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Books > Humanities > History > Asian / Middle Eastern history
The #1 international bestseller now in trade paperback--with 16
pages of photos. Here is the inspiring, true story of the Middle
East hostage crisis that began in 1979, and of the unconventional
means Ross Perot used to save his countrymen.
This is an in-depth study of the intellectual, technical, and
artistic encounters between Europe and China in the late eighteenth
century, focusing on the purposeful acquisition of information and
images that characterized a direct engagement with the idea of
"China." The central figure in this story is Henri-Leonard Bertin
(1720-1792), who served as a minister of state under Louis XV and,
briefly, Louis XVI. Both his official position and personal passion
for all things Chinese placed him at the center of intersecting
networks of like-minded individuals who shared his ideal vision of
China as a nation from which France had much to learn. John Finlay
examines a fascinating episode in the rich history of
cross-cultural exchange between China and Europe in the early
modern period, and this book will be an important and timely
contribution to a very current discussion about Sino-French
cultural relations. This book will be of interest to scholars in
art history, visual culture, European and Chinese history.
The series, Mao's Road to Power, consisting of translations of Mao
Zedong's writings from 1912 to 1949, provides abundant
documentation in his own words on his life and thought as well as
developments in China during the pre-1949 period. This final volume
in the series, Volume 10, covers the period from the Chinese
Communist Party's Strategic Offense during the Civil War to the
Establishment of the People's Republic of China, July 1947 to
October 1949.
First published in 1937, India's Social Heritage is intended to
give a simple statement of the principal features of the social
system in pre-independence India. The social system of
pre-Independence India retained many features characteristic of an
early stage of social growth. Society was still largely communal in
the sense that it was organized in groups. Individual life was
based on collective standards and had to be in harmony as a unit in
a group, to whose interests his own were subordinate. The social
system may be described as a synthesis of groups rather than
persons, while the joint family was the basis of Hindu law. This
book will be of interest to students of history, sociology and
South Asian studies.
This book explores new directions in the study of China's
borderlands. In addition to assessing the influential perspectives
of other historians, it engages innovative approaches in the
author's own research. These studies probe regional accommodations,
the intersections of borderland management, martial fortification,
and imperial culture, as well as the role of governmental discourse
in defining and preserving restive boundary regions. As the issue
of China's management of its borderlands grows more pressing, the
work presents key information and insights into how that nation's
contested fringes have been governed in the past.
Brimming with verve and dramatic incident, Singapore: A Biography
offers fresh insights into the life story of this island city-state
through the personal experiences of the workers, adventurers,
rulers and revolutionaries who have shaped its history over the
last seven centuries. The authors, drawing on research undertaken
in collaboration with the National Museum of Singapore, have woven
together ancient chronicles, eyewitness accounts, oral histories
and even modern radio and television broadcasts to create a vivid
and compelling narrative that brings the past back to life.
Grounded in scholarship yet fired by the imagination, this book
reveals the Singapore story to have been as rich, diverse and
multilayered as the city-state is prosperous, ordered and
successful today.
Winner of the 2022 London Hellenic Prize On the bicentennial of the
Greek Revolution, an essential guide to the momentous war for
independence of the Greeks from the Ottoman Empire. The Greek war
for independence (1821-1830) often goes missing from discussion of
the Age of Revolutions. Yet the rebellion against Ottoman rule was
enormously influential in its time, and its resonances are felt
across modern history. The Greeks inspired others to throw off the
oppression that developed in the backlash to the French Revolution.
And Europeans in general were hardly blind to the sight of
Christian subjects toppling Muslim rulers. In this collection of
essays, Paschalis Kitromilides and Constantinos Tsoukalas bring
together scholars writing on the many facets of the Greek
Revolution and placing it squarely within the revolutionary age. An
impressive roster of contributors traces the revolution as it
unfolded and analyzes its regional and transnational repercussions,
including the Romanian and Serbian revolts that spread the spirit
of the Greek uprising through the Balkans. The essays also
elucidate religious and cultural dimensions of Greek nationalism,
including the power of the Orthodox church. One essay looks at the
triumph of the idea of a Greek "homeland," which bound the Greek
diaspora-and its financial contributions-to the revolutionary
cause. Another essay examines the Ottoman response, involving a
series of reforms to the imperial military and allegiance system.
Noted scholars cover major figures of the revolution; events as
they were interpreted in the press, art, literature, and music; and
the impact of intellectual movements such as philhellenism and the
Enlightenment. Authoritative and accessible, The Greek Revolution
confirms the profound political significance and long-lasting
cultural legacies of a pivotal event in world history.
