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Books > History > Asian / Middle Eastern history
Palestine in the Egyptian Press follows the evolution of the press
institution in modern Egypt, as well as of the prominent role the
Palestine question played in its rise to political prominence.
Through the lens of the press, author Ghada Hashem Talhami studies
the development of democracy under authoritarian rule, as
successive Egyptian regimes struggled to curb and contain the power
of the fourth estate. The Palestine question began to impinge on
Egypt's consciousness after World War I, largely due to the
manifest pro-Zionist sentiments of a segment of the Jewish
population. At the same time, rising Islamic groups and pan-Arabist
circles engaged in the national identity debate and quickly seized
control of the Palestine question as the most vulnerable area of
Egypt's security, identity, and borders. Following the evolution of
the press under Nasser, Sadat, and Mubarak, Palestine in the
Egyptian Press explores the restrictions and freedoms allowed to
the media. There is no better reference to explain the press
syndicate's rise to prominence, the success of generations of
journalists in establishing Arabic as the formal language of Egypt,
or the Palestine issue as the centerpiece of Egypt's pan-Arab
policies.
In this detailed account of civilian lives during wartime in Asia,
high school students, undergrads, and general readers alike can get
a glimpse into the often dismal, but surprisingly resilient, lives
led by ordinary people-those who did not go off to war but were
powerfully affected by it nonetheless. How did people live on a
day-to-day basis with the cruelty and horror of war right outside
their doorsteps? What were the reactions and views of those who did
not fight on the fields? How did people come together to cope with
the losses of loved ones and the sacrifices they had to make on a
daily basis? This volume contains accounts from the resilient
civilians who lived in Asia during the Taiping and Nian Rebellions,
the Philippine Revolution, the Wars of Meiji Japan, World War II,
the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. This volume begins with R.G.
Tiedemann's account of life in China in the mid-nineteenth century,
during the Taiping and Nian Rebellions. Tiedemann examines social
practices imposed on the civilians by the Taiping, life in the
cities and country, women, and the militarization of society.
Bernardita Reyes Churchill examines how civilians in the
Philippines struggled for freedom under the imperial reign Spain
and the United States at the turn of the twentieth century. Stewart
Lone looks at how Meiji Japan's wars on the Asian continent
affected the lives and routines of men, women, and children, urban
and rural. He also explains how the media played a role during the
wars, as well as how people were able to spend leisure time and
even make wartime humor. Di Wang uses the public space of the
teahouse and its culture as a microcosm of daily life in China
during tumultuous years of civil and world war, 1937-1949. Simon
Partner explores Japanese daily life during World War II,
investigating youth culture, the ways people came together, and how
the government took control of their lives by rationing food,
clothing, and other resources. Shigeru Sato continues by examining
the harshness of life in Indonesia during World War II and its
aftermath. Korean life from 1950-1953 is looked at by Andrei
Lankov, who takes a look at the heart-rending lives of refugees.
Finally, Lone surveys life in South Vietnam from 1965-1975, from
school children to youth protests to how propaganda affected
civilians. This volume offers students and general readers a
glimpse into the lives of those often forgotten.
This book attempts to reveal historical dynamism of transforming
contemporary Maritime Asia and to identify key driving forces or
agencies for the evolution and transformation of Maritime Asia in
the context of global history studies. It seeks to accomplish these
goals by connecting different experiences in Maritime Asia both
historically from the late early-modern to the present and
spatially covering both East and Southeast Asia. Focusing on
interactions on and through oceans, seas, and islands, Maritime
Asia can deal with any aspects of human society and the nature,
including diplomacy, maritime trade, cultural exchange, identity
and others. Its interest in supra-regional interactions and
networks, migration and diaspora, combined with its microscopic
concern with local and trans-border affairs, will surely contribute
to the common task of contemporary social sciences and humanities,
to relativize the conventional framework based on the nation-state.
In this regard, research in Maritime Asia claims to be an integral
part of global studies. Part I deals with long-distance trade and
diplomatic relations during the late early modern era and its
transition to the modern era, mainly in the nineteenth century.
Part II focuses on the emergence of transregional and trans-oceanic
Asian networks and the original institution-building efforts in the
Asia-Pacific region in the twentieth century.
