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Books > History > Asian / Middle Eastern history
This book explores the diverse experience of Bangladesh's
development over the last fifty years and provides systematic
explanations of its success in socioeconomic development. It also
assesses future trends on the basis of past experiences. It is
widely acknowledged that Bangladesh provides one of the most
striking examples in the study of present day development along
with rapid growth and catching up. The analysis highlights the
development traps that Bangladesh faced during its journey and the
ones that may have to be faced in the coming decades in order to
move towards prosperity. The book asserts that explaining
Bangladesh's development is not for the simpleminded; any single
mono-causal explanation for Bangladesh's development is bound to
fall down in the face of reality. This book will be of interest to
academics, students, policy makers and development practitioners
especially in developing countries-in particular in South Asia and
Bangladesh.
The Syrian war has been an example of the abuse and insufficient
delivery of humanitarian assistance. According to international
practice, humanitarian aid should be channelled through a state
government that bears a particular responsibility for its
population. Yet in Syria, the bulk of relief went through Damascus
while the regime caused the vast majority of civilian deaths.
Should the UN have severed its cooperation with the government and
neglected its humanitarian duty to help all people in need?
Decision-makers face these tough policy dilemmas, and often the
"neutrality trap" snaps shut. This book discusses the political and
moral considerations of how to respond to a brutal and complex
crisis while adhering to international law and practice. The
author, a scholar and senior diplomat involved in the UN peace
talks in Geneva, draws from first-hand diplomatic, practitioner and
UN sources. He sheds light on the UN's credibility crisis and the
wider implications for the development of international
humanitarian and human rights law. This includes covering the key
questions asked by Western diplomats, NGOs and international
organizations, such as: Why did the UN not confront the Syrian
government more boldly? Was it not only legally correct but also
morally justifiable to deliver humanitarian aid to regime areas
where rockets were launched and warplanes started? Why was it so
difficult to render cross-border aid possible where it was badly
needed? The meticulous account of current international practice is
both insightful and disturbing. It tackles the painful lessons
learnt and provides recommendations for future challenges where
politics fails and humanitarians fill the moral void.
A ferocious conflict between Mongol and Samurai
The Japanese word 'Ghenko' is the term employed for the Mongol
invasion of Japan. The event was an immensely significant one for
the Japanese and it remained so for centuries because, in part, the
defeat of the invaders was attributed to divine intervention. There
can be little doubt that Japan's salvation had much to do with the
fact that they are an island race and in that they have much in
common with other islanders, Great Britain among them, who on more
than one occasion might claim the sea as their principal and most
powerful ally. Indeed. the author of this book draws parallels with
Britain and the Spanish Armada. The Mongols had rapidly risen to
power during the 13th century and had created an unstoppable empire
that spread over huge areas of land from the Yellow Sea of Asia to
the Danube in Europe. Although massively stronger than the
Japanese, the Mongols attacked the Japanese islands, attempting
domination by invasion and yet were repulsed with finality. To
modern students of military history the contents of this book has a
compelling allure, since there can be no doubt that in the Mongol
warrior and the Japanese Samurai there resided a martial spirit and
expertise which, perhaps inevitably, could not both exist in the
same sphere, but which in collision could not fail to instigate
conflict of the most singular kind. This account of the clash
between the ultimate warriors of their day analyses this time of
warfare in superb detail. An essential addition to the library of
anyone interested in the warfare of the East.
Leonaur editions are newly typeset and are not facsimiles; each
title is available in softcover and hardback with dustjacket; our
hardbacks are cloth bound and feature gold foil lettering on their
spines and fabric head and tail bands.
Ever since the death of Mao, China has undergone a
transformation almost as radical as the Communist Revolution that
Mao instigated. This book tells the stories of the many difficult
economic, political, and social struggles that have taken place in
post-Maoist China. Using both Chinese and non-Chinese sources,
Alfred K. Ho unravels the complexities of life in China during the
past generation. As Ho explains, contemporary Chinese are seeking
to find solutions to their problems that reflect their own cultural
values. As such, reform in China cannot be seen solely as an effort
to emulate the West, especially the free market and democratic
United States. Rather, Ho places current efforts at reform as part
of a prolonged and continual process by Chinese to deal with their
internal problems as well as the challenges and opportunities they
face as a result of greater contact with the outside world.
This is a monograph about the medieval Jewish community of the
Mediterranean port city of Alexandria. Through deep analyses of
contemporary historical sources, mostly documents from the Cairo
Geniza, life stories, conducts and practices of private people are
revealed. When put together these private biographies convey a
social portrait of an elite group which ruled over the local
community, but was part of a supra communal network.
This book, edited by April Myung of Bergen County Academies in New
Jersey, contains autobiographies of ten Korean teenagers, currently
studying in American high schools. This historically significant
volume contains writings by break-dancing Julius Im, who
understands his Korean-American identity through this medium of
African-American dance, to Rei Fujino Park of Flushing, New York,
who explores her own dual identiy with a Korean father (who served
in the elite Korean military special forces) and a Japanese mother.
