A comprehensive overview of the history of Turkey ranging from the earliest Neolithic civilizations, to the establishment of the Republic in 1923, to the present-day tenure of President Erdogan. For travelers or students looking for the story behind the evolution of modern-day Turkey, this informative guide traces this country's history and culture from ancient times through the present day. The first half of this book surveys the centuries up to 1923, with the latter half exploring events since the establishment of the Turkish Republic in 1923. By following the timeline of Turkey's development in clear, chronologically ordered chapters, the work lays out the various civilizations whose remains still sit side by side today. This second edition delves into the full scope of Turkey's events since 2001, covering the leadership of the Justice and Development party, the prime ministry and controversial presidency of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the Gezi Park protests of 2013. The updated content includes a notable figures appendix, glossary, and bibliography that supplies electronic resources for students. Covers the history of Turkey since antiquity Explores Turkey's ancient civilizations, such as the Ottomans, the Byzantines, the Romans, the Greeks, the Hittites, and other Indo-Europeans Emphasizes the evolution of the modern Turkish democracy in the last 100 years Discusses the mixed legacy of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, including Turkish nationalism, aggressive secularism, and repeated military meddling in Turkey's democratic system

Winner of the 2022 Association for the Study of Japanese Mountain Religion Book Prize Defining Shugendo brings together leading international experts on Japanese mountain asceticism to discuss what has been an essential component of Japanese religions for more than a thousand years. Contributors explore how mountains have been abodes of deities, a resting place for the dead, sources of natural bounty and calamities, places of religious activities, and a vast repository of symbols. The book shows that many peoples have chosen them as sites for ascetic practices, claiming the potential to attain supernatural powers there. This book discusses the history of scholarship on Shugendo, the development process of mountain worship, and the religious and philosophical features of devotion at specific sacred mountains. Moreover, it reveals the rich material and visual culture associated with Shugendo, from statues and steles, to talismans and written oaths.

This book explores the history and agendas of the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) through its activities in South Asia. Focusing on interactions between American 'Y' workers and the local population, representatives of the British colonial state, and a host of international actors, it assesses their impact on the making of modern India. In turn, it shows how the knowledge and experience acquired by the Y in South Asia had a significant impact on US foreign policy, diplomacy and development programs in the region from the mid-1940s. Exploring the 'secular' projects launched by the YMCA such as new forms of sport, philanthropic efforts and educational endeavours, The YMCA in Late Colonial India addresses broader issues about the persistent role of religion in global modernization processes, the accumulation of American soft power in Asia, and the entanglement of American imperialism with other colonial empires. It provides an unusually rich case study to explore how 'global civil society' emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, how it related to the prevailing imperial world order, and how cultural specificities affected the ways in which it unfolded. Offering fresh perspectives on the historical trajectories of America's 'moral empire', Christian internationalism and the history of international organizations more broadly, this book also gives an insight into the history of South Asia during an age of colonial reformism and decolonization. It shows how international actors contributed to the shaping of South Asia's modernity at this crucial point, and left a lasting legacy in the region.

The revolutionary year of 1958 epitomizes the height of the social uprisings, military coups, and civil wars that erupted across the Middle East and North Africa in the mid-twentieth century. Amidst waning Anglo-French influence, growing US-USSR rivalry, and competition and alignments between Arab and non-Arab regimes and domestic struggles, this year was a turning point in the modern history of the Middle East. This multi and interdisciplinary book explores this pivotal year in its global, regional and local contexts and from a wide range of linguistic, geographic, academic specialties. The contributors draw on declassified and multilingual archives, reports, memoirs, and newspapers in thirteen country-specific chapters, shedding new light on topics such as the extent of Anglo-American competition after the Suez War, Turkey's efforts to stand as a key pillar in the regional Cold War, the internationalization of the Algerian War of Independence, and Iran and Saudi Arabia's abilities to weather the revolutionary storm that swept across the region. The book includes a foreword from Salim Yaqub which highlights the importance of Jeffrey G. Karam's collection to the scholarship on this vital moment in the political history of the modern middle east.

