Folklore has been a phenomenon based on nostalgic and autochthonous nuances conveyed with a story-telling technique with a penchant for over-playing and nationalistic pomp and circumstance, often with significant consequences for societal, poetic, and cultural areas. These papers highlight challenges that have an outreaching relationship to the regional, rhetorical, and trans-rhetorical devices and manners in Kurdish folklore, which subscribes to an ironic sense of hope all the while issuing an appeal for a largely unaccomplished nationhood, simultaneously insisting on a linguistic solidarity. In a folkloric literature that has an overarching theory of poetics - perhaps even trans-figurative cognitive poetics due to the multi-faceted nature of its application and the complexity of its linguistic structure - the relationship of man (and less frequently woman) with others takes center stage in many of the folkloric creations. Arts are not figurative representations of the real in the Kurdish world; they are the real.

With the aim to write the history of Christianity in Scandinavia with Jerusalem as a lens, this book investigates the image - or rather the imagination - of Jerusalem in the religious, political, and artistic cultures of Scandinavia through most of the second millennium. Jerusalem is conceived as a code to Christian cultures in Scandinavia. The first volume is dealing with the different notions of Jerusalem in the Middle Ages. Tracing the Jerusalem Code in three volumes Volume 1: The Holy City Christian Cultures in Medieval Scandinavia (ca. 1100-1536) Volume 2: The Chosen People Christian Cultures in Early Modern Scandinavia (1536-ca. 1750) Volume 3: The Promised Land Christian Cultures in Modern Scandinavia (ca. 1750-ca. 1920)

Syria's descent into chaos since 2011 has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, while more than nine million people have fled their homes. In this timely account, John McHugo charts the history of Syria from the First World War to the present and considers why Syria's foundations as a nation have proved so fragile. He examines the country's thwarted attempts at independence under French rule before turning to more recent events: two generations of rule by the Assad family, sectarian tensions, the pressures that turned an aborted revolution into a proxy war, and the appearance of ISIS. As the conflict in Syria rages on, McHugo provides a rare and authoritative guide to a complex nation that demands our attention.

An in-depth archaeological report featuring graffiti found during a recent excavation at the Ancient Greek city of Smyrna. The graffiti published in this richly-illustrated volume were discovered during an excavation of the Roman basilica in the Ancient Greek city of Smyrna, known today as Izmir, which is situated on the Aegean coast of modern Turkey. The project, which began in 2003, has unearthed a multitude of graffiti and drawings encompassing a wide range of subjects and interests, including local politics, nautical vessels, sex, and wordplay. Each graffito artifact holds the potential for vast historical and cultural data, rescued in this volume from the passage of time and razing ambitions of urban development. Given the city's history, the potential wealth of knowledge to be gleamed from these discoveries is substantial: Smyrna has an uninterrupted history of settlement since the Neolithic-Copper ages, and remains today a major city and Mediterranean seaport at the crossroads of key trade routes. The present volume provides comprehensive editions of the texts, descriptions of the drawings, and an extensive introduction to the subjects of the graffiti, how they were produced, and who was responsible for them. A complete set of color photographs is included.

This title provides a succinct, readable, and comprehensive treatment of how the Obama administration reacted to what was arguably the most difficult foreign policy challenge of its eight years in office: the Arab Spring. As a prelude to examining how the United States reacted to the first wave of the Arab Spring in the 21st century, this book begins with an examination of how the U.S. reacted to revolution in the 19th and 20th centuries and a summary of how foreign policy is made. Each revolution in the Arab Spring (in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Bahrain, and Yemen) and the Obama administration's action-or inaction-in response is carefully analyzed. The U.S.' role is compared to that of regional powers, such as Turkey, Israel, and Iran. The impact of U.S. abdication in the face of pivotal events in the region is the subject of the book's conclusion. While other treatments have addressed how the Arab Spring revolutions have affected the individual countries where these revolutions took place, U.S. foreign policy toward the Middle East, and President Barack Obama's overall foreign policy, this is the only work that provides a comprehensive examination of both the Arab Spring revolutions themselves and the reaction of the U.S. government to those revolutions. Stands as the only academic book that specifically considers U.S. foreign policy with regard to the Arab Spring Presents the Arab Spring as a pivotal event, the U.S. reaction as a watershed, and an understanding of this interplay as vital to understanding international politics in our time Traces the often roundabout paths to the creation of U.S. policy during the Arab Spring and examines the effects of those policies Serves as an essential text for academics studying the Middle East, U.S. foreign policy, the progress of revolution, and politics in the developing world; policymakers wishing to understand how the Obama administration dealt with the most complex crisis of its eight years; and interested readers

In late 2004, Myanmar's best known general and long-serving leader of the military regime, General Khin Nyunt, was suddenly dismissed. This shock development, perpetrated by a regime that has defied all predictions of its demise and disintegration, generated widespread uncertainty both inside and outside the country. Official reassurances about continuing the 2003 "Road Map" process left many questions about the path ahead unanswered. Would political dialogue with opposition groups be resumed? How would increasingly restive ethnic groups respond? Would nascent civil society groups be able to play a role in national reconciliation? How would the new leadership deal with the flagging economy? What are the prospects for the large but under-funded and highly regulated agricultural sector? This book addresses these issues.

