaran el rumbo del mundo en las proximas decadas. Este no es solo un libro sobre China. Es el mapa de un futuro que ya esta aqui.

«Gentes de dispares procedencias y diversas costumbres generalmente designan la India como la tierra que más admiran». Xuanzang, monje budista, estudioso y viajero chino, siglo VII d. C. Desde el es

Yanis Varoufakis recounts his political awakening through the history of his family and modern Greece, focusing on resilience and resistance.

A finales del siglo XVIII, cuando Estados Unidos logró su independencia del Reino Unido, comenzó la conquista del Oeste, una expansión masiva que se extendió a lo largo del siglo XIX, impulsada por millones de migrantes europeos que buscaban establecerse en la nueva Tierra Prometida. Al llegar a los fertiles valles del Mississippi y el Ohio, los colonos se encontraron con cientos de enigmaticas construcciones de tierra (Mounds, monticulos), algunas tan imponentes como la Gran Piramide, cuyo origen no supieron comprender. Hoy sabemos que estas estructuras fueron obra de los antepasados de los nativos de aquellas regiones, erigidas a lo largo de 5000 años. Sin embargo, los colonos europeos, influenciados por sus prejuicios racistas y eurocentricos, asumieron que tales construcciones debian haber sido realizadas por una civilizacion blanca desaparecida que habia habitado esas tierras siglos atras. Asi nacio el mito de los constructores de monticulos (mound builders), a los que se les atribuyeron numerosos y diversos origenes: desde griegos, fenicios o mongoles hasta las tribus perdidas de Israel, gigantes o atlantes. En este libro, el historiador Oscar Fabrega explora la historia, el mito y la realidad detras de estas enigmaticas construcciones. A traves de una investigacion exhaustiva, desmonta los mitos racistas y eurocentricos que atribuian estos complejos monumentos a civilizaciones extranjeras blancas, negando asi la capacidad de los pueblos nativos norteamericanos para haberlos construido. Ademas, expone los numerosos fraudes arqueologicos que se utilizaron para legitimar esas delirantes teorias, algunas de las cuales incluso dieron origen al nacimiento de ciertas religiones, como el mormonismo.

Esta obra se adentra en el uso estratégico de la imagen religiosa en el marco de la evangelización colonial, tomando como caso de estudio el pueblo de Caquiaviri (actual Bolivia).

En el Chile de Salvador Allende, los Santiago Boys se propusieron construir una red digital nacional al servicio del gobierno socialista. Basada en redes de télex y ordenadores, esta infraestructura permitiria centralizar informacion economica en tiempo real desde todas las fabricas nacionalizadas del pais y ofrecer herramientas a los trabajadores para la planificacion popular de la economia. Lo llamaron Proyecto Synco: una especie de internet antes de internet, concebida para fomentar la coordinacion social desde abajo. Diseñado con el apoyo del britanico Stafford Beer exespia, alto ejecutivo y figura del establishment imperial britanico, el sistema fue interrumpido abruptamente por el golpe militar de 1973 que impuso Pinochet.Basado en mas de doscientas entrevistas y mas de una decada de investigacion, The Santiago Boys recupera la historia borrada de una lucha de clases en el marco de la Guerra Fria: la que enfrento a sindicatos, trabajadores y partidos radicales con la ITT el gigante tecnologico de la epoca, la CIA, las elites empresariales y las facciones de ultraderecha aliadas con las fuerzas armadas y los carabineros. Mientras los ingenieros de Allende diseñaban tecnologias para democratizar la planificacion economica, entregar mas poder a los trabajadores o incluso mejorar el reparto de alimentos, sus adversarios desplegaban lo que se conoce como tecnologia oscura: sistemas de vigilancia, sabotaje informatico y manipulacion de datos. Herramientas similares a las que serian empleadas poco despues en la Operacion Condor para coordinar la persecucion, tortura y asesinato de disidentes de izquierdas en todo el Cono Sur.¿Que habria ocurrido si la infraestructura socialista digital hubiera prosperado? The Santiago Boys demuestra que no fueron los economistas de la dictadura los Chicago Boys quienes imaginaron otro mundo posible, sino un grupo de ingenieros radicales influido por la teoria de la dependencia, la Bauhaus y la cibernetica. A traves del caso Synco, el libro explora los vinculos entre tecnocracia y clase social, la continuidad invisible entre el capitalismo de guerra y las Big Tech, y las contradicciones de la Guerra Fria que siguen vivas hoy en dia. Esta es la historia de una utopia socialista que pudo ser y no fue, pero cuyo recuerdo nos permite imaginar un mundo liberado de las ataduras de Silicon Valley."Una obra realizada con mucho cariño. La escritura es inteligente, elegante y contiene algunos detalles fantasticos que se pierden en un abrir y cerrar de ojos"- Financial Times"Para ser la historia de un proyecto tecnologico de medio siglo de antiguedad, resulta sorprendentemente fascinante" - Los Angeles Times"La historia de un grupo de pensadores utopicos adelantados a su tiempo, cuyas ideas pueden colisionar si no entienden la geopolitica" - El Pais"Repasa el increible viaje de los Santiago Boys, los ingenieros chilenos que quisieron liberar a su pais de la dependencia tecnologica estadounidense" - Le Monde"Arroja luz sobre un revolucionario proyecto de ingenieria interrumpido por el regimen militar" - Folha de S. Paulo"Allende queria construir una democracia basada en datos en Chile. ¿Se habria vuelto Internet mas humanitaria sin el golpe de Estado de 1973?" - Frankfurter Allgemeine"La inteligencia artificial socialista que naufrago con Allende"- Corriere della Sera"Sobre como un excentric...

