China's Great Convulsion 1894 - 1924 . . . A remarkable account of thirty tumultuous years in world history, beginning in 1894 with Japan's first aggressions in Asia and a Chinese revolutionary's call to overthrow the Manchurian Dynasty in Peking. China's years of convulsion included the Boxer Rebellion against "foreign devils," the collapse of its last dynasty, and a decade (1912-1922) of faltering attempts to establish a democratic republic while coping with provincial warlords and Japanese demands. From the pages of this well researched history, readers will learn how over 180,000 Chinese workers helped expedite the Allied victory in World War One. Stationed in France and the Middle East under the guidance of U.S., British, and French YMCA counselors and interpreters, members of the Chinese Labor Corps kept France's factories and farms running, improved port facilities, built military airfields, and restored war-torn roads and bridges. With China's Great Convulsion, John Fulton Lewis captures the excitement of China's stormy entry into a modern age.

This volume is one of the most important historical sources for medieval Islamic scholarship - Mirzar Haydar's "Tarikh- i - Rashidi" (History of Rashid). It offers a history of the Khans of Moghulistan, the vast stretch of territory between the ancient cities of Central Asia and Mongolia, and was written in the early 16th century by Mirza Haydar, a Turco-Mongol military general and ruler of Kashmir. Distinguished linguist and orientalist, Wheeler Thackston, presents a lucid, annotated translation that makes this key material accessible to a wide range of scholars.

Francis I's ties with the Ottoman Empire marked the birth of court-sponsored Orientalism in France. Under Louis XIV, French society was transformed by cross-cultural contacts with the Ottomans, India, Persia, China, Siam and the Americas. The consumption of silk, cotton cloth, spices, coffee, tea, china, gems, flowers and other luxury goods transformed daily life and gave rise to a new discourse about the 'Orient' which in turn shaped ideas about economy and politics, specifically absolutism and the monarchy.  An original account of the ancient regime, this book highlights France's use of the exotic and analyzes French discourse about Islam and the 'Orient'.

Covering the period from the early 1950s to the end of the 20th century, this book presents a concise yet thorough historical analysis of the relationship between the European Union (and its predecessors) and the Middle East. The authors provide a survey of the evolution of the foreign policy mechanisms of the EU and an outline of the relevant aspects of modern Middle East history. They examine the relationship between the two regions from 1950 to the end of the Cold War, with special emphasis on the period following the 1973/4 oil crisis. They go on to look at the post-Cold War era discussing the conflict with Iraq and examining the EU's continuing involvement in the Middle East peace process.

This book conducts a panoramic study on the history of China's Science and Technology which focuses on the Medium and Long-Term Science and Technology Program (MLSTP). In general these Programs have a duration of 5-30 year. This book provides an epochal assessment of the project's conceptual context over the past 60 years.. The author shows that the historical evolution and conceptual development of China's MLSTP are the result of an amalgamation of political, economic and social factors within distinct contemporary contexts. As a national action plan, MLSTP has incorporated many of the factors that go beyond the intentional factors of science and technology. MLSTP is not only a macro vision and blueprint for scientific and technological development; it is also a political act of realizing the national will. While ensuring the MLSTP builds on its great achievements, the author also reflects upon its deficiencies and disadvantages in order to better promote the advancement of science and technology in China. This book comprehensively lays out the historical and theoretical dimensions. Based on a clear vision of historical constructivism the author has compiled the MLSTP philosophy of different eras into a conceptual framework for this era and used this framework to research and analyze the historical and conceptual evolution of MLSTP. Research on MLSTP is important for as enrichment of contemporary studies in the history of science and the science and technology policy. In 2010, more than 60 years after the establishment of the People's Republic of China, the country had enacted 10 MLSTP programs. This book separates the development of the MLSTP into three different historical eras: the era of economic planning, the era of economic transformation and the new century. Each historical epoch corresponds to a different MLSTP philosophy concept, which enables us to study the conceptual evolution of MLSTP using historical research as our foundation.