In Globalization and the Colonial Origins of the Great Divergence Pim de Zwart examines the Dutch East India Company's intercontinental trade and its effects on living standards in various regions on the edges of the Indian Ocean in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Contrary to conventional views, De Zwart finds significant evidence of the integration of global commodity markets, an important dimension of globalization, before the 1800s. The effects of this globalization, and the associated colonialism, were diverse and could vary between and within regions. As globalization and colonialism affected patterns of economic development across the globe they played a part in the rise of global economic inequality, known as the 'Great Divergence', in the early modern period.

Fifteen years after the end of a protracted civil and regional war, Beirut broke out in violence once again, forcing residents to contend with many forms of insecurity, amid an often violent political and economic landscape. Providing a picture of what ordinary life is like for urban dwellers surviving sectarian violence, The Insecure City captures the day-to-day experiences of citizens of Beirut moving through a war-torn landscape. While living in Beirut, Kristin Monroe conducted interviews with a diverse group of residents of the city. She found that when people spoke about getting around in Beirut, they were also expressing larger concerns about social, political, and economic life. It was not only violence that threatened Beirut's ordinary residents, but also class dynamics that made life even more precarious. For instance, the installation of checkpoints and the rerouting of traffic - set up for the security of the elite - forced the less fortunate to alter their lives in ways that made them more at risk. Similarly, the ability to pass through security blockades often had to do with an individual's visible markers of class, such as clothing, hairstyle, and type of car. Monroe examines how understandings and practices of spatial mobility in the city reflect social differences, and how such experiences led residents to be bitterly critical of their government. In The Insecure City, Monroe takes urban anthropology in a new and meaningful direction, discussing traffic in the Middle East to show that when people move through Beirut they are experiencing the intersection of citizen and state, of the more and less privileged, and, in general, the city's politically polarized geography.

The objective of Walking through Jordan is to acknowledge and honor the singular achievements and wider impacts of Jordan's most prominent survey archaeologist, Burton MacDonald. MacDonald is a biblical scholar by training who has written extensively about the Iron Age and early Christianity. However, unlike many biblical scholars, MacDonald has also undertaken large regional survey projects which encompass the entire gamut of Jordanian prehistory and history. Thus, his work is unique in that it attracts the interest of a wide range of scholars.Contributing scholars from around the world reflect on three important areas of MacDonald's archaeological contributions: on archaeological survey in general, including those focusing on methodology and/or field projects that depend to a large extent on surveys, MacDonald's five major surveys- papers that incorporate data from his field projects and sites tested or excavated by others that were first identified by his work, and the archaeology of the Bronze and Iron Ages, as well as the Roman Period and the early Christian era. Despite his important contributions to prehistoric archaeology, the early historical periods constitute the main emphasis of Burton's scholarly output.

This book begins with the analysis of America's post-war intelligence operations, propaganda campaigns, and strategic psychological warfare in Japan. Banking on nuclear safety myths, Japan promoted an aggressive policy of locating and building nuclear power plants in depopulated areas suffering from a significant decline of local industries and economies. The Fukushima nuclear disaster substantiated that U.S. propaganda programs left a long lasting legacy in Japan and beyond and created the fertile ground for the future nuclear disaster. The book reveals Japan's tripartite organization of the dominating state, media-monopoly, and nuclear-plant oligarchy advancing nuclear proliferation. It details America's unprecedented pro-nuclear propaganda campaigns; Japan's secret ambitions to develop its own nuclear bombs; U.S. dumping of reprocessed plutonium on Japan; and the joint U.S.-Nippon propaganda campaigns for "safe" nuclear-power and the current "safe-nuclear particles" myths. The study shows how the bankruptcy of the central state has led to increased burdens on the population in post-nuclear tsunami era, and the ensuing dangerous ionization of the population now reaching into the future.

