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TOWARD HOLISTIC HISTORY
The Odyssey
of an Interdisciplinary Historian
by Corinne Lathrop Gilb
ISBN 0-9672671-4-5
hardcover
487 pages
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“As architects of our own self-space, we become architects of history and historical space. The relationship of the individual to his historical past is active, not passive…we are never outside history. It is always in us, and its spatial structure is what we and others like us create or recreate over our lifetimes of personal spatial development.”
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Historian, international lecturer, city planner, and early advocate of interdisciplinary study, Corinne Lathrop Gilb draws on disciplines beyond the conventional study of history to explore such diverse topics as symbolism in urban structure, biorhythms as determinants of creativity, the intertwined histories of liberalism and corporatism, and the role of beauty in public policy. Woven as a subtext throughout this collection of articles, speeches, and other short writings is Dr. Gilb's inquiry into the dynamic between inner history ("the architecture of self-space") and outer history. Thought-provoking and illuminating, Toward Holistic History is timely in its call for an historiography that recognizes the "great honeycomb" of pluralisms that defines our world.
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“A primary feature of the current instability in the vast Eurasian space is the recrudescence of primeval ethnic orientations so that each reaffirms a ‘soil and blood’ community claiming a local territory as entirely its own. Ethnic sovereignty becomes an instrument of far-reaching societal disintegration.”
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Boris S. Erasov, Research Coordinator at the Institute for Oriental Studies and former professor at Moscow State University and Moscow Linguistic University, addresses the problems stemming from ethnic fragmentation within the Russian Federation after the breakup of the Soviet Union, from the perspective of civilizational theory. Dr. Erasov provides some answers to the question: what transcendent cultural ideal, in the absence of communism, can provide a common bond for the diverse ethnic cultures in the former USSR? Tables of dates, facts about Russia's ethnic groups, and references are provided. An informed viewpoint from a Russian scholar.
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COMPARING CIVILIZATIONS
An Unconsensual View
of Culture–History
by Roger Williams Wescott
ISBN 0-9672671-1-0
paperback
377 pages
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“Often, in fact, civilizations overlap one another. Under such circumstances, how can investigators persuasively identify the ethos or core values, of any individual civilization? And how can they draw cultural boundaries between civilizations without being arbitrary?”
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Past President of the Linguistic Association and the International Society for the Comparative Study of Civilizations, Roger Williams Wescott presents the case for a number of hypotheses that take issue with commonly accepted beliefs about the nature of past civilizations. "Fresh perceptions are likely," he says, "only when consensualities are challenged." The ideas presented are thought-provoking; the writing is suitable for both academic and nonacademic readers.
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