This book uses Pseudo-Dionysius and his mystic theology to explore attitudes and beliefs about images in the early medieval West and Byzantium. Composed in the early sixth century, the Corpus Dionysiacum, the collection of texts transmitted under the name of Dionysius the Areopagite, developed a number of themes which have a predominantly visual and spatial dimension. Pseudo-Dionysius' contribution to the development of Christian visual culture, visual thinking and figural art-making are examined in this book to systematically investigate his long-lasting legacy and influence. The contributors embrace religious studies, philosophy, theology, art, and architectural history, to consider the depth of the interaction between the Corpus Dionysiacum and various aspects of contemporary Byzantine and western cultures, including ecclesiastical and lay power, politics, religion, and art.

The Tigris and Euphrates rivers run through the heart of the Middle East and merge in the area of Mesopotamia known as the "cradle of civilization." In their long and volatile political history, the sixteenth century ushered in a rare era of stability and integration. A series of military campaigns between the Mediterranean Sea and the Persian Gulf brought the entirety of their flow under the institutional control of the Ottoman Empire, then at the peak of its power and wealth. Rivers of the Sultan tells the history of the Tigris and Euphrates during the early modern period. Under the leadership of Sultan Suleyman I, the rivers became Ottoman from mountain to ocean, managed by a political elite that pledged allegiance to a single household, professed a common religion, spoke a lingua franca, and received orders from a central administration based in Istanbul. Faisal Husain details how Ottoman unification institutionalized cooperation among the rivers' dominant users and improved the exploitation of their waters for navigation and food production. Istanbul harnessed the energy and resources of the rivers for its security and economic needs through a complex network of forts, canals, bridges, and shipyards. Above all, the imperial approach to river management rebalanced the natural resource disparity within the Tigris-Euphrates basin. Istanbul regularly organized shipments of grain, metal, and timber from upstream areas of surplus in Anatolia to downstream areas of need in Iraq. Through this policy of natural resource redistribution, the Ottoman Empire strengthened its presence in the eastern borderland region with the Safavid Empire and fended off challenges to its authority. Placing these world historic bodies of water at its center, Rivers of the Sultan reveals intimate bonds between state and society, metropole and periphery, and nature and culture in the early modern world.

In stark contrast to popular narratives, The Great Divergence Reconsidered shows that Europe's rise to an undisputed world economic leader was not the effect of the Industrial Revolution, and cannot be explained by coal or colonial exploitation. Using a wealth of new historical evidence stretching from the seventeenth to the twentieth century, Roman Studer shows that this 'Great Divergence' must be shifted back to the seventeenth century, if not earlier. Europe was characterized by a more powerful transportation system, bigger trade flows, larger and better integrated markets, higher productivity levels, and superior living standards even before the Industrial Revolution brought about far-reaching structural changes and made Europe's supremacy even more pronounced. While the comparison with Europe draws significantly on India, the central conclusions seem to hold for Asia - and indeed the rest of the world - more generally. An interplay of various factors best explains Europe's early and gradual rise, including better institutions, favorable geographical features, increasing political stability, and increasingly rapid advances in science and technology.

Saladin, the great twelfth century Middle East leader, not only created an empire, but also reduced the Crusader presence in the Holy Land. In a comprehensive manner and clear prose, Peter Gubser describes how Saladin rose to power, conquered lands, governed peoples, and raised armies. In addition, he clearly addresses Saladin's imperial motives, a combination of ambition and the devotion to the ideal of the unity of Islam.

In the view of Dr. Martin Sicker, it was with the emergence of Islam that the combination of geopolitics and religion reached its most volatile form and provided the ideological context for war and peace in the Middle East for more than a millennium. The conflation of geopolitics and religion in Islam is predicated on the concept of "jihad" (struggle), which may be understood as a "crescentade," in the same sense as the later Christian "crusade," which seeks to achieve a religious goal, the conversion of the world to Islam, by militant means. This equates to a concept of perpetual war with the non-Muslim world, a concept that underlays Muslim geopolitical thinking throughout the thousand-year period covered in this book. However, as Sicker amply demonstrates, the concept often bore little relation to the political realities of the region that as often as not saw Muslims and non-Muslims aligned against and at war with other Muslims.