China's strong economic growth occurring alongside modernization across the great majority of Asian societies has created what many see as a transnational space through and by which not only economic, social and cultural resources, but also threats and crises flow over traditional political boundaries. The first section of the work lays out a clear conceptual framework. It draws on arguments about nation no longer being the only container of society, about trans-disciplinary thinking, and about knowledge being context-bound. It identifies and discusses distinctive features of China and Asia in the global era. These include population, urbanization and climate change; the continuing reach of Orientalist shadows; cultural politics of knowledge. It closes by arguing how global studies adds value to existing accounts. The second, and longer, section applies this framework through a series of original empirical case-studies in three areas: migration/poverty/gender; culture/education; well-being. Both the conceptual framework and case-studies are drawn from research presented at HKBU since 2011 under the auspices of the Global Social Sciences Conference Series and supplemented by additional papers.

This book begins with the analysis of America's post-war intelligence operations, propaganda campaigns, and strategic psychological warfare in Japan. Banking on nuclear safety myths, Japan promoted an aggressive policy of locating and building nuclear power plants in depopulated areas suffering from a significant decline of local industries and economies. The Fukushima nuclear disaster substantiated that U.S. propaganda programs left a long lasting legacy in Japan and beyond and created the fertile ground for the future nuclear disaster. The book reveals Japan's tripartite organization of the dominating state, media-monopoly, and nuclear-plant oligarchy advancing nuclear proliferation. It details America's unprecedented pro-nuclear propaganda campaigns; Japan's secret ambitions to develop its own nuclear bombs; U.S. dumping of reprocessed plutonium on Japan; and the joint U.S.-Nippon propaganda campaigns for "safe" nuclear-power and the current "safe-nuclear particles" myths. The study shows how the bankruptcy of the central state has led to increased burdens on the population in post-nuclear tsunami era, and the ensuing dangerous ionization of the population now reaching into the future.

A comprehensive overview of the history of Turkey ranging from the earliest Neolithic civilizations, to the establishment of the Republic in 1923, to the present-day tenure of President Erdogan. For travelers or students looking for the story behind the evolution of modern-day Turkey, this informative guide traces this country's history and culture from ancient times through the present day. The first half of this book surveys the centuries up to 1923, with the latter half exploring events since the establishment of the Turkish Republic in 1923. By following the timeline of Turkey's development in clear, chronologically ordered chapters, the work lays out the various civilizations whose remains still sit side by side today. This second edition delves into the full scope of Turkey's events since 2001, covering the leadership of the Justice and Development party, the prime ministry and controversial presidency of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the Gezi Park protests of 2013. The updated content includes a notable figures appendix, glossary, and bibliography that supplies electronic resources for students. Covers the history of Turkey since antiquity Explores Turkey's ancient civilizations, such as the Ottomans, the Byzantines, the Romans, the Greeks, the Hittites, and other Indo-Europeans Emphasizes the evolution of the modern Turkish democracy in the last 100 years Discusses the mixed legacy of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, including Turkish nationalism, aggressive secularism, and repeated military meddling in Turkey's democratic system

Folktales of Mizoram is a translated collection of sixty-six short stories from northeast India taken up for a critical evaluation. The stories depict a typical Mizo culture in spirit and practice. This study focuses on the transformation of oral literature into written narratives. Folk practices, folk medicine, folk narratives, traditional songs, and received wisdom dominate these stories. A more insightful approach into folk narratives and songs emphasizes the world of new hermeneutics. The land, the culture, the language, the traditions have been remarkably explored through an elegant reading and evaluation of this collection. Antiquity speaks through the folk tales. The spirit of folktales becomes one of unique exploration of hermeneutics in the end.

So what's so significant about the Byzantine Empire? It is now recognised as having had a considerable influence on the Renaissance and a significant impact in the shaping modern Europe and modern historians are increasingly acknowledging the role the Byzantine Empire played in the development of both Islam and Christianity, and the relationship between the two. The term 'Byzantine' derives from the ancient Greek city of Byzantium founded in 667 BC by colonists from Megara. It was named in honour of their leader Byzas. It later became better known as Constantinople, that gateway between West and East and played a crucial role in the transmission of Christianity to the West. Constantine is now generally known as the first Christian Emperor, and in recent years interest in him has grown, with his role in the development of Christianity being questioned by Dan Brown, author of The Da Vinci Code, amongst others. A closer examination of this formative period in the history of the church reveals a struggle to gain a coherent and cohesive religious identity. Christianity would emerge as the major religion of the Byzantine Empire in a departure from the pagan worship of the Roman Empire. The Byzantine Empire was often at the centre of profound geopolitical, cultural and religious forces that threatened to pull it apart. When Byzantine forces suffered a terrible defeat at the hands of the Seljuk Turks at the Battle of Manzikert for example, appeals to the West precipitated the First Crusade. In 1204 during the Fourth Crusade, Constantinople was conquered by the Crusader army. The dramatic siege and subsequent fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire is often seen as marking the end of the medieval period. The Byzantine Empire lasted for over a thousand years, created remarkable art and architecture and created a lasting cultural and religious legacy - even its decline and fall was to have ramifications that reached far beyond its borders. The fall of Constantinople which had been a key city on the ancient Silk Road, linking East and West led many to consider the prospect of opening up new lines of trade, sea exploration that would eventually lead to major new discoveries, new routes and new worlds...

