David Lane

An accessible book covering the momentous changes that have occurred, and are still occurring, since the fall of the USSR in 1989. Contributions from an impressive collection of authors are drawn from the most recent and original research available and address political and social issues which impact on all levels of Russian society. The book consists of a selection of specially commissioned pieces which have evolved from the conference of the same name, held at Cambridge University in December 1994.

This is an up-to-the-minute revised edition of a text which, since its publication in 1990, has been extremely influential. The great changes of the past 18 months have entailed a comprehensive updating of the book. This edition takes account of new developments that include the independence of the Baltic states and the treaty which sparked 1991's attempted coup.

It is now well over a hundred years since the birth of Lenin. If his writings are to have the relevance for contemporary political action, it is necessary that they be understood within the specific historical context in which they arose. It is such an understanding that David Lane provides in this book. Dr Lane addresses four distinct, though related, topics: Lenin's analysis of revolution; Leninism as an ideology legitimating the Russian Revolution; a detached analysis of the revolutionary process; and the relevance of Lenin and the Russian Revolution for social and political change. He begins by showing that, studied thematically, the various parts of Lenin's thinking are complementary in providing an analysis of capitalism and the justification for socialist revolution. The book is a short, concise, detached, yet sympathetic account of Lenin's thinking on revolution, its implications for the rise of Stalinism and its significance for the model of socialism as developed in the USSR. It will appeal to sociologists, political scientists and historians interested in Leninism, Stalinism and revolutionary theory, as well as to others concerned with the theories and processes of social change.

In late-1930s Hollywood, a weary private detective accepts a curious job as technical advisor on a crime film-and quickly realizes the screenplay mirrors an unsolved murder he once investigated, down to details never released to the public. As the cameras roll, the line between reenactment and reality begins to blur, revealing that the killer isn't being hunted at all-they're using the film as a confession. With every scene, the truth grows more dangerous, and the detective discovers that in a town built on illusion, murder can be hidden in plain sight. What begins as a movie becomes a trap, where justice, guilt, and fame collide under the studio lights. In Hollywood, the dead don't stay silent-they're edited.

On a quiet Good Friday in San Francisco's Chinatown, a skeptical neuroscientist wanders into a forgotten chapel-and walks out carrying a mystery that bleeds into his body and shatters his certainty. When wounds identical to Christ's stigmata erupt on his hands and feet, science offers no answers, and faith asks questions he has never dared to consider. From emergency rooms and laboratories to Franciscan friaries and the sacred hills of Assisi, his search becomes a pilgrimage across reason, belief, and the fragile border between them. Each step draws him deeper into a convergence of neuroscience, ancient mysticism, and a phenomenon that refuses to be dismissed as coincidence or delusion. As evidence accumulates-both spiritual and biological-the line between miracle and discovery begins to blur. The Stigmata in Chinatown is a provocative, haunting meditation on what happens when the body knows something the mind cannot explain.

New Directions (1970) is a handbook for amateur dramatists packed with ideas and practical advice on production, choosing plays, improvisation, make-up, costumes, street drama, scenery and documentaries. The authors offer choices of solutions to problems, and suggest ways to experiment and improvise.

Hollywood film stars, fascist assassins. Bombs on San Lorenzo, la dolce vita on Via Veneto. Baroque fountains, umbrella pines. Urban planning, unregulated house-building. After half a century living in Rome, David Lane turns his eye on events and streetscapes in the Eternal City over the past 100 years. Scenes from a Roman Century begins with the 1924 murder of Giacomo Matteotti—the beginning of the end for interwar democracy—and ends with the organised crime and political violence of our own era. It sketches Rome’s growth under Mussolini’s dictatorship, and its fortunes during the Second World War; the economic miracle of the post-war decades; and Rome’s latest transformations through the turn of the millennium. Lane sends readers meandering down the alleys, out towards the suburbs and to stand before the monumental architecture, capturing cultural and political moments from Rome’s past and present. He explores fascism’s material legacy across the city, terrorism and political extremism on the right and left, and the struggle to manage economic growth’s burdens—ugly urban sprawl, and the crush of mass tourism in the historic centre. As pilgrims descend for the 2025 jubilee declared by Pope Francis, what is next for this ever-changing city of history?

