From earliest times, sex has fascinated and repulsed society in equal measure. In an effort to untangle Western society's complex relationship with the realities of sex, this provocative volume explores the ways in which governments, religious leaders and cultures in Europe tried to regulate sex and sexuality throughout history. From the sacred texts of ancient Israel to the slums of 19th century Britain, this book explores political, legal and cultural controls on consensual sex and the individuals and movements that resisted them. Topics range from prostitution and homosexuality to marriage, contraception and abortion. While traditional narrative holds that Europe alternated between sexual freedom and oppression through the Victorian age, this work reveals that the real story of how sex was regulated--and how people defied regulation--is not so clear cut.

The War on Sex: Western Repression from the Torah to Victoria

History

Denton, Chad

Military

McFarland

Make your own culture war! Stuck in the city of Dead End, where ambitions go to wither, Rodney Bauman has resigned himself to a life of covering school board budgets and antique store openings. However, led by his own aspirations and the occasional religious vision, Rodney has found the key to realizing his dreams: covering a culture war that he secretly launches himself. At first Rodney finds both notoriety and a Stoic boyfriend, but when his cause accidentally attracts a genuine cultural terrorist named Joy, Rodney succeeds far more than he ever expected... More information at www.WapshottPress.com

Storylandia Issue 14: Dead End

Literature & Fiction

Humor & Satire

Wapshott Press, The

The image of the debauched French aristocrat of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is one that still has power over the international public imagination, from the unending fascination with the Marquis de Sade to the successes of the film Ridicule. Drawing on memoirs, letters, popular songs and pamphlets, and political treatises, The Enlightened and Depraved: Decadence, Radicalism, and the Early Modern French Nobility traces the origins of this powerful stereotype from between the reign of Louis XIV and the Terror of the French Revolution. The decadent and enlightened noble of early modern France, the libertine, was born in a push to transform the nobility from a warrior caste into an intelligentsia. Education itself had become a power through which the privileged could set themselves free from old social and religious restraints. However, by the late eighteenth century, the libertine noble was already falling under attack by changing attitudes toward gender, an emphasis on economic utility over courtly service, and ironically the very revolutionary forces that the enlightened nobility of the court and Paris helped awaken. In the end, the libertine nobility would not survive the French Revolution, but the basic idea of knowledge as a liberating force would endure in modernity, divorced from a single class.

Decadence, Radicalism, and the Early Modern French Nobility: The Enlightened and Depraved

Europe

Lexington Books

A Historical Survey of the Many Ways Empires have Succumbed to External and Internal Pressures There are no self-proclaimed empires today. After the twentieth century, with its worldwide wave of decolonizing and liberation movements, the very word "empire" conjures images of slavery, war, repression, and colonialism. None of this is to say that empires are confined to the past, however. By at least some reasonable definitions, empires do exist today. Many articles and books speak about the decline of the "American Empire," for example, or compare the history of the United States to that of Rome or the British Empire. Yet&nbsp;&nbsp;no public official would speak candidly of American "imperial" interests in the Middle East or use the word "empire" in discussions of the nation's future the same way British politicians did in the twentieth century.&nbsp;&nbsp;In addition, empires don't have to fit the classical Roman mold; there are many kinds of empire and varieties of international authority, such as cultural imperialism and economic imperialism. But it is clear empires do not last, even those that once harnessed great wealth, strong armies, and sophisticated legal systems. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;InThe Fall of Empires: A Brief History of Imperial Collapse,&nbsp;historian Chad Denton describes the end of seventeen empires throughout world history, from Athens to Qin China, from the Byzantium to the Mughals. He reveals--through stories of conquest, corruption, incompetence, assassination, bigotry, and environmental crisis--how even the most seemingly eternal of empires declined. For Athens and Britain it was military hubris; for Qin China and Russia it was alienating their subjects through oppression; Persia succumbed with the loss of its capital; the Khmer faced ecological catastrophe; while the Aztecs were destroyed by colonial exploitation. None of these events alone explains why&nbsp;&nbsp;the empires fell, but they do provide a glimpse into the often-unpredictable currents of history, which have so far spared no empire. A fascinating and instructive survey,&nbsp;The Fall of Empiresprovides compelling evidence about the fate of centralized regional or global power.

The Fall of Empires: A Brief History of Imperial Collapse

Americas

Westholme Publishing

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Books by Denton, Chad