The destruction and defiance that swirled around Australia s embrace of the world s nuclear order Though a nonnuclear state Australia was embroiled in the military and civilian nuclear energy programs of numerous global powers across the twentieth century From uranium extraction to nuclear testing Australia s lands became sites of imperial exploitation under the guise of national development The continent was subject to rampant nuclear colonialism However this history is not just one of imposition Aboriginal communities bearing the brunt of these processes have persistently resisted reclaiming their rights to Country and demanding reparations As Jessica Urwin shows extraction weapons testing and nuclear waste disposal have caused incalculable physical spiritual and cultural harm to Aboriginal communities and lands Yet Indigenous peoples all over the world have not only survived nuclear colonialism but challenged it time and time again Tracking the colonial mechanisms Australia used to pursue a nuclear industry Urwin simultaneously highlights how Aboriginal peoples refused and reshaped those same mechanisms over time A groundbreaking book Contaminated Country reveals how Australia s deep nuclear past has been entangled with colonialism locally nati

State led conservation transformed Gansu s landscape rural communities bore the costs From the 1940s to the 1960s soil and water conservation measures transformed both the arid erosion prone environment of China s Loess Plateau and the lives of rural people Remaking the Earth Exhausting the People explores how the Chinese state imposed the burden of conservation on rural communities and how the communities navigated those demands Weaving together archival research and oral history interviews Micah S Muscolino demonstrates that for the inhabitants of China s countryside conservation programs became part of an extractive mode of accumulation that intensified labor demands and entailed loss of control over resources Muscolino recounts how changes to the physical environment played out in villages on farms and within households His multitiered investigation uncovers the relationship between the forces of nature Chinese state policies and the embodied experiences of rural men and women The book also highlights the contestations and compromises that the state s environmental interventions triggered in rural society By illustrating how state building and revolution in modern China altered human relationships with the natural world Muscolino shows that examini

Representing a remarkable achievement in environmental scholarship and drawn from decades of research The Great Experiment in Conservation captures the wisdom born of the last thirty years of the Ad

Gimson s great British heroes

The destruction and defiance that swirled around Australia s embrace of the world s nuclear order Though a nonnuclear state Australia was embroiled in the military and civilian nuclear energy programs of numerous global powers across the twentieth century From uranium extraction to nuclear testing Australia s lands became sites of imperial exploitation under the guise of national development The continent was subject to rampant nuclear colonialism However this history is not just one of imposition Aboriginal communities bearing the brunt of these processes have persistently resisted reclaiming their rights to Country and demanding reparations As Jessica Urwin shows extraction weapons testing and nuclear waste disposal have caused incalculable physical spiritual and cultural harm to Aboriginal communities and lands Yet Indigenous peoples all over the world have not only survived nuclear colonialism but challenged it time and time again Tracking the colonial mechanisms Australia used to pursue a nuclear industry Urwin simultaneously highlights how Aboriginal peoples refused and reshaped those same mechanisms over time A groundbreaking book Contaminated Country reveals how Australia s deep nuclear past has been entangled with colonialism locally nati

The bestselling author of The Ruin of All Witches returns with a gripping vividly told journey into his family s wartime past In this rich engrossing book Gaskill succeeds in his aim of writing a story that in good conscience feels real As I finished his book I began to see my own family s past through his glass mountain Ian Ellison Literary Review Gaskill s account is as much about what cannot be known about the past as what can still be reconstructed even as the last witnesses to the Second World War pass from sight his ability to explore the overgrown byways of history almost as a form of travel writing is again winningly on show here James Owen The Sunday Times Malcolm Gaskill knew two things about his great uncle Ralph s wartime adventures he d been a prisoner in Italy and he d cut his way out of a train with a knife and fork Apart from that he d faded into family folklore lost to view Until one hot afternoon in an English country garden a chance conversation set Gaskill on his uncle s trail What Ralph really did in the war was he discovers even more extraordinary than the exaggerations of family myth From last ditch fighting in the Libyan desert and incarceration in a Puglian prisoner of war camp to desperate dramatic escapes an

