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Books > History > Asian / Middle Eastern history
The attacks and blockade on Yemen by the Saudi-led multinational
coalition have killed thousands and triggered humanitarian
disaster. The longstanding conflict in the country between the
Huthi rebels and (until December 2017) Salih militias on the one
side and those loyal to the internationally recognized government
and many other groups fighting for their interests on the other are
said to have evolved into a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and
Iran. In 2011, however, thousands of Yemenis had taken to the
streets to protest for a better future for their country. When
President Ali Abdullah Salih signed over power in the aftermath of
these protests, there were hopes that this would signal the
beginning of a new period of transition. Yemen and the Search for
Stability focuses on the aspirations that inspired revolutionary
action, and analyzes what went wrong in the years that followed. It
examines the different groups involved in the protests - Salih
supporters, Muslim Brothers, Salafis, Huthis, secessionists, women,
youth, artists and intellectuals- in terms of their competing
visions for the country's future as well as their internal
struggles. This book traces the impact of the 2011 upheavals on
these groups' ideas for a `new Yemen' and on their strategies for
self-empowerment. In so doing, Yemen and the Search for Stability
examines the mistakes committed in the country's post-2011
transition process but also points towards prospects for stability
and positive change.
This book explores and comparatively assesses how Armenians as
minorities have been represented in modern Turkey from the
twentieth century through to the present day, with a particular
focus on the period since the first electoral victory of the AKP
(Justice and Development Party) in 2002. It examines how social
movements led by intellectuals and activists have challenged the
Turkish state and called for democratization, and explores key
issues related to Armenian identity. Drawing on new social
movements theory, this book sheds light on the dynamics of minority
identity politics in contemporary Turkey and highlights the
importance of political protest.
With the aim to write the history of Christianity in Scandinavia
with Jerusalem as a lens, this book investigates the image - or
rather the imagination - of Jerusalem in the religious, political,
and artistic cultures of Scandinavia through most of the second
millennium. Volume 3 analyses the impact of Jerusalem on
Scandinavian Christianity from the middle of the 18. century in a
broad context. Tracing the Jerusalem Code in three volumes Volume
1: The Holy City Christian Cultures in Medieval Scandinavia (ca.
1100-1536) Volume 2: The Chosen People Christian Cultures in Early
Modern Scandinavia (1536-ca. 1750) Volume 3: The Promised Land
Christian Cultures in Modern Scandinavia (ca. 1750-ca. 1920)
Aristotle's theory of eternal continuous motion and his argument
from everlasting change and motion to the existence of an unmoved
primary cause of motion, provided in book VIII of his Physics, is
one of the most influential and persistent doctrines of ancient
Greek philosophy. Nevertheless, the exact wording of Aristotle's
discourse is doubtful and contentious at many places. The present
critical edition of Ishaq ibn Hunayn's Arabic translation (9th c.)
is supposed to replace the faulty edition by A. Badawi and aims at
contributing to the clarification of these textual difficulties by
means of a detailed collation of the Arabic text with the most
important Greek manuscripts, supported by comprehensive Greek and
Arabic glossaries.
The `refugee crisis' and the recent rise of anti-immigration
parties across Europe has prompted widespread debates about
migration, integration and security on the continent. But the
perspectives and experiences of immigrants in northern and western
Europe have equal political significance for contemporary European
societies. While Turkish migration to Europe has been a vital area
of research, little scholarly attention has been paid to Turkish
migration to specifically Sweden, which has a mix of religious and
ethnic groups from Turkey and where now well over 100,000 Swedes
have Turkish origins. This book examines immigration from Turkey to
Sweden from its beginnings in the mid-1960s, when the recruitment
of workers was needed to satisfy the expanding industrial economy.
It traces the impact of Sweden's economic downturn, and the effects
of the 1971 Turkish military intervention and the 1980 military
coup, after which asylum seekers - mostly Assyrian Christians and
Kurds - sought refuge in Sweden. Contributors explore how the
patterns of labour migration and interactions with Swedish society
impacted the social and political attitudes of these different
communities, their sense of belonging, and diasporic activism. The
book also investigates issues of integration, return migration,
transnational ties, external voting and citizenship rights. Through
the detailed analysis of migration to Sweden and emigration from
Turkey, this book sheds new light on the situation of migrants in
Europe.
Americans at War in the Ottoman Empire examines the role of
mercenary figures in negotiating relations between the United
States and the Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth century.
