Contemporary Islam provides a counterweight to the prevailing opinions of Islamic thought as conservative and static with a preference for violence over dialogue. It gathers together a collection of eminent scholars from around the world who tackle issues such as intellectual pluralism, gender, the ethics of political participation, human rights, non-violence and religious harmony. This is a highly topical and important study which gives a progressive outlook for Islam's role in modern politics and society.

An essential insight into this central figure in the modern history of Israel and Zionism. This important new study explores the years that built up to the Six Day War and details the crucial issues and events the world is still grappling with today. This book traces Daniel Ben-Gurion's waning years in Israeli politics. After his resignation from the office of prime minister in 1963, the 'Old Man' soon lost faith in his self-chose successor, Levi Eshkol, and ceaselessly tried to undermine the latter's premiership, eventually forming a breakaway party. The events leading up to the Six-Day War in June 1967 caught Ben-Gurion by surprise. During the weeks-long 'waiting period' prior to the outbreak of hostilities, he paid little attention to daily security issues. But when war did erupt, he displayed one of his key leadership skills - the ability to formulate an accurate, independent situation assessment. It will be of interest to scholars working in Israeli politics and history, this is a lucid, thoroughly researched account of the sunset years of the driving force behind the Israeli nation-state.

Sufism is often regarded as standing mystically aloof from its wider cultural settings. By turning this perspective on its head, Indian Sufism since the Seventeenth Century reveals the politics and poetry of Indian Sufism through the study of Islamic sainthood in the midst of a cosmopolitan Indian society comprising migrants, soldiers, litterateurs and princes. Placing the mystical traditions of Indian Islam within their cultural contexts, this interesting study focuses on the shrines of four Sufi saints in the neglected Deccan region and their changing roles under the rule of the Mughals, the Nizams of Haydarabad and, after 1948, the Indian nation. In particular Green studies the city of Awrangabad, examining the vibrant intellectual and cultural history of this city as part of the independent state of Haydarabad. He employs a combination of historical texts and anthropological fieldwork, which provide a fresh perspective on developments of devotional Islam in South Asia over the past three centuries, giving a fuller understanding of Sufism and Muslim saints in South Asia.

This book moves away from the common belief that Japan's international relations are firmly the preserve of the national government in Japan's highly centralised political system. Examining examples of subnational governments (SNGs) across Japan the book uncovers a significant and generally unrecognised development in Japanese politics: SNGs are ever more dynamic international actors as national borders 'weaken' across the world. Exploring what Japanese SNGs do, where they do it, and why, the book considers the implications of these factors for Japan's international relations and domestic politics.

By bringing to light the scope and consequences of the international actions of Japan's SNGs, this book provides a more accurate and nuanced understanding of the country's foreign policy, at a time when it is pursuing a broader and more active profile in international affairs.

Ethnomusicology: A Contemporary Reader is designed to supplement a textbook for an introductory course in ethnomusicology. It offers a cross section of the best new writing in the field from the last 15-20 years. Many instructors supplement textbook readings and listening assignments with scholarly articles that provide more in-depth information on geographic regions and topics and introduce issues that can facilitate class or small group discussion. These sources serve other purposes as well: they exemplify research technique and format and serve as models for the use of academic language, and collectively they can also illustrate the range of ethnographic method and analytical style in the discipline of ethnomusicology. Ethnomusicology: A Contemporary Reader serves as a basic introduction to the best writing in the field for students, professors, and music professionals. It is perfect for both introductory and upper level courses in world music.

The glossy guide book image of Bali is of a timeless paradise whose people are devoutly religious and artistically gifted. However, a hundred years of colonialism, war and Indonesian independence, and tourism have produced both modernizing changes and created an image of Bali as 'traditional'.

Incorporating up-to-date ethnographic field work the book investigates the myriad of ways in which the Balinese has responded to the influx of outside influence. The book focuses on the fascinating interrelationship between tourism, economy, culture and religion in Bali, painting a twenty-first century picture of the Balinese. In documenting these diverse changes Howe critically assesses some of the work of Bali's most famous ethnographer, Clifford Geertz and demonstrates the importance of a historically grounded and broadly contextualized approach to the analysis of a complex society.