Situated between the 1970s Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan
and the post-2001 War on Terror, Refugee Cities tells the story of
how global wars affect everyday life for Afghans who have been
living as refugees in Pakistan. This book provides a necessary
glimpse of what ordinary life looks like for a long-term refugee
population, beyond the headlines of war, terror, or helpless
suffering. It also increases our understanding of how cities-rather
than the nation-are important sites of identity-making for people
of migrant origins. In Refugee Cities, Sanaa Alimia reconstructs
local microhistories to chronicle the lives of ordinary people
living in low-income neighborhoods in Peshawar and Karachi and the
ways in which they have transformed the cities of which they are a
part. In Pakistan, formal citizenship is almost impossible for
Afghans to access; despite this, Afghans have made new
neighborhoods, expanded city boundaries, built cities through their
labor in construction projects, and created new urban
identities-and often they have done so alongside Pakistanis. Their
struggles are a crucial, neglected dimension of Pakistan's urban
history. Yet given that the Afghan experience in Pakistan is
profoundly shaped by geopolitics, the book also documents how, in
the War-on-Terror era, many Afghans have been forced to leave
Pakistan. This book, then, is also a documentation of the multiple
displacements migrants are subject to and the increased
normalization of deportation as a part of "refugee management."
Since the early 1950s, the heavily industrialised nation of South
Korea has seen steady growth and is now the world's seventh-largest
exporter and 11th-largest economy overall. As the Cold War on the
Korean peninsula gathered momentum, the development of the Republic
of Korea Air Force became one of the nation's top priorities. While
initially dependent on the United States for its aircraft, Korea's
aviation industry has matured rapidly, and the ROKAF's use of
indigenously manufactured equipment is on the rise. Modern South
Korean Air Power provides a detailed look at the aircraft and
armament, as well as the organisation and the modernisation process
of the ROKAF. The air arm has invested heavily in its early warning
and intelligence-gathering capability to guard against the
unpredictability of its northern neighbour. A territorial dispute
with long-standing rival Japan, as well as incursions into its
airspace by both China and Russia, have fuelled the need to
transform the ROKAF into a technologically superior force. In its
ongoing efforts to maintain its edge, the ROKAF has introduced
fifth-generation stealth fighters while at the same time still
making effective use of obsolete biplanes. It is this wide variety
of aircraft and helicopters that make this air arm one of a kind.
This book is a highly informative and richly illustrated source of
reference and documents the ROKAF in a previously unavailable
degree of detail. It provides an insightful and in-depth look at
the journey the service has embarked upon to face the regional
security challenges of tomorrow.
At sixty-two meters the Leshan Buddha in southwest China is the
world's tallest premodern statue. Carved out of a riverside cliff
in the eighth century, it has evolved from a religious center to a
UNESCO World Heritage Site and popular tourist destination. But
this Buddha does not stand alone: Sichuan is home to many cave
temples with such monumental sculptures, part of a centuries-long
tradition of art-making intricately tied to how local inhabitants
made use of their natural resources with purpose and creativity.
These examples of art embedded in nature have altered landscapes
and have influenced the behaviors, values, and worldviews of users
through multiple cycles of revival, restoration, and recreation. As
hybrid spaces that are at once natural and artificial, they embody
the interaction of art and the environment over a long period of
time. This far-ranging study of cave temples in Sichuan shows that
they are part of the world's sustainable future, as their continued
presence is a reminder of the urgency to preserve culture as part
of today's response to climate change. Temples in the Cliffside
brings art history into close dialogue with current discourse on
environmental issues and contributes to a new understanding of the
ecological impact of artistic monuments.
![Nehru (Paperback): Benjamin Zachariah](//media.loot.co.za/images/x80/717533368640179215.jpg) |
Nehru
(Paperback)
Benjamin Zachariah
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R1,097
Discovery Miles 10 970
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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How did Jawaharlal Nehru come to lead the Indian nationalist
movement, and how did he sustain his leadership as the first Prime
Minister of independent India? Nehru's vision of India, its roots
in Indian politics and society, as well as its viability have been
central to historical and present-day views of India. This engaging
new biography dispels many myths surrounding Nehru, and
distinguishes between the icon he has become and the politician he
actually was. Benjamin Zachariah places Nehru in the context of the
issues of his time, including the central theme of nationalism, the
impact of Cold War pressures on India and the transition from
colonial control to a precarious independence. Connecting the
domestic and international aspects of his political life and
ideology, this study provides a fascinating insight into Nehru, his
times and his legacy.