Transcending ethnic, linguistic, and religious boundaries, early empires shaped thousands of years of world history. Yet despite the global prominence of empire, individual cases are often studied in isolation. This series seeks to change the terms of the debate by promoting cross-cultural, comparative, and transdisciplinary perspectives on imperial state formation prior to the European colonial expansion.
Two thousand years ago, up to one-half of the human species was contained within two political systems, the Roman empire in western Eurasia (centered on the Mediterranean Sea) and the Han empire in eastern Eurasia (centered on the great North China Plain). Both empires were broadly comparable in terms of size and population, and even largely coextensive in chronological terms (221 BCE to 220 CE for the Qin/Han empire, c. 200 BCE to 395 CE for the unified Roman empire). At the most basic level of resolution, the circumstances of their creation are not very different. In the East, the Shang and Western Zhou periods created a shared cultural framework for the Warring States, with the gradual consolidation of numerous small polities into a handful of large kingdoms which were finally united by the westernmost marcher state of Qin. In the Mediterranean, we can observe comparable political fragmentation and gradual expansion of a unifying civilization, Greek in this case, followed by the gradual formation of a handful of major warring states (the Hellenistic kingdoms in the east, Rome-Italy, Syracuse and Carthage in the west), and likewise eventual unification by the westernmost marcher state, the Roman-led Italian confederation. Subsequent destabilization occurred again in strikingly similar ways: both empires came to be divided into two halves, one that contained the original core but was more exposed to the main barbarian periphery (the west in the Roman case, the north in China), and a traditionalist half in the east (Rome) and south (China).
These processes of initial convergence and subsequent divergence in Eurasian state formation have never been the object of systematic comparative analysis. This volume, which brings together experts in the history of the ancient Mediterranean and early China, makes a first step in this direction, by presenting a series of comparative case studies on clearly defined aspects of state formation in early eastern and western Eurasia, focusing on the process of initial developmental convergence. It includes a general introduction that makes the case for a comparative approach; a broad sketch of the character of state formation in western and eastern Eurasia during the final millennium of antiquity; and six thematically connected case studies of particularly salient aspects of this process.

Originally published in 1931, this is a systematic and comprehensive history of caste in India and its influence on Hindu law, social institutions and society as a whole. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. Hesperides Press are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork. Contents Include: The Caste System - Caste in the Rigveda - Caste during the Brahmana Period - Caste in the Sutras - Caste in the Sutras Continued - Appendix - Verifications from Non-Brahmanical Writings - Caste in Early Buddhist Literature - Caste in Greek Accounts - Bibliography

Since the age of the Sasanian Empire (224-651 AD), Iran and the West have time and again appeared to be at odds. Iran and the West charts this contentious and complex relationship by examining the myriad ways the two have perceived each other, from antiquity to today. Across disciplines, perspectives and periods contributors consider literary, imagined, mythical, visual, filmic, political and historical representations of the 'other' and the ways in which these have been constructed in, and often in spite of, their specific historical contexts. Many of these narratives, for example, have their origin in the ancient world but have since been altered, recycled and manipulated to fit a particular agenda. Ranging from Tacitus, Leonidas and Xerxes via Shahriar Mandanipour and Azar Nafisi to Rosewater, Argo and 300, this inter-disciplinary and wide-ranging volume is essential reading for anyone working on the complex history, present and future of Iranian-Western relations.

Tibetan Buddhism and the Dalai Lama enjoy global popularity and relevance, yet the longstanding practice of oracles within the tradition is still little known and understood. The Nechung Oracle, for example, is believed to become possessed by an important god named Pehar, who speaks through the human medium to confer with the Dalai Lama on matters of state. The Dalai Lama and the Nechung Oracle is the first monograph to explore the mythologies and rituals of this god, the Buddhist monastery that houses him, and his close friendship with incarnations of the Dalai Lama over the centuries. In the seventeenth century, during the reign of the Fifth Dalai Lama, the protector deity Pehar and his oracle at Nechung Monastery were state-sanctioned by the nascent Tibetan government, becoming the head of an expansive pantheon of worldly deities assigned to protect the newly unified country. The governments of later Dalai Lamas expanded the deity's influence, as well as their own, by establishing Pehar at monasteries and temples around Lhasa and across Tibet. Pehar's cult at Nechung Monastery came to embody the Dalai Lama's administrative control in a mutual relationship of protection and prestige, the effects of which continue to reverberate within Tibet and among the Tibetan exile community today. The friendship between these two immortals has spanned nearly five hundred years across the Tibetan plateau and beyond.