This is an in-depth account of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs Service, a uniquely cosmopolitan institution established in the wake of China's defeat in the Opium Wars (1842 to 43), and a central feature of the Treaty Port system. The British-dominated service was headed by the famous Robert Hart who founded a far-reaching customs administration that also encompassed other responsibilities such as marine and harbour maintenance, quarantine, anti-piracy patrols and postal services. This institution sat at a crucial juncture between Chinese and foreign interests, and was intimately linked to British interests and fortunes in the Far East. Following the establishment of the Republic in 1911 there were grave misgivings as to whether the foreign element of the Service would survive. Yet the Service grew in influence and strength, ensuring the foreign inspectorate a continued role in China's affairs. Delivering an overview of the Service, its bureaucracy, fiscal responsibilities and life for foreigners in its employ, focusing especially on the later years of the Service, Donna Brunero draws on the experiences of the foreign administration of the Service as it attempted to negotiate between Chinese and foreign expectations and interests.

Recent political changes in Central Asia, whereby the United States is replacing Russia as the dominant power, are having a profound effect on Russian speakers in the region. These people, formerly perceived as progressive and engaging with Europe, are now confronted by the erasure of their literary, musical, cinematic and journalistic culture, as local ethnic and American cultures become much stronger. This book examines the predicament of Russian culture in Central Asia, looking at literature, language, cinema, music, and religion. It argues that in fact the Soviet past was much more complex than the simplified, polarised rhetoric of the Cold War period allows; and also that the present situation, in which politicians from the former Soviet regime often continue in power, is equally complex.

Written in a clear and easy-to-follow style this revealing text examines the contemporary political geography of the West Bank and Gaza strip. Descriptive in nature, it documents the changes and developments since 1967 right up to the disengagement from Gaza. The book is supplemented by numerous maps and covers issues including:
*Demography
*Jewish settlements
*Water and natural resources
*Transport infrastructure
*Planning
*Partition plans for Jerusalem
*Settlement policy
*The Separation Fence.
One of the first books to tackle this contentious subject from a geographical rather than a political or historical perspective, this essential text will be of huge interest to both undergraduate and graduate students studying the Israel-Palestine question.

This volume examines Singapore's culture of control, exploring the city-state's colonial heritage as well as the forces that have helped to mould its current social landscape. Taking a comparative approach, Trocki demonstrates the links between Singapore's colonial past and independent present, focusing on the development of indigenous social and political movements. In particular, the book examines the efforts of Lee Yew Kuan, leader of the People's Action Party from 1959 until 1990, to produce major economic and social transformation. Trocki discusses how Singapore became a workers paradise, but what the city gained in material advancement it paid for in intellectual and cultural sterility. Based on the latest research, Singapore addresses the question of control in one of the most prosperous and dynamic economies in the world, providing a compelling history of post-colonial Singapore.

Journalism and Democracy in Asia addresses key issues of freedom, democracy, citizenship, openness and journalism in contemporary Asia, looking especially at China, Japan, Korea, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The authors take varying approaches to questions of democracy, whilst also considering journalism in print, radio and new media, in relation to such questions as the role of social, political and economic liberalization in bringing about a blooming of the media, the relationship between the media and the development of democracy and civil society, and how journalism copes under authoritarian rule.

With contributions from highly regarded experts in the region examining a broad range of issues from across Asia, this book will be of high interest to students and scholars in political communications, journalism and mass communication and Asian studies.

The Chinese Journalist provides an intriguing introduction to Chinese journalists and their roles within society for both students of Media and Asian Studies. The book initially offers a background history of journalists and the media in Communist China before examining the origins and development of Chinese journalism in the nineteenth century.

Throughout the history of modern Japan there has been a continuous struggle to create an integrated conception of how a politically and/or culturally autonomous Japan might relate to a pluralistic and interactive world. The aim of this study is to scrutinise nationalist and internationalist rhetoric by means of comparatively constant factors such as personal views of humanity, civilisation, progress, the nation and the outside world, and thus to develop new approaches towards the question of the relationship between Japanese nationalism and internationalism.
This project brings together a group of comparatively young scholars who analyse how different generations of opinion leaders in the Japanese pre-war modern era tried to solve what they perceived as the dilemma of nationalism and internationalism.

Existing studies of the Vietnam War have been written mostly from an American perspective, using western sources, and viewing the conflict through western eyes. This book, based on extensive original research, including Vietnamese, Chinese and former Soviet sources, tells the story of the war from the Tet offensive in 1968 up to the reunification of Vietnam in April 1975. Overall, it provides an important corrective to the predominantly US-centric narratives of the war by placing the Vietnamese communists centre-stage in the story. It is a sequel to the author's RoutledgeCurzon book The Vietnam War From the Other Side, which covers the period 1962-68.

