The Emergence of the Gulf States : Studies in Modern History

CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title 2017 The Emergence of the Gulf States covers the history of the Gulf from the 18th century to the late 20th century. Employing a broad perspective, the volume brings together experts in the field to consider the region's political, economic and social development. The contributions address key themes including the impact of early history, religious movements, social structures, identity and language, imperialism, 20th-century economic transformation and relations with the wider Indian Ocean and Arab world. The work as a whole provides a new interpretive approach based on new research coupled with extensive reviews of the relevant literature. It offers a valuable contribution to the knowledge of the area and sets a new standard for the future scholarship and understanding of this vital region. This ground-breaking study offers a new paradigm for understanding the beliefs and religions of the Goths, Burgundians, Sueves, Franks and Lombards as they converted from paganism to Christianity between c.350 and c.700 CE. Combining history and theology with approaches drawn from the cognitive science of religion, Belief and Religion in Barbarian Europe uses both written and archaeological evidence to challenge many older ideas. Beginning with a re-examination of our knowledge about the deities and rituals of their original religions, it goes on to question the assumption that the Germanic peoples were merely passive recipients of Christian doctrine, arguing that so-called 'Arianism' was first developed as an 'entry-level' Christianity for the Goths. Focusing on individual ethnic groupings in turn, it presents a fresh view of the relationship between religion and politics as their rulers attempted to opt for Catholicism. In place of familiar debates about post-conversion 'pagan survivals', contemporary texts and legislation are analysed to create an innovative cognitive perspective on the ways in which the Church endeavoured to bring the Christian God into people's thoughts and actions. The work also includes a survey of a wide range of written and archaeological evidence, contrasting traditional conceptions of death, afterlife and funerary ritual with Christian doctrine and practice in these areas and exploring some of the techniques developed by the Church for assuaging popular anxieties about Christian burial and the Christian afterlife. "Responding to the belief that typology was a later development of the early church, and not applicable to the earliest canonical Gospel, Jonathan Robinson stresses that typology has deep Jewish roots, and that typological modes of thought were a significant part of the Gospel's historical and cultural background. He brings this insight to bear on four of the most dramatic miracles in Mark's Gospel, discovering a surprisingly consistent typological approach. Essential to Robinson's argument is the discovery of distinctive words and phrases taken from the Septuagint, that serve as unique indictors of Mark's intent to refer back to miracles from the Jewish scriptures, pointing to influence from Jonah, David, Elisha and Moses. These references in turn provide insight into Mark's Christology, revealing that Mark presents Jesus as both the fulfilment of scriptural human types and as assuming the narrative form of Israel's God. Robinson argues that rather than imposing categories extracted from earlier Jewish literature like "divine identity" and "exalted human figures", Mark should be allowed to speak on its own terms and with its own unique voice"-- Provided by publisher Challenging the accepted historical belief that they were mere passive recipients of Christian doctrine and providing insights into the way they would initially have apprehended a very different type of religion in the light of their own beliefs and intuitions, the book also examines the gradual adjustments which the Christian Church itself was forced to make across the period in order to consolidate large-scale conversions. Drawing on an exceptionally wide range of source material offering new approaches to evidence drawn from writers such as Tacitus, Ambrose, Augustine, Jordanes, as well as the Indiculus Superstitionum, and Pirmin's Scarapsus, it supplements these with material drawn from liturgical texts, hagiography, homilies, ecclesiastical and royal legislation and also from European folklore, interpreted in the light of latest theory to provide an authoritative overview of the period. "The Emergence of the Gulf States covers the history of the Gulf from the 18th century to 1971. Employing a broad perspective, the volume brings together experts in the field to consider the region's political, economic and social development. The contributions address key themes including the impact of early history, religious movements, social structures, identity and language, imperialism, 20th-century economic transformation and relations with the wider Indian Ocean and Arab world. The work as a whole provides a new interpretive approach based on new research coupled with extensive reviews of the relevant literature. It offers a valuable contribution to the knowledge of the area and sets a new standard for the future scholarship and understanding of this vital region."-- Provided by publisher " The Emergence of the Gulf States covers the history of the Gulf from the 18th century to 1971. Employing a broad perspective, the volume brings together experts in the field to consider the region's political, economic and social development. The contributions address key themes including the impact of early history, religious movements, social structures, identity and language, imperialism, 20th-century economic transformation and relations with the wider Indian Ocean and Arab world. The work as a whole provides a new interpretive approach based on new research coupled with extensive reviews of the relevant literature. It offers a valuable contribution to the knowledge of the area and sets a new standard for the future scholarship and understanding of this vital region. ".. "The Suite Spot is not a single-idea book but rather a compendium of wisdom that has been sourced from hundreds of leading executives over a period of 20 years and has been collated into a portfolio of tools and anecdotes. It will challenge existing thinking while also bringing new ideas to the business world. The book explains what today's C-Suite looks like and how it is evolving. It provides unique guidance on how to break into the C-Suite, and then how to be successful in the space through a unique combination of models, case studies, tables and images which illustrate the key points in a practical and meaningful way."--Amazon.com "Offers comprehensive coverage of the political, economic and social history of the six Gulf Arab States from the 18th to the 20th century"-- Provided by publisher