The story of the emergence and phenomenal ascendancy of the Islamic world from a relatively small tribe in sparsely populated Arabia is one that taxes the imagination, but it becomes more comprehensible when viewed through a geopolitical prism. Religion was repeatedly and often shamelessly harnessed to geopolitical purpose by both Muslims and Christians, albeit with arguably greater Muslim success. Islamic ascendancy began as an Arab project, initially focused on the Arabian peninsula, but was soon transformed into an imperialist movement with expansive ambitions. As it grew, it quickly registered highly impressive gains, but soon lost much of its Arab content. It ended a millennium later as a Turkish--more specifically, an Ottoman--project with many intermediate transformations. The reverberations of the thousand-year history of that ascendancy are still felt today in many parts of the greater Middle East. A comprehensive geopolitical survey for scholars, students, researchers, and all others interested in the history of the Middle East and Islam.

Pan'gye surok (or "Pan'gye's Random Jottings") was written by the Korean scholar and social critic Yu Hyongwon(1622-1673), who proposed to reform the Joseon dynasty and realise an ideal Confucian society. It was recognised as a leading work of political science by Yu's contemporaries and continues to be a key text in understanding the intellectual culture of the late Joseon period. Yu describes the problems of the political and social realities of 17th Century Korea, reporting on his attempts to solve these problems using a Confucian philosophical approach. In doing so, he establishes most of the key terminology relating to politics and society in Korea in the late Joseon. His writings were used as a model for reforms within Korea over the following centuries, inspiring social pioneers like Yi Ik and Chong Yakyong. Pan'gye surok demonstrates how Confucian thought spread outside China and how it was modified to fit the situation on the Korean peninsula. Providing both the first English translation of the full Pan'gyesurok text as well as glossaries, notes and research papers on the importance of the text, this four volume set is an essential resource for international scholars of Korean and East Asian history.

The conflict between Israel and Palestine has raised a plethora of unanswered questions, generated seemingly irreconcilable narratives, and profoundly transformed the land's physical and political geography. This volume seeks to provide a deeper understanding of the links between the region that is now known as Israel and Palestine and its peoples-both those that live there as well as those who relate to it as a mental, mythical, or religious landscape. Engaging the perspectives of a multidisciplinary, international group of scholars, it is an urgent collective reflection on the bonds between people and a place, whether real or imagined, tangible as its stones or ephemeral as the hopes and longings it evokes.

In the early twenty-first century, trauma is seemingly everywhere, whether as experience, diagnosis, concept, or buzzword. Yet even as many scholars consider trauma to be constitutive of psychological modernity or the post-Enlightenment human condition, historical research on the topic has overwhelmingly focused on cases, such as World War I or the Holocaust, in which Western experiences and actors are foregrounded. There remains an urgent need to incorporate the methods and insights of recent historical trauma research into a truly global perspective. The chapters in Traumatic Pasts in Asia make just such an intervention, extending Euro-American paradigms of traumatic experience to new sites of world-historical suffering and, in the process, exploring how these new domains of research inform and enrich earlier scholarship.

The major goal of this study is to uncover which social variables are capable of encouraging or discouraging patriotism. In other words, it aims to locate the basics of the social machinery that motivates individuals to set aside their personal well being and sacrifice their resources for the sake of the common good. However, this research also examines the social predictors of patriotism through a quest for the hierarchy of their importance. Following a thorough assessment of each variable, given that in real life none of them act in isolation, the great question is which social factor is dominant and which might practically be counted as ineffective.The book establishes an integrative overview of a relatively understudied social phenomenon. Patriotism has been examined and related to in bibliographical sources to which this study refers; however, this book enables a large overview of the different approaches and integrates a cohesive approach.In addition to the theoretical discussion, the presentation and analyses of empirical date enable a practical evaluation of the concepts that have been developed. Data from large-scale surveys data, together with in-depth interviews, enable a rare opportunity to confirm or to invalidate some existing theories, in particular those focusing on the social conditions for patriotism.All in all, then, this research provides a systematic inquiry of patriotism and its social and political causes. Yet beyond the conclusions stemming from its numerous quantitative and qualitative data, it also presents a holistic point of view and manages to put together the pieces that form one of the most unique social phenomena.Among other findings, the book presents research that invalidates a theoretical concept according to which patriotism is closer to conservatism than to liberalism. Whereas surveys and polls show a tendency of right-wing politicians to be more patriotic than leftists, this book has gone the extra mile of statistically analyzing the data in a multivariate regression; that is, examining how political attitudes affect patriotism in reality, once all the factors act together. This statistical analysis shows clearly how in practice political attitude is very loosely connected to patriotism. In addition to that, the patriotic conservative in-depth interviewees of this study have been inspired to love their country by their political ideologies just like the patriotic liberal interviewees. This finding thus reinforces how the accusations of one political party against another for not being patriotic should be taken with more than a grain of salt.The book will be of interest to specialists and students in the field of the social and political sciences, especially those whose research focus on social behavior in political contexts.

