This volume explores the subject of religious conversion over broad expanses of time and space, considering cases from the thirteenth through the twentieth centuries and from settings across the world. Leading scholars from a variety of historical sub-fields address the theme at a moment when the utility of the concept of conversion is vigorously debated. The historical settings treated here stretch from thirteenth-century England to sixteenth-century southern India and Andean Peru, from Bohemia to China during the age of the Reformations, from the fifteenth-century Low Countries to...

Migration in History explores the nature and complexity of the movement of peoples, cultures, and ideas in historical context. This engaging volume presents essays from a variety of scholars to expand our understanding of the longstanding process and history of migration as an established global phenomenon. The articles examine population movements and their demographic, social, political, legal, and cultural causes and consequences in Medieval and Modern Europe, South Asia, Israel, and China. Topics addressed include voluntary and forced movements of people within and between regions and...

Corruption is a preoccupation of governments and societies across place and time, from the 18th-19th Century British, Chinese, and Iberian empires to 20th Century Nazi Germany, Russia, the United States, and India. This study offers three different perspectives on corruption. The first chapters highlight corrupt practices, taking as a point of departure a technocratic definition of corruption. The second part of the book views corruption through the lens of discourses of corruption, revealing that accusations of corruption have been employed as tools, often in the context of contestations of...

This volume explores the intersection of cities and the natural environment in an array of urban places, including New York, London, New Orleans, Venice, and Seattle, across a broad period from the late Renaissance to the present. The essays investigate the ecological context of revolts-both real and imagined-by urban squatters and slaves; urban epidemics and their cultural and political consequences; the social and economic impact of natural catastrophes upon urban places; and the environmental history of the rise and fall of cities. The Nature of Cities brings together the work of scholars...