A brilliant history of Britain from 500 million BC to the next election Taking the reader on a time travelling adventure around the spindly sea wracked islands we call home The Discovery of Britain is panoramic and intimate poignant and shocking seriously funny and enlightening in the most surprising way In historian Graham Robb s assured hands and often from the unique vantage point of his bicycle we encounter an entertaining cast of characters foreign and homegrown drop in on places and events and dwell on the successes and catastrophes across British history seeing it all as it s never been seen before Political geographical and social in scope and with intriguing maps and illustrations throughout The Discovery of Britain can be devoured whole or each chapter read in the time it takes to change a bicycle tyre or roll and smoke a cigarette The wonderful choice of how to enjoy this original and sweeping history of Britain from ancient settlements swallowed up by the sea to recent political earthquakes is yours

An Aspects of History Best Book of the Year An Engelsberg Ideas Best Book of the Year A rigorous myth busting look at the city s chaotic recovery in the wake of war and fascism Financial Times

Rethinking the history of the last thirteen centuries in Crucible of Light Elizabeth Drayson pulls together the epic interwoven history of the Muslim and Christian worlds Focusing on major turning points individual stories and key places from Mecca to Cordoba from Damascus to Venice and from Vienna to Istnbul Drayson tracks the themes that unite us classical learning preserved in Islamic libraries the enduring influence of Moorish architecture and design the food we share the goods we have traded and the continuing dialogue between individuals and cultures that has permeated Europe s history and shaped its borders It is a history that sweeps across cities and continents from Spanish patios and palaces to Ottoman inspired coffee houses in 17th century London to the Mezquita in Cordoba once a mosque now a cathedral the physical embodiment of the ongoing discourse that continues to shape European identity

A captivating portrait of Yanis Varoufakis s political awakening told through the history of his family from 1924 to the present A new book by Yanis Varoufakis one of the most important political figures of our times is always momentous KEN LOACHWhen Yanis Varoufakis was eight years old his uncle made him a model airplane out of matchsticks and cigarette papers all he could find in his cell Yet to his dismay his mother Eleni broke open the fragile gift revealing a hidden message instructions for fellow dissidents ahead of their forthcoming court martial It was 1969 and Uncle Panayis was a political prisoner captured and tortured for resisting the military dictatorship Dramatic in scope and deep in feeling Raise Your Soul is an intimate portrait of three generations caught up in the whirlwind of history It is also a remarkable narrative spanning one hundred years beginning in post colonial Egypt in the 1920s and then tracing Greece s tumultuous century through Nazi occupation communist resistance civil war Cold War fracture fascist dictatorship socialist revival and present day economic crisis At its heart are the women whose resilience defiance and courage inspired the visionary economist most Eleni Anna Trisevgeni Georgia and Danae Thr

La historia de los mexicas, desde sus orígenes en Chicomóztoc hasta su estremecedora derrota contra la alianza hispano-tlaxcalteca, fue primero diseminada fuera de México gracias a un elocuente y bello manuscrito de 1587, conocido hoy como Codice Tovar (C. 1587). Primera edicion completa, critica y filologicamente moderna de este codice fundamental, que fue elaborado a partir de las fuentes indigenas e ilustrado por pintores-escritores nahuas.

Democracies are fragile Freedoms that seem secure can be lost Few historical events illustrate this as vividly as the failure of the Weimar Republic

A Times Best Art Book of the Year 2024 A riot of a book Country Life s Books of the Year 2024 The modern art market was born on a single night On 15 October 1958 Sotheby s of Bond Street staged an event sale of Impressionist paintings from the collection of an American banker Erwin Goldschmidt three Manets two Cezannes one Van Gogh and a Renoir Movie stars and other celebrities attended in black tie and saw the seven lots go for 781 000 at the time the highest price for a single art sale Overnight London became the world centre of the art market and Sotheby s an international auction house The event signalled a shift in power from dealers to auctioneers and pointed the way for Impressionist paintings to dominate the market for the next forty years In this climate Sotheby s and Christie s became a great business duopoly as aggressive dominant and competitive in the field of art sales as Pepsi and Coca Cola were in soft drinks The resulting expansion of the market was accompanied by rocketing prices colourful scandals and legal dramas Over the decades London transformed itself from a place of old master sales to a revitalised centre of contemporary art a process crowned by the opening of Tate Modern in 2000 James Stourton tells the story

A new and radically original account of the longest military conflict in European history which challenges the conventional periodisation of the Hundred Years War to consider a much longer period of Anglo French conflict Michael Livingston argues that the English lens through which the war has been viewed has led historians to define it in terms of English interests most famously the claim of the English Plantagenet king Edward III to be the rightful king of France and that the events collectively labelled the Hundred Years War are best seen as a sequence of steps in France s struggle to define itself as a nation For much of the period France s primary rival was indeed England But it was by no means the only combatant Burgundy stood in its way too as did Brittany Flanders Navarre and other rival powers Viewing France as the primary engine driving the war leads Livingston to consider a much longer timespan starting with the Anglo French Pirate War of 1292 which swiftly escalated into a fight over England s feudal possessions in Gascony and ending with the marriage of Charles VIII of France to Anne of Brittany by which Brittany was subsumed into the French realm