This comprehensive exploration of language and literacy in the multi-lingual environment of Roman Palestine (c. 63 B.C.E. to 136 C.E.) is based on Michael Wise's extensive study of 145 Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and Nabataean contracts and letters preserved among the Bar Kokhba texts, a valuable cache of ancient Middle Eastern artifacts. His investigation of Judean documentary and epistolary culture derives for the first time numerical data concerning literacy rates, language choices, and writing fluency during the two-century span between Pompey's conquest and Hadrian's rule. He explores questions of who could read in these ancient times of Jesus and Hillel, what they read, and how language worked in this complex multi-tongued milieu. Included also is an analysis of the ways these documents were written and the interplay among authors, secretaries, and scribes. Additional analysis provides readers with a detailed picture of the people, families, and lives behind the texts.

In contemporary history, a much-debated issue has been whether European nations have a common identity and what relevance the European Union has for a shared definition of Europeanness. The present book examines the link between historical conceptions of Europe and the contestations over Turkey's compatibility with the European Union during the 2000s.

examines Thai-Chinese relations, dating back to the first Thai dynasty (Sukhothai) to the present (Ratanakosin). The study explores the Thai domestic policies that have affected the Chinese population since World War II and assimilation policies of the Thai government towards the Chinese. This book also analyzes both Skinner's and Chan and Tong's arguments, and their main idea in the context of the present day environment and situation for the ethnic Chinese. This research supports the Skinnerian paradigm, which asserts that "a majority of the descendants of Chinese immigrants in each generation merge with Thai society and become indistinguishable from the indigenous population to the extent that fourth-generation Chinese are practically non-existent." The validation of the Skinnerian paradigm rejects Chan and Tong's hypothesis, which claims that Skinner has "overemphasized the forces of assimilation" and that the Chinese in Thailand have not assimilated but retained their Chinese identity. To support Skinner's assertion and reject Chan and Tong's argument, this book presents rich empirical data collected via surveys conducted with the ethnic Chinese in Thailand from 2003-2004. This study uncovers that the forces of assimilation occur at two levels. On the first level, the Chinese in Thailand possess natural attributes which facilitate social and cultural integration and assimilation into Thai society. On the second level, government pro-assimilation policies, driven by the bilateral relations between Thailand and China and the political situation in both countries, are also responsible for the assimilation of the Chinese in Thailand. As the most current in-depth study on the Chinese in Thailand, The Chinese Emigres of Thailand in the Twentieth Century is a critical addition for all collections in Asian Studies as well as Ethnic and Immigrant Studies.

