Author: Marcel van Herpen File Type: epub This book offers the first systematic analysis of Putins two wars, placing the Second Chechen War and the War with Georgia of 2008 in their broader historical contexts. Drawing on extensive original Russian sources, Marcel H. Van Herpen analyzes in detail how Putins wars were prepared and conducted and why they led to allegations of war crimes and genocide. He shows how the conflicts functioned to consolidate and legitimate Putins regime and explores how they were connected to a third, hidden, internal war waged by the Kremlin against the opposition. The author convincingly argues that the Kremlinrelying on the secret services, the Orthodox Church, the Kremlin youth Nashi, and the rehabilitated Cossacksis preparing for an imperial revival, most recently in the form of a Eurasian Union. An essential book for understanding the dynamics of Putins regime, this study digs deep into the Kremlins secret long-term strategies. Readable and clearly argued, it makes a compelling case that Putins regime emulates an established Russian paradigm in which empire building and despotic rule are mutually reinforcing. As the first comprehensive exploration of the historical antecedents and political continuity of the Kremlins contemporary policies, Van Herpens work will make a valuable contribution to the literature on postSoviet Russia, and his arguments will stimulate vigorous debate.**ReviewThat the Russia-West relationship has been deteriorating since Vladimir Putin came to power has commanded scholarly as well as political attention. Edward Lucass The New Cold War (2008) is among the earliest analyses of the glide into confrontational politics. Van Herpen contributes to this discourse by focusing on a specific aspect of Moscows challenge to the West Russias new imperialism. He takes a comprehensive approach to his argument, considering the historical as well as political and cultural contexts of Putins effort to maintain dominance within a sphere of influence encompassing the former Soviet Union. Among other things, van Herpen describes the organizational devices used by Moscow for this purpose, including the Eurasian Union, and the ambitious Collective Security Treaty Organization. Use of coercive measures as well as force to maintain a sphere of influence is the subject of nearly half of the book, which includes an overview of the two Chechen Wars and a detailed account of the Russian-Georgia War. The author ends with a consideration of the Kremlins obsession with Ukraine. Most timely! The book is recommended as a well-documented, well-argued, and strong criticism of Moscows foreign policy. Summing Up Recommended. General readers, undergraduate students, graduate students, and research faculty. (CHOICE) Van Herpen asserts in a timely new book, Putins Wars, that the Russian leader deliberately launched two wars after coming to power in 1999, first in Chechnya and then in Georgia, and that his relative success in both led directly to his current drive to dismember Ukraine. ... Drawing on a wide variety of Russian sources, Van Herpen documents how Russias FSB intelligence agency, under Putins direction, staged a series of explosions directed against civilian targets in Moscow and other cities. He notes that no Chechen has ever been put on trial for the bombings of apartment buildings, and the parliamentary commission set up to investigate the attacks had to stop its work because of a lack of cooperation from the Russian government. (McClatchy News Bureau) Did the Ukraine crisis reveal Russias imperial ambitions? Has it brought the specter of geopolitics back onto the center stage of its relationship with the West? This book, written before Russia annexed Crimea, provides outright answers. Marcel Van Herpen...convincingly foretells the current crisis. He does so first by comparing empire-building to expose Russias historical genetic makeup. In contrast to West Europe, where dissolution of empires was definitive and irreversible, Russian decolonization was immediately followed by re-colonization, as vividly shown in the Bolshevik revolutions aftermath. Van Herpen then points to another historical trait periods of Russian imperial expansion tended to have a negative impact on internal reform and democratization. He puts Putins re-imposition of authoritarianism in the political system in this context and interprets it as an internal war on political and economic reforms in order to pursue external expansion. Russias imperial ambition is further illustrated by a series of Putins wars in Chechnya and Georgia that consolidated his position, legitimized his power and let him roll back democratic reforms. Thus, Van Herpen concludes that Russian neo-imperialism is an ongoing project. (Global Asia) The author analyzes the phenomenon of Russian imperialism, its origins, evolution, ideological foundations, and reciprocal ties with despotic rule in general. Van Herpen gives a detailed account of Putins revival of imperial doctrine and the related neocolonialist project of reintegrating post-Soviet space under the aegis of the Kremlin. . . . The book concludes with reflections on the Russian leaderships obsession with the Ukrainian problem and its efforts to coerce Ukraine into joining the Eurasian Union by force. . . . The authors logic is impeccable. (EastWest Journal of Ukranian Studies) Van Herpens work is incisive He persuasively argues that the Russian Federation is both a post-imperial state and a pre-imperial state that seeks to expand its control over much of the former Soviet empire. Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovychs decision in late November 2013 not to sign an association accord with the European Union may soon test that thesisif Russia and the EU continue to battle it out for predominant political-economic influence over the country, unable to reach a compromise. (Hall Gardner, author of NATO Expansion and US Strategy in Asia) About the Author Marcel H. Van Herpen is director of the Cicero Foundation, a think tank based in Maastricht and Paris. He specializes in defense and security developments in Russia and the countries of the former Soviet Union. His books include Putinism The Slow Rise of a Radical Right Regime in Russia.

Author: Hoi-Eun Kim File Type: pdf The history of German medicine has undergone intense scrutiny because of its indelible connection to Nazi crimes. What is less well known is that Meiji Japan adopted German medicine as its official model in 1869. In Doctors of Empire, Hoi-eun Kim recounts the story of the almost 1,200 Japanese medical students who rushed to German universities to learn cutting-edge knowledge from the world leaders in medicine, and of the dozen German physicians who were invited to Japan to transform the countrys medical institutions and education. Shifting fluently between German, English, and Japanese sources, Kims book uses the colourful lives of these men to examine the impact of German medicine in Japan from its arrival to the pinnacle of its influence and its abrupt but temporary collapse at the outbreak of the First World War. Transnational history at its finest, Doctors of Empire not only illuminates the German origins of modern medical science in Japan but also reinterprets the nature of German imperialism in East Asia. **