Rei Fujino describes her parents' marriage as a loving union of
"enemies" given the history of Japanese colonization of Korea
(1910-1945). Julie Oh describes the difficult situation of the
children of Korean company workers for Samsung, LG, SK, Woori Bank,
and other Korean companies, who come with a short-term working visa
to the United States. The children of these "Joo-Jae-Won" have to
go to Saturday school (in her case, "Woori School") in order to
maintain the skill level of Korean high schools, in the case that
their parents get recalled to South Korea - their children would
have to apply for Korean universities and meet the requirements of
Korean university entrance tests, which are vastly different from
America's SAT, ACT, and AP tests. Andrew Hyeon shars his experience
as a Korean Catholic, attending Hopkins School, an elite private
school in Connecticut, where former Yale Law School Dean Harold
Koh, a famous Korean, attended. Ruby Hong's autobiography is
written as a fairytale account of her own life. The autobiographies
in this book are not only creatively written as to capture the
readers' interest, but they also provide valuable resources for
Korean American Studies. (This book is the second in the Hermit
Kingdom Sources in Korean-American Studies, whose series editor is
Dr. Onyoo Elizabeth Kim, Esq.)
Society, Law, and Culture in the Middle East:"Modernities" in the
Making is an edited volume that seeks to deepen and broaden our
understanding of various forms of change in Middle Eastern and
North African societies during the Ottoman period. It offers an
in-depth analysis of reforms and gradual change in the longue
duree, challenging the current discourse on the relationship
between society, culture, and law. The focus of the discussion
shifts from an external to an internal perspective, as agency
transitions from "the West" to local actors in the region.
Highlighting the ongoing interaction between internal processes and
external stimuli, and using primary sources in Arabic and Ottoman
Turkish, the authors and editors bring out the variety of
modernities that shaped south-eastern Mediterranean history. The
first part of the volume interrogates the urban elite household,
the main social, political, and economic unit of networking in
Ottoman societies. The second part addresses the complex
relationship between law and culture, looking at how the legal
system, conceptually and practically, undergirded the
socio-cultural aspects of life in the Middle East. Society, Law,
and Culture in the Middle East consists of eleven chapters, written
by well-established and younger scholars working in the field of
Middle East and Islamic Studies. The editors, Dror Ze'evi and Ehud
R. Toledano, are both leading historians, who have published
extensively on Middle Eastern societies in the Ottoman and
post-Ottoman periods.
The twentieth century witnessed harsh anti-Semitism, vicious
pogroms, and the unimaginable Holocaust. Over a third of the
world's Jews were killed. Yet, today the largest concentration of
Jews resides in Israel?a modern miracle. Theologian and historian
Dr. Jim Eckman presents a riveting history of God's covenant people
from the initial promises God made to Abraham to the establishment
of the modern state of Israel in 1948. Through enslavement in
ancient Egypt, the conquest under Joshua, the establishment of the
monarchy under David, the brutal exiles under Assyria and Babylon
to the tragedies of Diaspora Judaism, the Jewish people have
survived. For almost 1,900 years, the Jews were dispersed and
despised as ?Christ-killers.? But, by the late ninteenth century,
there was evidence of a change in the world's perception of the
Jews. How and why did they begin their historic trek back to their
ancient homeland? Eckman identifies ten major historical events
that reawakened the West to the necessity of a homeland for the
Jewish people. As he weaves history together with the theological
portrait of our covenant-making, covenant-keeping God, Eckman
provides an indispensable handbook for understanding today's Middle
East and the importance of the Jewish people to God's eternal plan
for this planet.
The Vietnam War is one of the defining conflicts of the twentieth
century: not only did it divide American society at every level;
the conflict also represented a key shift in Asian anti-colonialism
and shaped the course of the Cold War. Despite its political and
social importance, popular memory of the war is dominated by myths
and stereotypes. In this incisive new text, John Dumbrell debunks
popular assumptions about the war and reassesses the key political,
military and historical controversies associated with one of the
most contentious and divisive wars of recent times. Drawing upon an
extensive range of newly accessible sources, Rethinking the Vietnam
War assesses all aspects of the conflict - ranging across domestic
electoral politics in the USA to the divided communist leadership
in Hanoi and grassroots antiwar movements around the world. The
book charts the full course of the war - from the origins of
American involvement, the growing internationalization of the
conflict and the swing year of 1968 to bitter twists in Sino-Soviet
rivalry and the eventual withdrawal of American forces. Situating
the conflict within an international context, John Dumbrell also
considers competing interpretations of the war and points the way
to the resolution of debates which have divided international
opinion for decades.
The Japanese military was responsible for the sexual enslavement of
thousands of women and girls in Asia and the Pacific during the
China and Pacific wars under the guise of providing 'comfort' for
battle-weary troops. Campaigns for justice and reparations for
'comfort women' since the early 1990s have highlighted the
magnitude of the human rights crimes committed against Korean,
Chinese and other Asian women by Japanese soldiers after they
invaded the Chinese mainland in 1937. These campaigns, however, say
little about the origins of the system or its initial victims. The
Japanese Comfort Women and Sexual Slavery during the China and
Pacific Wars explores the origins of the Japanese military's system
of sexual slavery and illustrates how Japanese women were its
initial victims.
