The Cairo Genizah is considered one of the world's greatest Hebrew manuscript treasures. Yet the story of how over a quarter of a million fragments hidden in Egypt were discovered and distributed around the world, before becoming collectively known as "The Cairo Genizah," is far more convoluted and compelling than previously told. The full story involves an international cast of scholars, librarians, archaeologists, excavators, collectors, dealers and agents, operating from the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth century, and all acting with varying motivations and intentions in a race for the spoils. Basing her research on a wealth of archival materials, Jefferson reconstructs how these protagonists used their various networks to create key alliances, or to blaze lone trails, each one on a quest to recover ancient manuscripts. Following in their footsteps, she takes the reader on a journey down into ancient caves and tombs, under medieval rubbish mounds, into hidden attic rooms, vaults, basements and wells, along labyrinthine souks, and behind the doors of private clubs and cloistered colleges. Along the way, the reader will also learn about the importance of establishing manuscript provenance and authenticity, and the impact to our understanding of the past when either factor is in doubt.

In Writing Tamil Catholicism: Literature, Persuasion and Devotion in the Eighteenth Century, Margherita Trento explores the process by which the Jesuit missionary Costanzo Giuseppe Beschi (1680-1747), in collaboration with a group of local lay elites identified by their profession as catechists, chose Tamil poetry as the social and political language of Catholicism in eighteenth-century South India. Trento analyzes a corpus of Tamil grammars and poems, chiefly Beschi's Tempavani, alongside archival documents to show how, by presenting themselves as poets and intellectuals, Catholic elites gained a persuasive voice as well as entrance into the learned society of the Tamil country and its networks of patronage. This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 840879.

""Is there jazz in China?"" This is the question that sent author Eugene Marlow on his quest to uncover the history of jazz in China. Marlow traces China's introduction to jazz in the early 1920s, its interruption by Chinese leadership under Mao in 1949, and its rejuvenation in the early 1980s with the start of China's opening to the world under Premier Deng Xiaoping. Covering a span of almost one hundred years, Marlow focuses on a variety of subjects--the musicians who initiated jazz performances in China, the means by which jazz was incorporated into Chinese culture, and the musicians and venues that now present jazz performances. Featuring unique, face-to-face interviews with leading indigenous jazz musicians in Beijing and Shanghai, plus interviews with club owners, promoters, expatriates, and even diplomats, Marlow marks the evolution of jazz in China as it parallels China's social, economic, and political evolution through the twentieth and into the twenty-first century. Also featured is an interview with one of the extant members of the Jimmy King Big Band of the 1940s, one of the first major all-Chinese jazz big bands in Shanghai. Ultimately, Jazz in China: From Dance Hall Music to Individual Freedom of Expression is a cultural history that reveals the inexorable evolution of a democratic form of music in a Communist state.

Economic and political relations with Iran were a primary concern for the German Democratic Republic leadership and dominated the GDR's press. This is the first book to analyse the representation of Iran in the media, from the GDR's formation in 1949 until 1989, the last complete year before its demise. Covering key events, such as the overthrow of the Mossadegh government in 1953, the White Revolution, the Islamic Revolution of 1979, and the Iran-Iraq war, the author reveals that only in periods where the two countries enjoyed less amicable or poor relations, was the press free to critically report events in Iran and openly support the cause of the country's communist party, the Tudeh. The book explores the use of the press as a tool for ideological education and propaganda. It also examines how the state's official Marxist-Leninist ideology, the GDR's international competition with West Germany, and cultural prejudices and stereotypes impacted reporting so powerfully.

French rule over Syria and Lebanon was premised on a vision of a special French protectorate established through centuries of cultural activity: archaeological, educational and charitable. Initial French methods of organising and supervising cultural activity sought to embrace this vision and to implement it in the exploitation of antiquities, the management and promotion of cultural heritage, the organisation of education and the control of public opinion among the literate classes. However, an examination of the first five years of the League of Nations-assigned mandate, 1920-1925, reveals that French expectations of a protectorate were quickly dashed by widespread resistance to their cultural policies, not simply among Arabists but also among minority groups initially expected to be loyal to the French. The violence of imposing the mandate 'de facto', starting with a landing of French troops in the Lebanese and Syrian coast in 1919 - and followed by extension to the Syrian interior in 1920 - was met by consistent violent revolt. Examining the role of cultural institutions reveals less violent yet similarly consistent contestation of the French mandate. The political discourses emerging after World War I fostered expectations of European tutelages that prepared local peoples for autonomy and independence. Yet, even among the most Francophile of stakeholders, the unfolding of the first years of French rule brought forth entirely different events and methods. In this book, Idir Ouahes provides an in-depth analysis of the shifts in discourses, attitudes and activities unfolding in French and locally-organised institutions such as schools, museums and newspapers, revealing how local resistance put pressure on cultural activity in the early years of the French mandate.

Buddhist Statecraft in East Asia explores the long relationship between Buddhism and the state in premodern times and seeks to counter the modern, secularist notion that Buddhism, as a religion, is inherently apolitical. By revealing the methods by which members of Buddhist communities across premodern East Asia related to imperial rule, this volume offers case studies of how Buddhists, their texts, material culture, ideas, and institutions legitimated rulers and defended regimes across the region. The volume also reveals a history of Buddhist writing, protest, and rebellion against the state. Contributors are Stephanie Balkwill, James A. Benn, Megan Bryson, Gregory N. Evon, Geoffrey C. Goble, Richard D. McBride II, and Jacqueline I. Stone.