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Books > History > Asian / Middle Eastern history
The thirteenth-century cookbook Fidalat al-khiwan fi tayyibat
al-ta'am wa-l-alwan by the Andalusi scholar Ibn Razin al-Tujibi
showcases 475 exquisite recipes. This edition was meticulously
translated into English based on a newly discovered manuscript
containing the complete text. It includes an introduction,
glossary, 218 color illustrations, and 24 modernized recipes.
Reprint of 1970 publication from the US Army Center of Military
History. A description of selected small unit actions, written
primarily to acquaint junior officers, noncommissioned officers,
and enlisted soldiers with combat experiences in Korea.
Does the industrial development of a country entail the
democratization of its political system? Malaysia in the World
Economy examines this theme with regards to Malaysia in the period
between 1824 and 2011. Capitalism was first introduced into
Malaysia through colonialism specifically to supply Britain with
much-needed raw materials for its industrial development. Aside
from economic exploitation, colonial rule had also produced a
highly unequal and socially distant multicultural society, whose
multifaceted divisions kept the colonial rulers in supreme
authority. After independence, Britain ensured that Malaysia became
a staunch western ally by structuring in a capitalist system
specifically helmed by western-educated elites through what
appeared to be "formal" democratic institutions. In such a system,
the Malaysian ruling elites have been able to "manage" the
country's democratic processes to its advantage as well as preempt
or suppress serious internal challenges to its power, often in the
name of national stability. As a result, an increasingly unpopular
National Front political coalition has remained in power in the
country since 1957. Meanwhile, Malaysia's marginal position in the
world economy, which has maintained its economic subordination to
the developed countries of the west and Japan, has reproduced the
internal social inequities inherited from colonial rule and
channeled the largest returns of economic growths into the hands of
the country's foreign investors as well as local elites associated
with the ruling machinery. Over the years however, the state has
lost some of its political legitimacy in the face of widening
social disparities, increased ethnic polarization, and prevalent
corruption. This has been made possible by extensive exposures of
these issues via new social media and communications technology.
Hence, informational globalization may have begun to empower
Malaysians in a new struggle for political reform, thereby
reconfiguring the balance of power between the state and civil
society. Unlike other past research, Malaysia in the World Economy
combines both macro- and micro-theoretical approaches in critically
analyzing the relationship between capitalist development and
democratization in Malaysia within a comparative-historical and
world-systemic context.
Japan at Nature's Edge is a timely collection of essays that
explores the relationship between Japan's history, culture, and
physical environment. It greatly expands the focus of previous work
on Japanese modernization by examining Japan's role in global
environmental transformation and how Japanese ideas have shaped
bodies and landscapes over the centuries. The immediacy of Earth's
environmental crisis, a predicament highlighted by Japan's March
2011 disaster, brings a sense of urgency to the study of Japan and
its global connections. The work is an environmental history in the
broadest sense of the term because it contains writing by
environmental anthropologists, a legendary Japanese economist, and
scholars of Japanese literature and culture. The editors have
brought together an unparalleled assemblage of some of the finest
scholars in the field who, rather than treat it in isolation or as
a unique cultural community, seek to connect Japan to global
environmental currents such as whaling, world fisheries,
mountaineering and science, mining and industrial pollution, and
relations with nonhuman animals. The contributors assert the
importance of the environment in understanding Japan's history and
propose a new balance between nature and culture, one weighted much
more heavily on the side of natural legacies. This approach does
not discount culture. Instead, it suggests that the Japanese
experience of nature, like that of all human beings, is a complex
and intimate negotiation between the physical and cultural worlds.
Contributors: Daniel P. Aldrich, Jakobina Arch, Andrew Bernstein,
Philip C. Brown, Timothy S. George, Jeffrey E. Hanes, David L.
Howell, Federico Marcon, Christine L. Marran, Ian Jared Miller,
Micah Muscolino, Ken'ichi Miyamoto, Sara B. Pritchard, Julia Adeney
Thomas, Karen Thornber, William M. Tsutsui, Brett L. Walker,
Takehiro Watanabe.
China has been a challenge to Christianity since the beginning of
modern times, and it remains so today. Here is a great civilisation
comprising a quarter of humankind, yet largely untouched by
Christian values and beliefs. Any theological evaluation of the
state of world Christianity that does not take China into account
is impoverished and radically incomplete.
The Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences - established in
1826 - houses many small and still hidden collections. One of
these, the most comprehensive Hungarian collection of Arabic
manuscripts, is brought to light by the present catalogue. These
codices are described for the first time in a detailed and
systematic way. A substantial part of the manuscripts is either
dated to or preserved from the 150 year period of Ottoman
occupation in Hungary. The highlights of the collection are from
the Mamluk era, and the manuscripts as a whole present a clear
picture of the curriculum of Islamic education. The descriptions
also give an overview of the many additional Turkish and Persian
texts thereby adding to our knowledge about the history of these
volumes.
Tributaries and Peripheries of the Ottoman Empire offers thirteen
studies on the relationship between Ottoman tributaries with each
other in the imperial framework, as well as with neighboring border
provinces of the empire's core territories from the fifteenth to
the eighteenth centuries. A variety of surveys related to the
Cossack Ukraine, the Crimean Khanate, Dagestan, Moldavia, Ragusa,
Transylvania, Upper Hungary and Wallachia allow the reader to see
hitherto less known subtleties of the Ottoman administration's
hierarchic structures and the liberties and restrictions of the
office-holders' power. They also shed light upon the strategies of
coalition-building among the elites of the tributaries as well as
the core provinces of the border zones, which determined their
cooperation, but also the competition between them. Contributors
include: Janos B. Szabo, Ovidiu Cristea, Tetiana Grygorieva, Klara
Jako, Gabor Karman, Dariusz Kolodziejczyk, Natalia
Krolikowska-Jedlinska, Erica Mezzoli, Viorel Panaite, Radu G. Paun,
Ruza Rados Curic, Balazs Sudar, Michal Wasiucionek.
Written by one of Israel's most notable scholars, this volume
provides a breathtaking history of Israel from the origins of the
Zionist movement in the late nineteenth century to the present day.
Organized chronologically, the volume explores the emergence of
Zionism in Europe against the backdrop of relations among Jews,
Arabs, and Turks, and the earliest pioneer settlements in Palestine
under Ottoman rule. Weaving together political, social, and
cultural developments in Palestine under the British mandate,
Shapira creates a tapestry through which to understand the
challenges of Israeli nation building, including mass immigration,
shifting cultural norms, the politics of war and world diplomacy,
and the creation of democratic institutions and a civil society.
References to contemporary diaries, memoirs, and literature bring a
human dimension to this narrative history of Israel from its
declaration of independence in 1948 through successive decades of
waging war, negotiating peace, and building a modern state with a
vibrant society and culture.
Based on archival sources and the most up-to-date scholarly
research, this authoritative history is a must-read for anyone with
a passionate interest in Israel. Israel: A History will be the gold
standard in the field for years to come.
This volume is a tribute to the work of legal and social historian
and Arabist Rudolph Peters (University of Amsterdam). Presenting
case studies from different periods and areas of the Muslim world,
the book examines the use of legal documents for the study of the
history of Muslim societies. From examinations of the conceptual
status of legal documents to comparative studies of the development
of legal formulae and the socio-economic or political historical
information documents contain, the aim is to approach legal
documents as specialised texts belonging to a specific social
domain, while simultaneously connecting them to other historical
sources. It discusses the daily functioning of legal institutions,
the reflections of regime changes on legal documentation, daily
life, and the materiality of legal documents. Contributors are
Maaike van Berkel, Maurits H. van den Boogert, Leon Buskens, Khaled
Fahmy, Aharon Layish, Sergio Carro Martin, Brinkley Messick, Toru
Miura, Christian Muller, Petra M. Sijpesteijn, Mathieu Tillier, and
Amalia Zomeno.
Shanghai Sanctuary assesses the plight of the European Jewish
refugees who fled to Japanese-occupied China during World War II.
This book is the first major study to examine the Nationalist
government's policy towards the Jewish refugee issue and the most
thorough and subtle analysis of Japanese diplomacy concerning this
matter. Gao demonstrates that the story of the wartime Shanghai
Jews is not merely a sidebar to the history of modern China or
modern Japan. She illuminates how the "Jewish issue" complicated
the relationships among China, Japan, Germany, and the United
States before and during World War II. Her groundbreaking research
provides an important contribution to international history and the
history of the Holocaust. Chinese Nationalist government and the
Japanese occupation authorities thought very carefully about the
Shanghai Jews and how they could be used to win international
financial and political support in their war against one another.
The Holocaust had complicated repercussions extending far beyond
Europe to East Asia, and Gao shows many of them in this tightly
argued book. Her fluency in both Chinese and Japanese has permitted
her to exploit archival sources no Western scholar has been able to
fully use before. Gao brings the politics and personalities that
led to the admittance of Jews to Shanghai during World War II
together into a rich and revealing story.
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