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Books > History > Asian / Middle Eastern history
In Authoritarian Modernization in Indonesia's Early Independence
Period, Farabi Fakih offers a historical analysis of the
foundational years leading to Indonesia's New Order state
(1966-1998) during the early independence period. The study looks
into the structural and ideological state formation during the
so-called Liberal Democracy (1950-1957) and Sukarno's Guided
Democracy (1957-1965). In particular, it analyses how the
international technical aid network and the dominant managerialist
ideology of the period legitimized a new managerial elite. The book
discusses the development of managerial education in the civil and
military sectors in Indonesia. The study gives a strongly backed
argument that Sukarno's constitutional reform during the Guided
Democracy period inadvertently provided a strong managerial
blueprint for the New Order developmentalist state.
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
The Sykes-Picot Agreement was one of the defining moments in the
history of the modern Middle East. Yet its co-creator, Sir Mark
Sykes, had far more involvement in British Middle East strategy
during World War I than the Agreement for which he is now most
remembered. Between 1915 and 1916, Sykes was Lord Kitchener's agent
at home and abroad, operating out of the War Office until the war
secretary's death at sea in 1916. Following that, from 1916 to 1919
he worked at the Imperial War Cabinet, the War Cabinet Secretariat
and, finally, as an advisor to the Foreign Office. The full extent
of Sykes's work and influence has previously not been told.
Moreover, the general impression given of him is at variance with
the facts. Sykes led the negotiations with the Zionist leadership
in the formulation of the Balfour Declaration, which he helped to
write, and promoted their cause to achieve what he sought for a
pro-British post-war Middle East peace settlement, although he was
not himself a Zionist. Likewise, despite claims he championed the
Arab cause, there is little proof of this other than general
rhetoric mainly for public consumption. On the contrary, there is
much evidence he routinely exhibited a complete lack of empathy
with the Arabs. In this book, Michael Berdine examines the life of
this impulsive and headstrong young British aristocrat who helped
formulate many of Britain's policies in the Middle East that are
responsible for much of the instability that has affected the
region ever since.
The third in a new series, the Contemporary Archive of the Islamic
World (CAIW), this title draws on the resources of Cambridge-based
World of Information, which since 1975 has followed the politics
and economics of the region. Kuwait's documented history begins in
the mid-19th Century. Its location established it as an important
entrepot at the head of the Arabian Gulf. Notionally under Ottoman
rule, it became a de facto protectorate of Great Britain. The
discovery of oil changed Kuwait beyond recognition. It gained full
independence in 1971 and was long considered the most developed
state in the Gulf. Coveted by Iraq, it was invaded in 1990. It also
played a part in the2003 invasion of Iraq.
In this complete guide to modern China, Michael Dillon takes
students through its social, political and economic changes, from
the Qing Empire, through the civil war and the Communist state, to
its incarnation as a hybrid capitalist superpower. Key features of
the new edition include: - A brand new chapter on the Xi Jinping
premiership - Coverage of the recent developments in Hong Kong -
Unique analysis of Tibet and Xinjiang - Teaching aides including
biographies of leading figures, timelines and a glossary Clearly
and compelling written, this textbook is essential for any student
of the history or politics of modern China.
The Dutch scholar Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje (1857-1936) was one
of the most famous orientalists of his time. He acquired early fame
through his daring research in Mecca in 1884-85, masterly narrated
in two books and accompanied by two portfolios of photographs. As
an adviser to the colonial government in the Dutch East Indies from
1889 until 1906, he was on horseback during campaigns of
"pacification" and published extensively on Indonesian cultures and
languages. Meanwhile he successively married two Sundanese women
with whom he had several children. In 1906 he became a professor in
Leiden and promoted together with colleagues abroad the study of
modern Islam, meant to be useful for colonial purposes. Despite his
considerable scholarly, political, and cultural influence in the
first decades of the twentieth century, nowadays Snouck Hurgronje
has been almost forgotten outside a small circle of specialists,
since he mainly published in Dutch and German. The contributors to
this volume each offer new insights about this enigmatic scholar
and political actor who might be considered a classic proponent of
"orientalism." Their detailed studies of his life and work
challenge us to reconsider common views of the history of the study
of Islam in European academia and encourage a more nuanced
"post-orientalist" approach with ample attention for cooperation,
exchange, and hybridization. Contributors:
Horace 'Jim' Greasley was twenty years of age in the spring of 1939 when Adolf Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia and latterly Poland. There had been whispers and murmurs of discontent from certain quarters and the British government began to prepare for the inevitable war. After seven weeks training with the 2nd/5th Battalion Leicester, he found himself facing the might of the German army in a muddy field south of Cherbourg, in Northern France, with just thirty rounds of ammunition in his weapon pouch. Horace's war didn't last long. He was taken prisoner on 25th May 1940 and forced to endure a ten week march across France and Belgium en-route to Holland.