Ever since the American Revolution, military service has been a
proud tradition for the Zumwalt family. Tradition initially led the
author to join his father and brother in the Navy, before later
transferring to the US Marine Corps. During his 26 years in
uniform, the author saw service in three conflicts-Vietnam, Panama
and the first Persian Gulf war. It was Vietnam, however, that
ultimately would launch him on an unexpected journey-long after the
guns of that war had fallen silent-triggered by the loss of a
brother who had fought there. This journey was an emotional
one-initially of anger towards the Vietnamese and the conflict that
claimed his older brother. But it unexpectedly took a change in
direction. In Vietnam almost two decades after Saigon's fall, the
author, in a private talk with a former enemy general officer, came
to understand an aspect of the war he never before had. In that
talk, they shared personal insights about the war-discovering a
common bond. It unlocked a door through which the author passed to
start his own healing process. It began a journey where he would
meet hundreds of North Vietnamese and Viet Cong veterans-listening
to their personal stories of loss, sacrifice and hardship. It
opened the author's eyes to how a technically inferior enemy,
beaten down by superior US firepower, was able to get back
up-driven by an "iron will" to emerge triumphant. "Bare Feet, Iron
Will" takes the reader on a fascinating journey, providing
stories-many never before told-as to how enemy ingenuity played a
major role in the conflict, causing us not to see things that were
there or to see things there that were not It shares unique
insights into the sacrifice and commitment that took place on the
other side of Vietnam's battlefields. About the Author JAMES G.
ZUMWALT Lieutenant Colonel James Zumwalt is a retired Marine
infantry officer who served in the Vietnam war, the 1989
intervention into Panama and Desert Storm. An author, speaker and
business executive, he also currently heads a security consulting
firm named after his father-Admiral Zumwalt & Consultants, Inc.
He writes extensively on foreign policy and defense issues, having
written hundreds of articles for various newspapers, magazines and
professional journals. His articles have covered issues of major
importance, oftentimes providing readers with unique perspectives
that have never appeared elsewhere. His work, on several occasions,
has been cited by members of Congress and entered into the US
Congressional Record.
This book presents a collection of archaeological and
anthropological writings by Li Chi, the founding father of modern
archaeology in China. It is divided into two parts, the first of
which traces back the rise of Chinese civilization, as well as the
origins of the Chinese people; in turn, the second part reviews the
rise of archaeology in China as a scientific subject that combines
fieldwork methods from the West with traditional antiquarian
studies. Readers who are interested in Chinese civilization will
find fascinating information on the excavations of Yin Hsu (the
ruins of the Yin Dynasty), including building foundations, bronzes,
chariots, pottery, stone and jade, and thousands of oracle bones,
which are vividly shown in historical pictures. These findings
transformed the Yin Shang culture from legend into history and thus
moved China's history forward by hundreds of years, shocking the
world. In turn, the articles on anthropology include Li Chi's
reflections on central problems in Chinese anthropology and are
both enlightening and thought-provoking.
This book examines key issues in gender equality and corporate
social responsibility in Japan. Legal compliance, the business case
and social regulation are examined as driving factors for enhancing
gender equality in corporations. In turn, case studies from various
contexts, such as the hotel industry, retail and financial services
companies add practical insights to the theoretical debate. The
role of governments, NGOs and supranational organizations is
examined as well. Given its scope, the book will appeal to
undergraduate and graduate students, scholars, policymakers and
practitioners interested in advancing the gender, CSR and
sustainability debates.
This Pivot explores the uses of the Mughal past in the historical
fiction of colonial India. Through detailed reconsiderations of
canonical works by Rudyard Kipling, Flora Annie Steel and Romesh
Chunder Dutt, the author argues for a more complex and integral
understanding of the part played by the Mughal imaginary in
colonial and early Indian nationalist projections of sovereignty.
