Cronica Sarracina was one of the most widely read books of its time. It was very popular, and contemporary historians considered it a proper historiographic work. Despite this fact, later opinion believe it to be stylistically poor. It was also considered to be a fictional work because it used myth, legend, and dream material. In order to clarify this discrepancy, the present work focuses on three fundamental points: the nature of the historical discourse, the role of the narrative in historiographic writing, and the literary conventions of the Middle Ages. In order to be considered a proper historiographic work, the work must represent the actual facts, that is to say, the facts that exist outside of the author's consciousness. The traditional historical discourse starts from this premise, but concentrates on accumulating referentiality to affirm the existence of the external reality that is independent from the discourse that announces it. However, the most recent theories hold that the events and the realities represented in a historiographical work are not independent from the discourse that announces them. The story mechanism is inseparable from the way in which we perceive and represent our world. Taking as a starting point the instability of the boundaries established among the principal forms of discourse, especially in the case of the discourses produced prior to the nineteenth century when the rules of their formation were different, this document asks whether Cronica Sarracina is a proper historiographical work. It examines the criteria of the truth and objectivity in force at the time of the Cronica's writing, the literary conventions that govern its narrative structure, and if its narrative structure contributes to the representation of the truth. The document explores the role of those aspects historically least acceptable, that is to say, those concerning chivalry and those that were traditionally labeled as myth, and how these contribute to the representation of the truth.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

This study investigated American arms transfer policy in the Middle East from 1960 to 1990. Five independent hypotheses have been formulated using explanations for arms transfers drawn from the academic theoretical literature on international relations as well as policy and popular interpretations. The dissertation tested all five hypotheses for their respective explanatory power in understanding United States arms transfers to the Middle East during a key thirty-year period, using a mix of techniques including a comprehensive overview of each factor, historical and objective grounding for each factor and a systematic inquiry using both qualitative and quantitative methods. The five individual hypotheses focus on Soviet arms transfers to the region, the regional balance of power, the "Israeli factor," the Arab-Israeli peace process and the "Oil factor". Data was collected to test each of these hypotheses. The results include the following: a modest action-reaction pattern in superpower arms transfer to the region does exist, with more support for a US reactionary policy to the Soviet Union than the opposite; US transferred arms to the hegemon's challengers to maintain a balance of power system in the Middle East; US arms transfers to Arab states were not strongly related as leads to US arms transfers to Israel; it was found that US peace attempts are moderately correlated with US arms transfers to the involved states; and, finally US arms transfers were strongly correlated with the oil factor. The dissertation concluded that political considerations and economic factors are equally salient depending on the type of cases studied. The results provided insights on the multiple explanations for understanding United States arms transfer policies to the Middle East and produced findings that will have policy implications for policy toward a volatile region of the world in the post-Cold War era, as well as for our understanding of a key component of United States foreign policy in general.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.