Beyond the Lines explores the social underpinnings of rebel
adaptation and resilience. How do rebel groups cope with crises
such as repression, displacement, and fragmentation? What explains
changes in militant organizations' structures and behaviors over
time? Drawing on nearly two years of ethnographic research, Sarah
E. Parkinson traces shifts in Palestinian militant groups' internal
structures and practices during the civil war of 1975 to 1990 and
foreign occupations of Lebanon. She shows that most militants
approach asymmetrical warfare as a series of challenges centered
around information and logistics, characterized by problems such as
supplying constantly mobile forces, identifying collaborators,
disrupting rival belligerents' operations, and providing essential
services like healthcare. Effective negotiation of these challenges
contributes to militant organizations' resilience and survival. In
this context, the foundation of rebel resilience lies with
militants' ability to repurpose their everyday social networks to
organizational ends. In the Lebanese setting, Beyond the Lines
demonstrates how regionalized differences in Israeli, Syrian, and
Lebanese deployment of violence triggered distinct social network
responses that led to divergent organizational outcomes for
Palestinian militants. -- Cornell University Press
Palestinian civilians engaged in numerous acts of unarmed
resistance during the second intifada. However, these attempts in
using non-violent strategies were frequently overshadowed by the
armed tactics of militant groups. Drawing from extensive
interviews, surveys, and observations in the West Bank, this book
provides an in-depth study of the often-overlooked aspects of
popular resistance in Palestine. The book demonstrates how such
unarmed tactics have considerable support amongst the local
population particularly when they are framed as a strategy rather
than just as a moral preference. However, whilst recognizing the
successes of many civil-based initiatives, the author examines why
a unified popular movement never fully emerged. She argues that
obstacles extended beyond occupation policies to include political
constraints from the Palestinian Authority, and agenda-setting
efforts from sectors of the international community. Nevertheless,
many activists continue to work creatively through diverse channels
and networks to broaden the space for civil resistance. Combining
critical analysis with activist narratives and community case
studies, the book provides a comprehensive and compelling look at
non-violent activism in the second intifada, offering a fresh
perspective on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and illustrating
both the challenges and opportunities in mobilizing for popular
struggle.
Did the Exodus occur? This question has been asked in biblical
scholarship since its origin as a modern science. The desire to
resolve the question scientifically was a key component in the
funding of archaeological excavations in the nineteenth century.
Egyptian archaeologists routinely equated sites with their presumed
biblical counterpart. Initially, it was taken for granted that the
Exodus had occurred. It was simply a matter of finding the
archaeological data to prove it. So far, those results have been
for naught. The Exodus: An Egyptian Story takes a very real-world
approach to understanding the Exodus. It is not a story of cosmic
spectaculars that miraculously or coincidentally occurred when a
people prepared to leave Egypt. There are no special effects in the
telling of this story. Instead, the story is told with real people
in the real world doing what real people do. Peter Feinman does not
rely on the biblical text and is not trying to prove that the Bible
is true. He places the Exodus within Egyptian history based on the
Egyptian archaeological record. It is a story of the rejection of
the Egyptian cultural construct and defiance of Ramses II.
Egyptologists, not biblical scholars, are the guides to telling the
Exodus story. What would you expect Ramses II to say after he had
been humiliated? If there is an Egyptian smoking gun for the
Exodus, how would you recognize it? To answer these questions
requires us to take the Exodus seriously as a major event at the
royal level in Egyptian history.
First published in 1926. Don Juan was a Persian Moslem who became a
Spanish Roman Catholic. His description of Persia and his account
of the wars waged by the Persians during the sixteenth century
considerably add to modern day knowledge of the history of the
period. The book describes the Safavi rule as first established,
and the system of government set up in the prime of Shah 'Abbas, as
well as being an account of the long journey from Isfahan to
Valladolid. Guy Le Strange's comprehensive introduction places the
book in its historical context, as well as providing important
information on how the book was written. Many of the inaccuracies
of the original text are corrected in translation with references
and notes added to the index to guide the reader.
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 stunned the world and
ushered in a new period of superpower confrontation. Research into
Afghan society was severely curtailed, and the ability to research
the Afghan resistance was non-existent. This book, first published
in 1988, was the result of a Swedish seminar that focused on the
results of the war on the people and culture of Afghanistan.
This book, first published in 1932, was written by a Western expert
on Korea, and was the first to thoroughly investigate and document
the old religious practices of Korea. No book like this could be
written again from original sources, for all of the data has passed
away, and archival records are not necessarily complete. It is a
key text in the study of Korean religion.
This is a study of the activities, ideas and internal life of the
Chinese Communist Party in Shanghai during its formative period. It
investigates the party's relations to the city's students and
teachers, women, entrepreneurs, secret societies and its workers,
and examines the efforts to transform the CCP into a 'Leninist'
party, exploring relations between intellectuals and workers, men
and women, Chinese and Russians within the party. The book
culminates in a detailed analysis of the three armed uprisings
which led to the CCP's briefly taking power in March 1927, before
being crushed by troops loyal to Chiang Kai-shek. The study
highlights the extent to which the Soviet Union sought to
manipulate China's national revolution, yet also reveals how
divisions at every level of the Comintern allowed the CCP to
achieve a degree of independence and to conduct policy at
considerable variance with that laid down by Moscow.