Evoking the rich historical and transnational contexts of these
literary narratives, the study demonstrates the ways in which, at
successive moments of crisis and contestation in the later Raj, the
British Indian state continued to be troubled by its early and
profound investments in models of despotism first located by
colonial administrators in the figure of the Mughal emperor. At the
heart of these political fictions lay the issue of territoriality
and the founding problem of a British claim to sole proprietorship
of Indian land - a form of Orientalist exceptionalism that at once
underpinned and could never fully be integrated with the colonial
rule of law. Alongside its recovery of a wealth of popular and
often overlooked colonial historiography, The Return of the Mughal
emphasises the relevance of theories of political theology - from
Carl Schmitt and Ernst Kantorowicz to Talal Asad and Giorgio
Agamben - to our understanding of the fictional and jurisprudential
histories of colonialism. This study aims to show just how closely
the pageantry and romance of empire in India connects to its early
politics of terror and even today continues to inform the figure of
the Mughal in the sectarian politics of Hindu Nationalism.
Yezidism is a fascinating part of the rich cultural mosaic of
the Middle East. Yezidis emerged for the first time in the 12th
century in the Kurdish mountains of northern Iraq. Their religion,
which has become notorious for its associations with "devil
worship," is in fact an intricate syncretic system of belief,
incorporating elements from proto-Indo-European religions, early
Persian faiths like Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism, Sufism and
regional paganism like Mithraism. Birgul Acikyildiz offers a
comprehensive appraisal of Yezidi religion, society and culture.
Written without presupposing any prior knowledge about Yezidism,
and in an accessible and readable style, her book examines Yezidis
not only from a religious point of view but as a historical and
social phenomenon. She throws light on the origins of Yezidism, and
charts its historical development -- from its beginnings to the
present -- as part of the general history of the Kurds. The author
describes the Yezidi belief system (which considers Melek Taus --
the "Peacock Angel" -- to be ruler of the earth) and its religious
practices and observances, analyzing the most important facets of
Yezidi religious art and architecture and their relationship to
their neighbours throughout the Middle East. Richly illustrated,
with accompanying maps, photographs and illustrations, the book
will have strong appeal to all those with an interest in the
culture of the Kurds, as well as the wider region.
Investigative reporter Patrick J. Sloyan, a former member of the
White House Press Corps, revisits the last years of John F.
Kennedy's presidency, his fateful involvement with Diem's
assassination, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Civil Rights
Movement. Using recently released White House tape recordings and
interviews with key inside players, The Politics of Deception
reveals: The Politics of Deception is a fresh and revealing look at
an iconic president and the way he attempted to manage public
opinion and forge his legacy, sure to appeal to both history buffs
and those who were alive during his presidency.
In Projectland, anthropologist Holly High combines an engaging
first-person narrative of her fieldwork with a political
ethnography of Laos, more than forty years after the establishment
of the Lao PDR and more than seven decades since socialist
ideologues first "liberated" parts of upland country. In a remote
village of Kandon, High finds that although socialism has declined
significantly as an economic model, it is ascendant and thriving in
the culture of politics and the politics of culture. Kandon is
remarkable by any account. The villagers are ethnic Kantu (Katu),
an ethnicity associated by early ethnographers above all with human
sacrifice. They had repelled French control, and as the war went
on, the revolutionary forces of Sekong were headquartered in Kandon
territories. In 1996, Kandon village moved and resettled in a
plateau area. "New Kandon" has become Sekong Province's first
certified "Culture Village," the nation's very first "Open
Defecation Free and Model Health Village," and the president of
Laos personally granted the village a Labor Flag and Medal. High
provides a unique and timely assessment of the Lao Party-state's
resettlement politics, and she recounts with skillful nuance the
stories that are often cast into shadows by the usual focus on New
Kandon as a success. Her book follows the lives of a small group of
villagers who returned to the old village in the mountains,
effectively defying policy but, in their words, obeying the
presence that animates the land there. Revealing her sensibility
with tremendous composure, High tells the experiences of women who,
bound by steep bride-prices to often violent marriages, have tasted
little of the socialist project of equality, unity, and
independence. These women spoke to the author of "necessities" as a
limit to their own lives. In a context where the state has defined
the legitimate forms of success and agency, "necessity" emerged as
a means of framing one's life as nonconforming but also
nonagentive.