Mercenaries are often treated as historical footnotes, yet their
encounters with the Ottoman world contributed to US culture and the
impressions they left behind continue to influence US approaches to
Africa and the Middle East. The book's analysis of these mercenary
encounters and their legacies begins with the Battle of Derna in
1805-in which the US flag was raised above a battlefield for the
first time outside of North America with the help of a mercenary
army-and concludes with the British occupation of Egypt in
1882-which was witnessed and criticized by many of the US Civil War
veterans who worked for the Egyptian government in the 1870s and
1880s. By focusing these mercenary encounters through the lenses of
memory, sovereignty, literature, geography, and diplomacy,
Americans at War in the Ottoman Empire reveals the ways in which
mercenary force, while marginal in terms of its frequency and
scope, produced important knowledge about the Ottoman world and
helped to establish the complicated relationship of intimacy and
mastery that exists between Americans in the United States and
people in Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Uganda, South Sudan, and Turkey.
A secret mission sends the author to Vietnam's Mekong Delta, the
bread basket of old Indo - China. He uncovers a sophisticated enemy
supply network unknown to our military hierarchy.
Using intelligence data covertly gathered in Cambodia and
analyzed at the Center for Naval Analyses in Arlington, Virginia
they discover and destroy Vietcong forces and interdict VC supply
lines with a mixture of intrigue and romance.
A U. S. Naval story never told, complete with declassified maps
from the Office of Naval Intelligence, and illuminating pictures of
Saigon and archaic areas of the Delta taken by the author forty -
six years ago, a depiction of "old Saigon" and real relationships
between North and South Vietnam are related.
Headquartered in Saigon, the true interaction between our Navy
and Army ( MACV ) brass couched in the background of wartime
Saigon, often referred to as the "Paris of the Orient," and
Washington, D. C. is insightfully told.
Reforms in Myanmar (formerly Burma) have eased restrictions on
citizens' political activities. Yet for most Burmese, Ardeth Maung
Thawnghmung shows, eking out a living from day to day leaves little
time for civic engagement. Citizens have coped with extreme
hardship through great resourcefulness. But by making bad
situations more tolerable in the short term, these coping
strategies may hinder the emergence of the democratic values needed
to sustain the country's transition to a more open political
environment. Thawnghmung conducted in-depth interviews and surveys
of 372 individuals from all walks of life and across geographical
locations in Myanmar between 2008 and 2015. To frame her analysis,
she provides context from countries with comparable political and
economic situations. Her findings will be welcomed by political
scientists and policy analysts, as well by journalists and
humanitarian activists looking for substantive, reliable
information about everyday life in a country that remains largely
in the shadows.
In their initial effort to end the Vietnam War, Richard Nixon and
Henry Kissinger attempted to lever concessions from Hanoi at the
negotiating table with military force and coercive diplomacy. They
were not seeking military victory, which they did not believe was
feasible. Instead, they backed up their diplomacy toward North
Vietnam and the Soviet Union with the Madman Theory of threatening
excessive force, which included the specter of nuclear force. They
began with verbal threats then bombed North Vietnamese and Viet
Cong base areas in Cambodia, signaling that there was more to come.
As the bombing expanded, they launched a previously unknown mining
ruse against Haiphong, stepped-up their warnings to Hanoi and
Moscow, and initiated planning for a massive shock-and-awe military
operation referred to within the White House inner circle as DUCK
HOOK. Beyond the mining of North Vietnamese ports and selective
bombing in and around Hanoi, the initial DUCK HOOK concept included
proposals for "tactical" nuclear strikes against logistics targets
and U.S. and South Vietnamese ground incursions into the North. In
early October 1969, however, Nixon aborted planning for the
long-contemplated operation. He had been influenced by Hanoi's
defiance in the face of his dire threats and concerned about U.S.
public reaction, antiwar protests, and internal administration
dissent. In place of DUCK HOOK, Nixon and Kissinger launched a
secret global nuclear alert in hopes that it would lend credibility
to their prior warnings and perhaps even persuade Moscow to put
pressure on Hanoi. It was to be a "special reminder" of how far
President Nixon might go. The risky gambit failed to move the
Soviets, but it marked a turning point in the administration's
strategy for exiting Vietnam. Nixon and Kissinger became
increasingly resigned to a "long-route" policy of providing Saigon
with a "decent chance" of survival for a "decent interval" after a
negotiated settlement and U.S. forces left Indochina. Burr and
Kimball draw upon extensive research in participant interviews and
declassified documents to offer a history that holds important
lessons for the present and future about the risks and
uncertainties of nuclear threat making.