This book examines the rise of Chinese capitalism and discusses its effects on both itself and its neighbours. The collection is comprised of sixteen previously published or forthcoming articles that combined provide historical, comparative and theoretically informed perspectives on the spread of Chinese capitalism.

Prince Cuong De, pretender to the Vietnamese throne, was an important and interesting figure in Vietnamese and Asian history, but one that has been 'written out' of Vietnam's history by the communists, and ignored by non-communists. This book, based on extensive original research, including French national archives, where many new, important documents have recently been discovered, traces the life of Cuong De. It explores Cuong De's links to key Japanese leaders, and how he campaigned, in Japan and elsewhere, for his cause. The book provides many fascinating insights on a wide range of historical developments in Asia from the perspective of an interesting and undeservedly neglected figure.

More girls are producing media today than at any other point in U.S. history, and they are creating media texts in virtually every format currently possible--magazines, films, musical recordings, and websites.
Girls Make Media explores how young female media producers have reclaimed and reconfigured girlhood as a site for radical social, cultural, and political agency. Central to the book is an analysis of Riot Grrrl--a 1990s feminist youth movement from a fusion of punk rock and gender theory-and the girl power movement it inspired. The author also looks at the rise of girls-only media education programs, and the creation of girls' studies.
This book will be essential reading for anyone seeking to understand contemporary female youth in today's media culture.

Negotiation is the most important skill anyone in the business world can have today, because people must continually negotiate their jobs, responsibilities, and opportunities. Yet, very few people know strategies for maximizing their outcomes in everyday and in more formal business situations. People often needlessly throw away hundreds of thousands of dollars and sour interpersonal relationships because they do not know how to effectively negotiate. Negotiation training and research allows opportunity for managers to assess their negotiation abilities and learn practical techniques and strategies for improving their ability to negotiate effectively.
Negotiation is an emerging topic in social psychology and academics in Business and Management are increasingly looking to social-psychological theory and research to help understand some of the fundamental processes occurring during negotiation.
This book will serve as a comprehensive overview of the topic with original contributions from leaders in social psychology and negotiation research. All topics covered in this volume are core to the understanding of the negotiation process and include: decision-making and judgment, emotion and negotiation, motivation and game theory. These chapters will strengthen basic knowledge of the principles and theories of negotiation, as well as illustrate effective implementation of negotiation strategy and dispute resolution.

With examples drawn from media coverage of the War on Terror, the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Hurricane Katrina and the London underground bombings, Cultural Chaos explores the changing relationship between journalism and power in an increasingly globalised news culture. In this new text, Brian McNair examines the processes of cultural, geographic and political dissolution in the post-Cold War era and the rapid evolution of information and communication technologies. He investigates the impact of these trends on domestic and international journalism and on political processes in democratic and authoritarian societies across the world. Written in a lively and accessible style, Cultural Chaos provides students with an overview of the evolution of the sociology of journalism, a critical review of current thinking within media studies and an argument for a revision and renewal of the paradigms that have dominated the field since the early twentieth century. Separate chapters are devoted to new developments such as the rise of the blogosphere and satellite television news and their impact on journalism more generally. Cultural Chaos will be essential reading for all those interested in the emerging globalised news culture of the twenty-first century.

This study of the comparative ethics of war seeks to open a discussion about whether there are universal standards in the ideologies of warfare between the major religious traditions of the world. The project looks at the ideology of war in the major Asian religious traditions. Does our exploration of the ethics of war in Asian civilizations have any bearing on the pressing questions of armed conflict today? It has become clear that Islamic ethics and law contain sophisticated concepts of both just war (jus ad bellum) and just warfare (jus in bello). The contributions of this work explore the central issues of just war in non-Western religious traditions. This new approach will be of interest to scholars of religion and war studies. John Kelsay, State University, Florida, USA Norman Solomon, University of Oxford, UK Torkel Brekke, University of Oslo, Norway Tessa Bartholomeusz, State Universit