In this work Stephen C. Poulson, a scholar of collective action and
social movements, investigates cycles of social protest in Iran
from 1890 to the present era. He illuminates the following social
movements: the 1890-1892 Tobacco Movement; the 1906-1909
Constitutional Revolution; two post-World War II movements, the
Tudeh (Masses) and the National Front; the 1963 Qom Protest; and
the 1978-1979 Iranian Revolution. These movements confronted two
primary questions: How should the Iranian state achieve
independence in the world and what rights should individual
Iranians enjoy in their political and social system? Poulson
examines the framing of these questions and their answers by
various Iranian political actors over time, revealing both
continuity and change.
Saudi Arabia is generally and justifiably viewed as a country with
some of the fewest democratic institutions and the weakest
traditions of pluralism. It is therefore surprising to learn that
at least in one corner of the Saudi world, there can be found a
plurality of opinions and lively debate. Jorg Matthias Determann
brings this element to light by analyzing an important field of
cultural activity in Saudi Arabia: historical writing. Since the
1920s local, tribal, Shi'i and dynastic histories have contributed
to a growing plurality of narratives. Paradoxically, this happened
because of the expansion of the Saudi state, including state
provision of mass education. It was also due to globalizing
processes, such as the spread of the internet. In challenging the
widely-held perception of Saudi Arabia as an irredeemably closed
and monolithic society, Historiography in Saudi Arabia provides a
deeper understanding of modern Arab historiography, the Saudi
state, and education and scholarship in the Middle East.
Concepts of historical progress or decline and the idea of a cycle
of historical movement have existed in many civilizations. In spite
of claims that they be transnational or even universal,
periodization schemes invariably reveal specific social and
cultural predispositions. Our dialogue, which brings together a
Sinologist and a scholar of early modern History in Europe,
considers periodization as a historical phenomenon, studying the
case of the "Renaissance." Understood in the tradition of J.
Burckhardt, who referred back to ideas voiced by the humanists of
the 14th and 15th centuries, and focusing on the particularities of
humanist dialogue which informed the making of the "Renaissance" in
Italy, our discussion highlights elements that distinguish it from
other movements that have proclaimed themselves as
"r/Renaissances," studying, in particular, the Chinese Renaissance
in the early 20th century. While disagreeing on several fundamental
issues, we suggest that interdisciplinary and interregional
dialogue is a format useful to addressing some of the more
far-reaching questions in global history, e.g. whether and when a
periodization scheme such as "Renaissance" can fruitfully be
applied to describe non-European experiences.
In 1878 a young man named William Pryer was sent to North Borneo
(now Sabah) to 'establish' the British North Borneo Company there.
In 1894 his wife Ada published her account of his early years as an
administrator along with some sketches of their life together. The
memoir has unique value both as a travel narrative in its own right
and for understanding the international politics of the British
takeover of North Borneo. The new edition will reproduce the text
of the original 1894 edition, including an introductory essay as
well as annotations to explain and contextualize references of
historical and biographical significance.
When the Bolshevik Revolution broke out in October 1917, much of
Central Asia was still ruled by autonomous rulers such as the Emir
of Bukhara and the Khan of Khiva. By 1920 the khanates had been
transformed into People's Republics. In 1924, Stalin re-drew the
frontiers of the region on ethno-linguistic lines creating, amongst
other statelets, the Soviet Socialist Republic of Uzbekistan - the
land of the Uzbeks. But the Turkic Uzbeks were not the only
significant ethnic group within the new Uzbekistan's frontiers. The
Persian-speaking Tajiks formed a considerable part of the
population. This book describes how, often in the teeth of Uzbek
opposition, the Tajiks gained, first an autonomous oblast
(administrative region) within Uzbekistan, then an autonomous
republic, and finally, in 1929, the status of a full Soviet Union
Republic. Once the Tajiks had been granted a territory of their
own, they began to strive for a national identity and to create
national pride. Their new government had not only to survive the
civil war that followed the revolution but then to build an
entirely new country in an immensely inhospitable terrain. New
frontiers had to be wrested from neighbours, and a new cultural
identity, 'national in form but socialist in content', had to be
created, which was to be an example to other Persian speakers in
the region. Paul Bergne has produced the first documentation of how
the idea of a Tajik state came into being and offers a vivid
history of the birth of a nation.
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