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Books > Humanities > History > Asian / Middle Eastern history
This book translates and contextualizes the recollections of men
and women who built, lived, and worked in some of the factory
compounds relocated from China's most cosmopolitan city-Shanghai.
Small Third Line factories became oases of relatively prosperous
urban life among more impoverished agricultural communities. These
accounts, plus the guiding questions, contextual notes, and further
readings accompanying them, show how everyday lives fit into the
sweeping geopolitical changes in China and the world during the
Cold War era. Furthermore, they reveal how the Chinese Communist
Party's military-industrial strategies have shaped China's economy
and society in the post-Mao era. The approachable translations and
insight into areas of life rarely covered by political or
diplomatic histories like sexuality and popular culture make this
book highly accessible for classroom use and the general-interest
reader.
This volume is written in the context of trauma hermeneutics of
ancient Jewish communities and their tenacity in the face of
adversity (i.e. as recorded in the MT, LXX, Pseudepigrapha, the
Deuterocanonical books and even Cognate literature. In this regard,
its thirteen chapters, are concerned with the most recent outputs
of trauma studies. They are written by a selection of leading
scholars, associated to some degree with the Hungaro-South African
Study Group. Here, trauma is employed as a useful hermeneutical
lens, not only for interpreting biblical texts and the contexts in
which they were originally produced and functioned but also for
providing a useful frame of reference. As a consequence, these
various research outputs, each in their own way, confirm that an
historical and theological appreciation of these early accounts and
interpretations of collective trauma and its implications,
(perceived or otherwise), is critical for understanding the
essential substance of Jewish cultural identity. As such, these
essays are ideal for scholars in the fields of Biblical
Studies-particularly those interested in the Pseudepigrapha, the
Deuterocanonical books and Cognate literature.
The Mohammadan Anglo-Oriental College (MAO), that became the
Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) in 1920 drew the Muslim elite into
its orbit and was a key site of a distinctively Muslim nationalism.
Located in New Dehli, the historic centre of Muslim rule, it was
home to many leading intellectuals and reformers in the years
leading up to Indian independence. During partition it was a hub of
pro-Pakistan activism. The graduates who came of age during the
anti-colonial struggle in India settled throughout the subcontinent
after the Partition. They carried with them the particular
experiences, values and histories that had defined their lives as
Aligarh students in a self-consciously Muslim environment,
surrounded by a non-Muslim majority. This new archive of oral
history narratives from seventy former AMU students reveals
histories of partition as yet unheard. In contrast to existing
studies, these stories lead across the boundaries of India,
Pakistan and Bangladesh. Partition in AMU is not defined by
international borders and migrations but by alienation from the
safety of familiar places. The book reframes Partition to draw
attention to the ways individuals experienced ongoing changes
associated with "partitioning"-the process through which familiar
spaces and places became strange and sometimes threatening-and they
highlight specific, never-before-studied sites of disturbance
distant from the borders.
Through case studies of pilot conservation projects launched by the
Yunnan Provincial Archives in recent years, this book
comprehensively and systematically discusses issues in the
conservation of ethnic oral history material and the development of
ethnic oral history resources. After an overview of ethnic oral
history material in general, the book gives an introduction to the
oral history material of the Bai, Hani, Lisu, Wa, Zhuang, and Qiang
ethnic groups; discusses theoretical research and work practices
related to ethnic oral history; elaborates upon the methods for
managing and integrating ethnic oral history archives; reviews the
history, current state, and existing issues of work related to
ethnic oral materials; summarizes experiences gained from
international collaboration in the conservation of ethnic oral
materials; and reflects upon issues such as the development of
ethnic oral history resources and the establishment of oral history
resource systems in multi-ethnic border regions. As the result of
research on the management of specialized archives and work related
to oral archives, this book contributes towards the establishment
of ethnic oral archival science as an academic discipline and
enriching the knowledge structure of oral history and the science
of managing oral archives.
How does a craft reinvent itself as `traditional' following
cultural, social and political upheaval? In the township of
Dingshu, Jiangsu province of China, artisans produce zisha or
Yixing teapots that have been highly valued for centuries. Yet in
twentieth-century socialist imagination, handicrafts were an
anomaly in a modern society. The Maoist government had clear
ambitions to transform the country by industrialization, replacing
craft with mechanized methods of production. Four decades later,
some of the same artisans identified as `backward' handicraft
producers in the 1950s and made to join workers' cooperatives, were
now encouraged to set up private workshops, teach their children
and become entrepreneurs. By the 2000s ceramic production in
Dingshu is booming and artisans are buying their first cars, often
luxury brands. However, many involvements of the Chinese state are
apparent, from the control of raw materials, to the inscription of
the craft on China's national list of intangible cultural heritage.
In this perceptive study, Gowlland argues that this re-evaluation
of heritage is no less inherently political than the collectivism
of the communist regime. Reflecting that the craft objects,
although produced in very different contexts, have remained
virtually the same over time and that it is the artisans'
subjectivities that have been transformed, he explores the
construction of mastery and its relationship to tradition and
authenticity, bringing to the fore the social dimension of mastery
that goes beyond the skill of simply making things, to changing the
way these things are perceived, made and talked about by others.
In 1963, a frustrated President Kennedy turned to the Pentagon for help in carrying out subversive operations against North Vietnam- a job the CIA had not managed to handle effectively. Thus was born the Pentagon's Special Operations Group(SOG). Under the cover name"Studies and Observation Group," SOG would, over the next eight years, dispatch numerous spies to North Vietnam, create a triple-cross deception program, wage psychological warfare by manipulating North Vietnamese POW's and kidnapped citizens, and stage deadly assaults on enemy soldiers traveling the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Written by the country's leading expert on SOG, here is the story of that covert war-one that would have both spectacular and disastrous results.
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