Southeast Asia ranks among the most significant regions in the world for tracing the prehistory of human endeavor over a period in excess of two million years. It lies in the direct path of successive migrations from the African homeland that saw settlement by hominin populations such as Homo erectus and Homo floresiensis. The first Anatomically Modern Humans, following a coastal route, reached the region at least 60,000 years ago to establish a hunter gatherer tradition that survives to this day in remote forests. From about 2000 BC, human settlement of Southeast Asia was deeply affected by successive innovations that took place to the north and west, such as rice and millet farming. A millennium later, knowledge of bronze casting penetrated along the same pathways. Copper mines were identified and exploited, and metals were exchanged over hundreds of kilometers. In the Mekong Delta and elsewhere, these developments led to early states of the region, which benefitted from an agricultural revolution involving permanent ploughed rice fields. These developments illuminate how the great early kingdoms of Angkor, Champa, and Funan came to be, a vital stage in understanding the roots of the present nation states of Southeast Asia. Assembling the most current research across a variety of disciplines-from anthropology and archaeology to history, art history, and linguistics-The Oxford Handbook of Early Southeast Asia will present an invaluable resource to experienced researchers and those approaching the topic for the first time.

In Globalization and the Colonial Origins of the Great Divergence Pim de Zwart examines the Dutch East India Company's intercontinental trade and its effects on living standards in various regions on the edges of the Indian Ocean in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Contrary to conventional views, De Zwart finds significant evidence of the integration of global commodity markets, an important dimension of globalization, before the 1800s. The effects of this globalization, and the associated colonialism, were diverse and could vary between and within regions. As globalization and colonialism affected patterns of economic development across the globe they played a part in the rise of global economic inequality, known as the 'Great Divergence', in the early modern period.

For over a decade the Middle East has monopolized news headlines in the West. Journalists and commentators regularly speculate that the region's turmoil may stem from the psychological momentum of its cultural traditions or of a "tribal" or "fatalistic" mentality. Yet few studies of the region's cultural psychology have provided a critical synthesis of psychological research on Middle Eastern societies.
Drawing on autobiographies, literary works, ethnographic accounts, and life-history interviews, The Middle East: A Cultural Psychology, offers the first comprehensive summary of psychological writings on the region, reviewing works by psychologists, anthropologists, and sociologists that have been written in English, Arabic, and French. Rejecting stereotypical descriptions of the "Arab mind" or "Muslim mentality, ' Gary Gregg adopts a life-span- development framework, examining influences on development in infancy, early childhood, late childhood, and adolescence as well as on identity formation in early and mature adulthood. He views patterns of development in the context of recent work in cultural psychology, and compares Middle Eastern patterns less with Western middle class norms than with those described for the region's neighbors: Hindu India, sub-Saharan Africa, and the Mediterranean shore of Europe. The research presented in this volume overwhelmingly suggests that the region's strife stems much less from a stubborn adherence to tradition and resistance to modernity than from widespread frustration with broken promises of modernization--with the slow and halting pace of economic progress and democratization.
A sophisticated account of the Middle East's cultural psychology, The Middle East provides students, researchers, policy-makers, and all those interested in the culture and psychology of the region with invaluable insight into the lives, families, and social relationships of Middle Easterners as they struggle to reconcile the lure of Westernized life-styles with traditional values.

Since its inception in 1974, Southeast Asian Affairs (SEAA) has been an indispensable annual reference for generations of policy-makers, scholars, analysts, journalists, and others. Succinctly written by regional and international experts, SEAA illuminates significant issues and events of the previous year in each of the Southeast Asian nations and the region as a whole. Southeast Asian Affairs 2008 provides an informed and readable analysis of the events and developments in the region in 2007. In the regional section, the first two articles provide the political and economic overview of Southeast Asia. They are followed by an article on India's geopolitics and Southeast Asia, and two articles on ASEAN. Eleven country reviews as well as four country-specific thematic chapters follow, delving into domestic political, economic, security, and social developments during 2007 and their implications for countries in the region and beyond.

This book is a collection of essays on Ottoman history, focusing on how sultans of the Ottoman Empire were viewed by the public.