The twentieth century was an era of socialist revolutionary transformations and significant social-democratic reforms. By the twenty-first century, these socialist inspired movements have largely disappeared, their ideologies have been disavowed, and their institutions dismantled and replaced by global neoliberal capitalism. This book explores the social, political and economic forces driving these movements in Western Europe and in the USSR, explaining their initial triumphs and how they eventually faltered under the influence of global neoliberalism. David Lane examines the nature and appeal of neoliberal capitalism and analyses current social and political proposals for its reform or replacement, including statist forms of capitalism; social-democratic and ecological globalization reforms; self-sustaining autonomous communities; and globalised forms of social-democracy or socialism. Outlining his own proposal to replace global neoliberal capitalism with political systems based on a combination of market socialism and state planning, Lane provides important insights for ways forward, and a challenge for parties seeking political and economic alternatives.

Orpheus and the Maenads A Traditional Play in Blank Verse The preternaturally great poet Orpheus has responded to the loss of his wife Eurydice to the Underworld by forsaking the society of his fellow men in Thrace, where he was a poet-king, and endlessly wandering through field and forest, using his poetic genius to lament his loss. Apollo, the god of poetry, urges him to give up his excessive mourning and return to Thrace and once more sing the deeds of the great heroes of Greece. He warns him that in the wild he inhabits there lurk the young god of wine Dionysus and his super-human followers the Maenads, who themselves eschew the ordinary society of men and give themselves to mad ecstasies brought on by wine and who would like nothing more than to recruit Orpheus to their number. Unwilling to give up his devotion to the memory of Eurydice, Orpheus rejects the Maenads and their Master with unmeasured words of scorn, sealing his own doom. Dionysus devises a fiendish plot of revenge that goes well beyond the ancient myth.

The twentieth century was an era of socialist revolutionary transformations and significant social-democratic reforms. By the twenty-first century, these socialist inspired movements have largely disappeared, their ideologies have been disavowed, and their institutions dismantled and replaced by global neoliberal capitalism. This book explores the social, political and economic forces driving these movements in Western Europe and in the USSR, explaining their initial triumphs and how they eventually faltered under the influence of global neoliberalism. David Lane examines the nature and appeal of neoliberal capitalism and analyses current social and political proposals for its reform or replacement, including statist forms of capitalism; social-democratic and ecological globalization reforms; self-sustaining autonomous communities; and globalised forms of social-democracy or socialism. Outlining his own proposal to replace global neoliberal capitalism with political systems based on a combination of market socialism and state planning, Lane provides important insights for ways forward, and a challenge for parties seeking political and economic alternatives.

The Radhasoami Tradition is an important contribution to several scholarly literatures: on Southeast Asian studies; the sociology of religion, and the sociology of politics. Dr. Lane has gathered a truly impressive array of data on the process of choosing a new guru in the Radhasoami tradition. No serious scholar of Indian religion can ignore Lane's work. The data he has collected will be the building blocks for all future research on this area. To this data, David has applied a very insightful, original conceptual framework combining elements of Weberian theory on the transmission of charisma, of phenomenological theory on the sociology of experience, and the theories of "ideological work" developed by Bennett Berger. The result is the kind of scholarship that deeply respects the authenticity of the religious experience of the Radhasoami community while at the same time making it possible to understand that experience in the context of cultural processes and organizational dynamics common to many different religious communities. --Professor Madsen, Co-author of Habits of the Heart The Radhasoami Tradition is one of the best works I have read in many years in the field of modern religion and society. Its great strength, I feel, is its understanding of the concept of authority in the Radhasoami tradition and in religious communities in India in general. At no greater time is this concept tested and honed than in the process of succession from one spiritual master to another. These are often difficult moments for the Radhasoami communities, and for this reason inside knowledge about guru succession is very difficult to obtain. Dr. Lane not only has this information, he has it in abundance. He is able to work with this vast knowledge of Radhasoami history and make useful sociological observations on the basis of it. --Professor Juergensmeyer, Author of Radhasoami Reality The Radhasoami Tradition is a masterful work. Dr. Lane demonstrates the dynamics and history of Indian religious movements in the Hindu tradition and provides a basis for comparative analysis. Building on the classics in the sociology of religion and new studies of religious movements, Dr. Lane skillfully show how religious traditions are maintained in the midst of change, conflict, and negotiation. --Professor Jules-Rosette, Author of The New Religions of Africa