How should failed states in Africa be understood? Catherine Scott
here critically engages with the concept of state failure and
provides an historical reinterpretation. She shows that, although
the concept emerged in the context of the post-Cold War new world
order, the phenomenon has been attendant throughout (and even
before) the development of the Westphalian state system.
Contemporary failed states, however, differ from their historical
counterparts in one fundamental respect: they fail within their
existing borders and continue to be recognised as something that
they are not. This peculiarity derives from international norms
instituted in the era of decolonisation, which resulted in the
inviolability of state borders and the supposed universality of
statehood. Scott argues that contemporary failed states are, in
fact, failed post-colonies. Thus understood, state failure is less
the failure of existing states and more the failed rooting and
institutionalisation of imported and reified models of Western
statehood. Drawing on insights from the histories of Uganda and
Burundi, from pre-colonial polity formation to the present day, she
explores why and how there have been failures to create effective
and legitimate national states within the bounds of inherited
colonial jurisdictions on much of the African continent.
While there is much discussion on Africa-China relations, the focus
tends to lean more on the Chinese presence in Africa than on the
African presence in China. There are numerous studies on the former
but, with the exception of a few articles on the presence of
African traders and students in China, little is known of the
latter, even though an increasing number of Africans are visiting
and settling in China and forming migrant communities there. This
is a phenomenon that has never happened before the turn of the
century and has thus led to what is often termed Africa's newest
Diaspora. This book focuses on analyzing this new Diaspora,
addressing the crucial question: What is it like to be an African
in China? Africans in China is the first book-length study of the
process of Africans travelling to China and forming communities
there. Based on innovative intermingling of qualitative and
quantitative research methods involving prolonged interaction with
approximately 800 Africans across six main Chinese
cities--Guangzhou, Yiwu, Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong and
Macau--sociolinguistic and sociocultural profiles are constructed
to depict the everyday life of Africans in China. The study
provides insights into understanding issues such as why Africans go
to China, what they do there, how they communicate with their
Chinese hosts, what opportunities and problems they encounter in
their China sojourn, and how they are received by the Chinese
state. Beyond these methodological and empirical contributions, the
book also makes a theoretical contribution by proposing a
crosscultural bridge theory of migrant-indigene relations, arguing
that Africans in China act as sociopolitical, socioeconomic, and
sociocultural bridges linking Africa to China. This approach to the
analysis of Diaspora communities has consequences for crosscultural
and crosslinguistic studies in an era of globalization. Africans in
China is an important book for African Studies, Asian Studies,
Africa-China relations studies, linguistics, anthropology,
sociology, international studies, and migration and Diaspora
studies in an era of globalization.
This revised edition examines North and South Korea's political,
socio-economic, and cultural history from the Neolithic period to
the early 21st century, including issues of recent political unrest
and preparations for the 2018 Winter Olympics. Korea continues to
be featured in the news, especially after the succession of Kim
Jong-un as leader of North Korea and his threats of nuclear attack.
Yet the reported instability of the North is contrasted by the
rapid modernization revolution of the South. Author Djun Kil Kim
analyzes how tragic experiences in the regions' collective
history-particularly Japanese colonial rule and the division of the
country-have contributed to the dichotomous state of affairs in the
Koreas. This comprehensive overview traces the development of two
contradistinctive nations-North and South Korea-with communism in
the north and democracy and industrialization in the south
transforming the geopolitical and geo-economic condition of each
area. Author Kim explores specific doctrines that revolutionized
Korea: Buddhism and Neo-Confucianism in the mid-7th and the late
14th centuries; and communism and American functionalism in the
20th century. The second edition includes an updated timeline, new
biographical sketches of notable people, and an additional chapter
covering the events of 2004 through the present day. Includes an
expanded bibliography with additional print and electronic sources
Provides updated accounts of both North and South Korea's more
recent events that enable readers to grasp the global significance
and power of both nations
While serving as a crew chief aboard a U.S. Air Force Rescue
helicopter, Airman First Class William A. Robinson was shot down
and captured in Ha Tinh Province, North Vietnam, on September 20,
1965. After a brief stint at the "Hanoi Hilton," Robinson endured
2,703 days in multiple North Vietnamese prison camps, including the
notorious Briarpatch and various compounds at Cu Loc, known by the
inmates as the Zoo. No enlisted man in American military history
has been held as a prisoner of war longer than Robinson. For seven
and a half years, he faced daily privations and endured the full
range of North Vietnam's torture program. In The Longest Rescue:
The Life and Legacy of Vietnam POW William A. Robinson, Glenn
Robins tells Robinson's story using an array of sources, including
declassified U.S. military documents, translated Vietnamese
documents, and interviews from the National Prisoner of War Museum.
Unlike many other POW accounts, this comprehensive biography
explores Robinson's life before and after his capture, particularly
his estranged relationship with his father, enabling a better
understanding of the difficult transition POWs face upon returning
home and the toll exacted on their families. Robins's powerful
narrative not only demonstrates how Robinson and his fellow
prisoners embodied the dedication and sacrifice of America's
enlisted men but also explores their place in history and memory.
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