Horace survived...barely...food was scarce; he took nourishment from dandelion leaves, small insects and occasionally a secret food package from a sympathetic villager, and drank rain water from ditches. Many of his fellow comrades were not so fortunate. Falling by the side of the road through sheer exhaustion and malnourishment meant a bullet through the back of the head and the corpse left to rot. After a three day train journey without food and water, Horace found himself incarcerated in a prison camp in Poland. It was there he embarked on an incredible love affair with a German girl interpreting for his captors.
He experienced the sweet taste of freedom each time he escaped to see her, yet incredibly he made his way back into the camp each time, sometimes two, three times every week. Horace broke out of the camp then crept back in again under the cover of darkness after his natural urges were fulfilled. He brought food back to his fellow prisoners to supplement their meagre rations. He broke out of the camp over two hundred times and towards the end of the war even managed to bring radio parts back in. The BBC news would be delivered daily to over 3,000 prisoners. This is an incredible tale of one man's adversity and defiance of the German nation.
The influence of the ulema, the official Sunni Muslim religious
scholars of the Ottoman Empire, is commonly understood to have
waned in the empire's last century. Drawing upon Ottoman state
archives and the institutional archives of the ulema, this study
challenges this narrative, showing that the ulema underwent a
process of professionalisation as part of the wider Tanzimat
reforms and thereby continued to play an important role in Ottoman
society. First outlining transformations in the office of the
Sheikh ul-islam, the leading Ottoman Sunni Muslim cleric, the book
goes on to use the archives to present a detailed portrait of the
lives of individual ulema, charting their education and
professional and social lives. It also includes a glossary of
Turkish-Arabic vocabulary for increased clarity. Contrary to
beliefs about their decline, the book shows they played a central
role in the empire's efforts to centralise the state by acting as
intermediaries between the government and social groups,
particularly on the empire's peripheries.
The present edited volume offers a collection of new concepts and
approaches to the study of mobility in pre-modern Islamic
societies. It includes nine remarkable case studies from different
parts of the Islamic world that examine the professional mobility
within the literati and, especially, the social-cum-cultural group
of Muslim scholars ('ulama') between the eighth and the eighteenth
centuries. Based on individual case studies and quantitative mining
of biographical dictionaries and other primary sources from Islamic
Iberia, North and West Africa, Umayyad Damascus and the Hejaz,
Abbasid Baghdad, Ayyubid and Mamluk Syria and Egypt, various parts
of the Seljuq Empire, and Hotakid Iran, this edited volume presents
professional mobility as a defining characteristic of pre-modern
Islamic societies. Contributors Mehmetcan Akpinar, Amal Belkamel,
Mehdi Berriah, Nadia Maria El Cheikh, Adday Hernandez Lopez, Konrad
Hirschler, Mohamad El-Merheb, Marta G. Novo, M. A. H. Parsa, M.
Syifa A. Widigdo.
This book offers an account of the development and transformations
of the discourse of ancestors' instructions in the Song period. It
explains how rulers selected words and deeds of ancestors in tandem
with changes in current affairs, and how they gave them different
meanings to create not only an image of the ancestors that were
suitable for emulation but also a talisman to safeguard their
administration. Using abundant resources, exercising an economy of
words and academic rigor, the author digs deep to tease apart the
complex and versatile relationship between the meaning and the
truth of the Song discourse on ancestors' instructions.
South Korea and Vietnam established diplomatic relations only
twenty years ago. Today these former adversaries enjoy unexpectedly
cordial and rapidly expanding bilateral ties. Leaders of the two
nations --perceiving broadly shared interests and no fundamental
conflicts --seek to leverage their subregional influence on behalf
of common or complementary policy goals. Today they often profess a
"middle power" identity as they explain their foreign policy in
terms of such classical middle power goals as regional peace,
integration, and common goods.
Broadly similar in many respects, South Korea and Vietnam are
nonetheless sufficiently different that a comparison can yield
interesting insights --yet there is a dearth of systematic
comparative work on the two. While holding a range of views on the
contentious concepts of middle power and national identity, the
contributors to "Asia's Middle Powers?" help readers, both academic
and policy practitioners, to gain an enhanced appreciation of South
Korea and Vietnam's regional behavior and international
strategies.
The Franklin Book Programs (FBP) was a private not-for-profit U.S.
organization founded in 1952 during the Cold War and was subsidized
by the United States' government agencies as well as private
corporations. The FBP was initially intended to promote U.S.
liberal values, combat Soviet influence and to create appropriate
markets for U.S. books in 'Third World' of which the Middle East
was an important part, but evolved into an international
educational program publishing university textbooks, schoolbooks,
and supplementary readings. In Iran, working closely with the
Pahlavi regime, its activities included the development of
printing, publishing, book distribution, and bookselling
institutions. This book uses archival sources from the FBP, US
intelligence agencies and in Iran, to piece together this
relationship. Put in the context of wider cultural diplomacy
projects operated by the US, it reveals the extent to which the
programme shaped Iran's educational system. Together the history of
the FBP, its complex network of state and private sector, the role
of U.S. librarians, publishers, and academics, and the joint
projects the FBP organized in several countries with the help of
national ministries of education, financed by U.S. Department of
State and U.S. foundations, sheds new light on the long history of
education in imperialist social orders, in the context here of the
ongoing struggle for influence in the Cold War.
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