Over the course of her career, Barbara Stafford has established herself the preeminent scholar of the intersections of the arts and sciences, articulating new theories and methods for understanding the sublime, the mysterious, the inscrutable. Omnivorous in her research, she has published work that embraces neuroscience and philosophy, biology and culture, pinpointing connections among each discipline's parallel concerns. Ribbon of Darkness is a monument to the scope of her work and the range of her intellect. At times associative, but always incisive, the essays in this new volume take on a distinctly contemporary purpose: to uncover the ethical force and moral aspects of overlapping scientific and creative inquiries. This shared territory, Stafford argues, offers important insights into--and clarifications of--current dilemmas about personhood, the supposedly menial nature of manual skill, the questionable borderlands of gene editing, the potentially refining value of dualism, and the limits of a materialist worldview. Stafford organizes these essays around three concepts that structure the book: inscrutability, ineffability, and intuitability. All three, she explains, allow us to examine how both the arts and the sciences imaginatively infer meaning from the "veiled behavior of matter," bringing these historically divided subjects into a shared intellectual inquiry and imbuing them with an ethical urgency. A vanguard work at the intersection of the arts and sciences, this book will be sure to guide readers from either realm into unfamiliar yet undeniably fertile territory.

During the period 1965 to 1990 East Asia was the world's fastest growing region. Economic Development in Pacific Asia provides illuminating, non-technical perspectives on key facets of the region's economies. The text focuses on the eight countries which accounted for the majority of the economic growth: Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Republic of Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. Empirical evidence is used to provide a revealing, multi-dimensional statistical profile of the countries as well as the region as a whole. Rather than present a statistical history of each country, the text highlights the relative performance in terms of the variables which are studied within each chapter. Akhand and Gupta examine a range of popular topics including: the relative role of factors accumulation versus technology change factor price distribution and employment growth, poverty and income distribution the Asian Crisis and corruption. In addition, the book examines topics rarely covered in the current economics literature such as urbanization, the gender gap and the digital divide. It provides an accessible and wide ranging assessment of the existing evidence and current arguments on East Asian economic development, and is a valuable addition to economists, policy makers and those interested in Asian economic affairs.

This is the first explanation and evaluation of Taiwan's defence forces and infrastructure. It examines not only Taiwan's armed forces, but also its Ministry of National Defence, personnel issues, and civil-military relations. It also clearly shows how the most dangerous situation in East Asia is the dispute between China and Taiwan. Beijing insists Taiwan is a Chinese province, and threatens to use military force to ensure that status; Taipei insists it is an independent, sovereign nation. The United States has a crucial role in resolving this crisis and maintaining peace and stability, but agrees with neither side. This new book provides crucial base-line data and evaluation of one of the major participants in an ongoing crisis across the Taiwan Strait that has the potential of involving China and the United States in armed conflict. It examines the danger of a possibly nuclear conflict between China and the United States, which would seriously disrupt all of East Asia. It also shows how Taiwan's defence policies and actions do not match the threat: Taipei needs to develop and pursue realistic policies. The author served thirty years in the U.S. militaries. He has travelled widely in both China and Taiwan, including many visits to warships, air force squadrons, and army units. Additional sources for his analysis include interviews of senior policy-makers and military officers. This is essential reading for all students of East Asian security and Sino-American Relations and of International and Security Studies in general.

Leftist thought and activism stands as a defining force in the articulation of political culture and policy in modern Japan. Operating from the periphery of formal political power for the most part, the Japanese Left has had an impact that extends far beyond their limited success at the ballot box. This book focuses attention on the influence exerted by the Left on the political landscape of Japan in the modern era, and assesses the reasons for its successes and failures in terms of its impact on enduring dimensions of Japanese political thought, activism and policy.
Studies of the Japanese Left have hitherto focused on the formal political entities of the Japan Socialist Party and the Japan Communist Party, on crisis points or on single-issue factors such as Article 9 of the 1947 Constitution or the Gulf War in 1991. With essays from an international team of contributors looking at the deeper issues such as pacifist idealism, the dynamics of opposition politics in Japan, and distinguishing features of Japanese Leftist policy such as opposition to liberalization of agricultural trade and positive relations with North Korea, The Left in Japanese Politics will provide a much-needed fresh interpretation of the modern sweep of Japanese politics.

Providing important sociological insight into the dynamics of migration the essays in this collection focus on issues associated with migration for work both in and from the Asian region. With contributions from an international team of well-known scholars, the text sets labor migration firmly within the context of globalization, providing a focused, contemporary discussion of what is undoubtedly a major twenty-first century concern.
The first of its kind to look at the non-professionals who make up the vast majority of migrant workers in the region, the book analyses workers motivations and rationalities, highlighting the similarities of migration experiences throughout Asia. Presenting in-depth case studies of the real-life experiences and problems faced by migrant workers, the book discusses migrants relations with the state and their vulnerability to exploitation, as well as the major policy issues now facing governments, employers, NGOs and international agencies