That Indonesia's ongoing occupation of West Papua continues to be
largely ignored by world governments is one of the great moral and
political failures of our time. West Papuans have struggled for
more than fifty years to find a way through the long night of
Indonesian colonization. However, united in their pursuit of
merdeka (freedom) in its many forms, what holds West Papuans
together is greater than what divides them. Today, the Morning Star
glimmers on the horizon, the supreme symbol of merdeka and a
cherished sign of hope for the imminent arrival of peace and
justice to West Papua. Morning Star Rising: The Politics of
Decolonization in West Papua is an ethnographically framed account
of the long, bitter fight for freedom that challenges the dominant
international narrative that West Papuans' quest for political
independence is fractured and futile. Camellia Webb-Gannon's
extensive interviews with the decolonization movements' original
architects and its more recent champions shed light on complex
diasporic and inter-generational politics as well as social and
cultural resurgence. In foregrounding West Papuans' perspectives,
the author shows that it is the body politic's unflagging
determination and hope, rather than military might or influential
allies, that form the movement's most unifying and powerful force
for independence. This book examines the many intertwining strands
of decolonization in Melanesia. Differences in cultural performance
and political diversity throughout the region are generating new,
fruitful trajectories. Simultaneously, Black and Indigenous
solidarity and a shared Melanesian identity have forged a
transnational grassroots power-base from which the movement is
gaining momentum. Relevant beyond its West Papua focus, this book
is essential reading for those interested in Pacific studies,
Native and Indigenous studies, development studies, activism, and
decolonization.
The mission was to kill the most wanted man in the world--an
operation of such magnitude that it couldn't be handled by just any
military or intelligence force. The best America had to offer was
needed. As such, the task was handed to roughly forty members of
America's supersecret counterterrorist unit formally known as 1st
Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta; more popularly, the
elite and mysterious unit Delta Force.
This is the real story of the operation, the first eyewitness
account of the Battle of Tora Bora, and the first book to detail
just how close Delta Force came to capturing bin Laden, how close
U.S. bombers and fighter aircraft came to killing him, and exactly
why he slipped through our fingers. Lastly, this is an extremely
rare inside look at the shadowy world of Delta Force and a detailed
account of these warriors in battle.
This title provides a succinct, readable, and comprehensive
treatment of how the Obama administration reacted to what was
arguably the most difficult foreign policy challenge of its eight
years in office: the Arab Spring. As a prelude to examining how the
United States reacted to the first wave of the Arab Spring in the
21st century, this book begins with an examination of how the U.S.
reacted to revolution in the 19th and 20th centuries and a summary
of how foreign policy is made. Each revolution in the Arab Spring
(in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Bahrain, and Yemen) and the Obama
administration's action-or inaction-in response is carefully
analyzed. The U.S.' role is compared to that of regional powers,
such as Turkey, Israel, and Iran. The impact of U.S. abdication in
the face of pivotal events in the region is the subject of the
book's conclusion. While other treatments have addressed how the
Arab Spring revolutions have affected the individual countries
where these revolutions took place, U.S. foreign policy toward the
Middle East, and President Barack Obama's overall foreign policy,
this is the only work that provides a comprehensive examination of
both the Arab Spring revolutions themselves and the reaction of the
U.S. government to those revolutions. Stands as the only academic
book that specifically considers U.S. foreign policy with regard to
the Arab Spring Presents the Arab Spring as a pivotal event, the
U.S. reaction as a watershed, and an understanding of this
interplay as vital to understanding international politics in our
time Traces the often roundabout paths to the creation of U.S.
policy during the Arab Spring and examines the effects of those
policies Serves as an essential text for academics studying the
Middle East, U.S. foreign policy, the progress of revolution, and
politics in the developing world; policymakers wishing to
understand how the Obama administration dealt with the most complex
crisis of its eight years; and interested readers
Taiwanese society is in the midst of an immense, exciting effort to
define itself, seeking to erect a contemporary identity upon the
foundation of a highly distinctive history. This book provides a
thorough overview of Taiwanese cultural life. The introduction
familiarizes students and interested readers with the island's key
geographical and demographic features, and provides a chronological
summary of Taiwanese history. In the following chapters, Davison
and Reed reveal the uniqueness of Taiwan, and do not present it
simply as the laboratory of traditional Chinese culture that some
anthropologists of the 1950s through the 1970s sought when mainland
China was not accessible. The authors examine how religious
devotion in Taiwan is different from China in that the selected
deities are those most relevant to the needs of the Taiwanese
people. Literature and art, particularly of the 20th century,
reflect the Taiwanese quest for identity more than the grand
Chinese tradition. The Taiwanese architecture, festivals and
leisure activities, music and dance, cuisine and fashion, are also
highlighted topics. The final chapter presents the most recent
information regarding children and education, and explores the
importance of the Taiwanese family in the context of meaningful
relationships amongst acquaintances, friends, and institutions that
make up the social universe of the Taiwanese. This text is a lively
treatment of one of the world's most dynamic societies.
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