This book documents the primary role of acute hunger (semi- and
frank starvation) in the 'fulminant' malaria epidemics that
repeatedly afflicted the northwest plains of British India through
the first half of colonial rule. Using Punjab vital registration
data and regression analysis it also tracks the marked decline in
annual malaria mortality after 1908 with the control of famine,
despite continuing post-monsoonal malaria transmission across the
province. The study establishes a time-series of annual malaria
mortality estimates for each of the 23 plains districts of colonial
Punjab province between 1868 and 1947 and for the early
post-Independence years (1948-60) in (East) Punjab State. It goes
on to investigate the political imperatives motivating malaria
policy shifts on the part of the British Raj. This work reclaims
the role of hunger in Punjab malaria mortality history and, in
turn, raises larger epistemic questions regarding the adequacy of
modern concepts of nutrition and epidemic causation in historical
and demographic analysis. Part of The Social History of Health and
Medicine in South Asia series, this book will be useful to scholars
and researchers of colonial history, modern history, social
medicine, social anthropology and public health.
This book presents new studies on intellectual and cultural
interactions in the context of Buddhist heritage and Indo-Japanese
dialogue in the late 19th and early 20th centuries on art,
religion, and cultural politics. By revisiting Buddhist connections
between India and Japan, it examines the pathways of communication
on common aesthetic and religious heritage that emerged in the
backdrop of colonial experiences and the rise of Asian
nationalisms. The volume discusses themes such as Asian arts and
crafts under colonialism, formation of East Asian art collections,
development of Buddhist art history in Japan, Japanese encounters
with Ajanta, India in the history of the Shinto tradition, Japan in
India's xenology, and Buddhism and world peace, and suggests
paradigms of reconnecting cultural heritage within a global
platform. With essays from experts across the world, this book will
be an essential read for scholars and researchers of history, art
history, ancient Indian history, colonial history, heritage and
cultural studies, South Asian and East Asian history, visual and
media studies, Asian studies, international relations and foreign
policy, and the history of globalization.
This is a comprehensive new operational military history of the
Ottoman army during the First World War. Drawing from archives,
official military histories, personal war narratives and sizable
Turkish secondary literature, it tells the incredible story of the
Ottoman army's struggle from the mountains of the Caucasus to the
deserts of Arabia and the bloody shores of Gallipoli. The Ottoman
army, by opening new fronts, diverted and kept sizeable units of
British, Russian and French forces away from the main theatres and
even sent reinforcements to Austro-Hungary and Bulgaria. Against
all odds the Ottoman army ultimately achieved some striking
successes, not only on the battlefield, but in their total
mobilization of the empire's meagre human and economic resources.
However, even by the terrible standards of the First World War,
these achievements came at a terrible price in casualties and,
ultimately, loss of territory. Thus, instead of improving the
integrity and security of the empire, the war effectively
dismantled it and created situations and problems hitherto
undreamed of by a besieged Ottoman leadership. In a unique account,
Uyar revises our understanding of the war in the Middle East.
This book is the first translated and annotated edition of Ibn
Nazif's Al-Ta'rikh al-Mansuri. Totalling 227 folios, the manuscript
is a unique and valuable source full of historical accounts and
anecdotes. The documents include two letters by the Emperor
Frederick II in Arabic, as well as the only mention of the
Albigensian Crusade in the Arabic language. Other notable material
includes Ibn Nazif's notes concerning the rivalries between the
various Ayyubids and the wars against Jalal al-Din Mangubirti,
descriptions of the Ayyubids in Yemen, and notes on the destruction
of the Sicilian Muslims and the defeats of the Spanish Muslims.
Containing an extensive historical introduction, this book will
appeal to scholars and students interested in the later Crusader
and middle Ayyubid periods.
This book is the first account of the British diplomatic mission in
Pakistan from its foundation at the end of the Raj in 1947 to the
'War on Terror'. Drawing on original documents and interviews with
participants, this book highlights key events and personalities as
well as the influence and perspectives of individual diplomats
previously not explored. The book demonstrates that the period
witnessed immense changes in Britain's standing in the world and in
the international history of South Asia to show that Britain
maintained a diplomatic influence out of proportion to its economic
and military strength. The author suggests that Britain's impact
stemmed from colonial-era ties of influence with bureaucrats,
politicians and army heads which were sustained by the growth of a
Pakistani Diaspora in Britain. Additionally, the book illustrates
that America's relationship with Pakistan was transactional as
opposed to Britain's, which was based on ties of sentiment as, from
the mid-1950s, the United States was more able than Britain to give
Pakistan the financial, military and diplomatic support it desired.
A unique and timely analysis of the British diplomatic mission in
Pakistan in the decades after independence, this book will be of
interest to academics working in the fields of South Asian History
and Politics, International Relations, British and American
Diplomacy and Security Studies, Cold War Politics and History and
Area Studies.
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