VIETNAM SUMMARY 2003 MESSAGE The soldier is a warrior and must live by a code. A sentry for America who stands between slavery and freedom for his family and love ones. Soldiers kill people and soldiers get killed. They die for their country. In reality they fight for each other. They train day and night for months and years. Soldiers honor, serve and obey America and hold her above all others. Can I rationalize a war where 60% to 70% of the casualties were civilians? Did those children, women and old people have too die? Why? There is no glamour or honor in war. "I love thee dear so much love I not honor more " Open the gates and fools rush in- "Once a Fool. " America the beautiful from sea to shining sea. The movies make war look so glorious and when your first friend is killed you know it was all a lie. After you get over the initial shock, you're torn between elation and guilt. Elation because it wasn't you who was killed and guilt for even thinking that way. All any man wants is to leave this world with a little dignity, believing that some how he made a difference. Just maybe this is a better place because he was a visitor here for a brief period. He hopes to be remembered for the good deeds and forgotten for the embarrassing moments when expectations were not met. However, one is remembered as a whole being, good and bad. You come into this world in less than a spectacular way, more often through pain. No clothes, crying, smacked on the bottom, complaining and very helpless. Many of us leave this world in the same way, minus the smacked bottom. A few Americans refused service induction and paid a price. Other Americans went to Vietnam and paid a greater price. Did over 58,000 Americans have too die in Vietnam? We who made it home must speak for them by making a contribution, a difference. I became a school teacher to affect the way young people think. If we are to survive, our leaders can not make the same historical mistakes. I hope the Vietnam people will someday forgive me. If I am to turn the page of my life and live; I must forgive all those who have trespassed against me. There will be a time when I can forgive the United States Government from President Kennedy to Henry Kissinger for sending American soldiers to Vietnam. Yes, I am over fifty now, I must forgive and forget the Vietnam experience so I can move on with my life. A soldier should not feel sorry for himself. No one cares; he is alone in his world. Soldiers were in Vietnam completing service obligations while their friends were getting married and finishing college. People in the United States were moving on with their lives. Many soldiers came home sick and or wounded to a hostile environment and difficult times. As they healed, trying to adjust to civilian life, the student demonstrations and war protest continued. There were few job offers, only cries of baby killers and war losers. Today, many Vietnam soldiers are here in body but they never made it back. Everyone who served in that war died a little and if you weren't there you will never understand. The country has changed forever. Hopefully, we have all changed for the better. We as a people will never be the same again. There will be a time I can forgive everyone and forgive myself so I can come to closure, but not today.

This collection of interviews explores how the Chinese Dream is fueling the aspirations of individuals in China today and presents 40 representative cases that showcase the journeys that ordinary people undertake in pursuit of their dreams as well as their extraordinary achievements. The authors identify autonomy, self-awareness, and hard work as the most fundamental driving forces in individuals taking control of their own lives and achieving their dreams, with family and social support as further important factors. Despite the vast differences in the interviewees' dreams and experiences in pursuing them, there is a common thread in their stories, namely the impact of major changes in the country on their lives. The future of individuals is closely linked to the future of the country: a bright future for the country means a good life for all. People's longing for a better life is the basis and a central element of the Chinese Dream, which is the dream of the nation and the dream of every citizen. This book will appeal to a wide audience, including ordinary people.

The long era of Muslim political ascendancy that began in a small region of western Arabia reached its pinnacle some nine hundred years later with the siege of Vienna by Suleiman the Magnificent in 1529. Suleiman then concluded that, given the increasingly volatile geopolitical environment, Muslim expansionism in Eurasia had run its course. The subsequent decline of Ottoman power also meant, in effect, the decline of political Islam, which had been intimately bound to it for centuries.

As Sicker shows, the problems faced by the Ottoman Empire were also faced by the Persian Empire and both underwent an extended period of political decline and territorial retrenchment in the face of imperialist pressures from Europe and Asia. The greatest challenge to the world of political Islam came from Western Europe, especially France and Great Britain. The Ottoman and Persian empires assumed a global importance in the 19th century, not because of anything in them of intrinsic economic value, but because of their geopolitical and geostrategic significance. They became, in effect, a buffer zone separating Europe from the wealth of the East, at a time when European imperialism was on the march in Asia. It thus came about that the rivalries of the Great Powers, most especially those of Great Britain, France, and Russia, were played out in the Middle East. This book will serve as a vital resource for students, scholars, and other researchers involved with Middle East History, Political Islam, and Modern European History.

The growth rate of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the Asia-Pacific region greatly surpasses the world average. When the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is better realized, then the world's largest free trade zone will be firmly established. It seems that this region has a very rosy outlook indeed; however, this region also faces a large number of serious problems such as: atomic energy in Japan, conflicts about East Asian regional integration, the decline of the Japanese Official Development Assistance (ODA), and the TPP's possible impact on the Japanese universal health insurance system. We now face a possible Sino-Japanese military conflict concerning the Senkaku Islands (or Diaoyutai Islands). In short, the Asia-Pacific region has both a rosy future and the potential influence from unstable and dangerous elements at work within the region at present. The main purpose of this book is to analyze historical development, whilst looking at the contemporary situation of Japan from interdisciplinary perspectives. This book asks three major questions: (1) Is this really globalization? (2) What are Japan's relations with other Asian countries? (3) Do U.S.-Japan relations still matter? Fourteen leading scholars in their fields answer these questions from interdisciplinary perspectives.