Bøger i Anthem Intercultural Transfer Studies serien

The early modern period witnessed the rise of impressive empires in the Eurasian context, in Europe and not less so in the east - The Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal Empires. The construction of large and stable empires necessitated the constructions of unprecedented power mechanisms. History of law and legality in the early modern period was playing a crucial role in these changes.Born in Spain and joining his family as refugees from the great expulsion from the Iberian peninsula, heading east to the Ottoman Empire, Karo, as the rest of Sephardi intellectuals, was deeply acquainted with both European [Canon law, ius comune] and Ottoman [Shari'a, Kanuname] legal traditions, and their transformative processes during the early modern period.The codes of law, in the short and long version, composed by R. Karo mark a watershed turn, and they were never superseded until the present. In composing them, Karo intended to respond to the global changes in law, and to update Jewish Halakhah to current political and cultural circumstances. The books suggest both a global reading of Jewish law, and a sociological perspective of Halakhah. It adds a further dimension on modernization of Jewish culture.

The twentieth century holds many titles that emphasize the extraordinary. It was a century of totalitarianism, but also one of betrayal, an age of extremes and the incomprehensible. Betrayed, that is, at the mercy of unrestrained violence, were not only the people themselves, but also, as it were, the idea of the human being. For up to a certain point, one could weigh oneself in an unfounded security of an inner connection between people. As is well known, such certainties were knocked out of hand in that century. Many situations, many images, motifs and sources can be named for this experience of unbounded violence, which now, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, requires new forms of transmission. In an era flooded with images, however, attention is more difficult. One has to embark on a search for traces; not because the sources are lacking, but because the form of inscription in history is problematic. This search for clues leads directly to the present monograph.

The present book provides a comparative ten-step model for revolutions and will show that these must be considered a global phenomenon of modernity.