This book studies the East Asian world-system and its dynastic cycles as they were influenced by climate and demographic change, diseases, the expansion of trade, and the rise of science and technology. By studying the history of East Asia until the beginning of the 20th century and offering a comparative perspective on East Asian countries, including China, Japan and Korea, it describes the historical evolution of the East Asian world-system as being the result of good or poor management of the respective populations and environments. Lastly, the book discusses how the East Asian regions have become integrated into a single world-system by a combination of trade, commerce, and military action. Given its scope, the book will appeal to scholars of history, sociology, political science and environmental studies, and to anyone interested in learning about the effects of climate change on the dynamic development of societies.

Much of the world reaped a peace dividend with the end of the Cold War, yet Asia has seen little reduction in tensions and military spending. Three Cold War era conflicts-those dividing China and Taiwan, North and South Korea, and India and Pakistan-remain unresolved. Other regional powers, as well as the United States, continue to be concerned about these volatile disputes. North Korea's nuclear and long-range missile development, China's opposition to Taiwan's pursuit of independence, and Pakistan's longstanding dispute with India have all received increasing media attention. This is the first volume using a common approach to examine post-Cold War changes in these three volatile dyads.

The book's case studies detail the evolution of each country's security policy and its shifting mix of alliances. The authors analyze U.S. interests and discuss how U.S. intervention affects strategic calculations of the conflicted states. This mechanism allows gives the readers a truer understanding of the conflicts and how they interact within the Asian security system in general. Each of the dominant theoretical frameworks of international relations-neo-realism, neo-liberalism, and constructivism-offer crucial insights into this complicated situation.

This book differs from most others of its kind, by looking at the Hong Kong issue from China's perspective, which in turn mirrors China's own situation. Through a legal lens, the author conducts a political and cultural examination of the past and the present, and provides a comprehensive overview of the many theories and problems concerning Hong Kong. Including reflections on the theory of administrative absorption of politics, a historical review of "one country, two systems" and an analysis of the form and nature of the Basic Law, it offers a valuable reference resource for studying the historical, political and legal context of Hong Kong under the principle of "one country, two systems". Instead of over-simplifying the issue of Hong Kong or only seeing it as a Chinese regional issue, the book regards it as a central Chinese issue and the key to understanding China.

This monograph aims to analyze the economic and business history of colonial India from a corporate perspective by clarifying the historical role of institutional developments based on archival evidence of a representative enterprise. The perspective is distinctively unique in that it highlights the salience of corporate-level institutional responses to explain the causes of colonial India's industrial growth, in addition to two renowned perspectives focusing on government economic policy or factor endowment. One of the driving forces of India's high growth rate since the 1980s is the expansion of modern business corporations whose origins date back to the colonial era in the mid-nineteenth century. This monograph explores the historical foundation of the growth of such corporations in colonial India, guided by a substantial collection of documents of Tata Iron and Steel Company, whose rich records have not received the due attention they have long deserved. As clarified by numerous economic and business historians of leading industrialized countries since the works of Douglass North and Alfred Chandler, this study as well proposes that the development of modern business corporations in colonial India was broadly supported by the reciprocal evolution of economic institutions and corporate organizations. Adding a new perspective to the business and economic history of colonial India, the analysis also provides an important case study of the development of corporate business in the non-Western world to the study of global business history.

In Post-war Japan as a Sea Power, Alessio Patalano incorporates new, exclusive source material to develop an innovative approach to the study of post-war Japan as a military power. This archival-based history of Asia's most advanced navy, the Japanese Maritime Self-Defence Force (JMSDF), looks beyond the traditional perspective of viewing the modern Japanese military in light of the country's alliance with the US. The book places the institution in a historical context, analysing its imperial legacy and the role of Japan's shattering defeat in WWII in the post-war emergence of Japan as East Asia's 'sea power'.

This survey of Islamic law combines Western and Islamic views and describes the relationship between the original theories of Islamic law and the views of contemporary Islamic writers. Covering the key topics in the area, including the history, sources and formation of Islamic law, the legal mechanisms, and the contemporary context, it is strong in its coverage of the modern perspective, which distinguishes this book from other texts in the field. The aim is to provide the student with a basic understanding of Islamic law and access to the complexity of the Islamic legal system. The language used is non-technical and understanding is aided with a supplementary detailed glossary and analytical indices.

The eastern provinces of the Ottoman Empire used to be a multi-ethnic region where Armenians, Kurds, Syriacs, Turks, and Arabs lived together in the same villages and cities. The disintegration of the Ottoman Empire and rise of the nation state violently altered this situation. Nationalist elites intervened in heterogeneous populations they identified as objects of knowledge, management, and change. These often violent processes of state formation destroyed historical regions and emptied multicultural cities, clearing the way for modern nation states.
The Making of Modern Turkey highlights how the Young Turk regime, from 1913 to 1950, subjected Eastern Turkey to various forms of nationalist population policies aimed at ethnically homogenizing the region and incorporating it in the Turkish nation state. It examines how the regime utilized technologies of social engineering, such as physical destruction, deportation, spatial planning, forced assimilation, and memory politics, to increase ethnic and cultural homogeneity within the nation state. Drawing on secret files and unexamined records, Ugur Umit Ungor demonstrates that concerns of state security, ethnocultural identity, and national purity were behind these policies. The eastern provinces, the heartland of Armenian and Kurdish life, became an epicenter of Young Turk population policies and the theatre of unprecedented levels of mass violence.

The passage of time has not slowed the production of books and articles about World War I. This volume provides a guide to the historiography and bibliography of the Dardanelles Campaign, including the Gallipoli invasion. It focuses on military history but also provides information on political histories that give significant attention to the handling of the Dardanelles Campaign. The opening section of the book provides background information about the campaign, discusses the major sources of information, and lays out the major interpretative disputes. A comprehensive annotated bibliography follows. This book nicely complements the two earlier volumes on World War I battles--The Battle of Jutland by Eugene Rasor and The Battles of the Somme by Fred R. van Hartesveldt.

This book uses the mutual interactions between Chinese and Western culture as a point of departure in order to concisely introduce the origins and evolution of Chinese culture at the aspects of constitution, thinking, values and atheistic. This book also analyzes utensil culture, constitution culture and ideology culture, which were perfected by absorbing classic arguments from academia. As such, the book offers an essential guide to understanding the development, civilization and key ideologies in Chinese history, and will thus help to promote Chinese culture and increase cultural awareness.

By studying six different aspects of culture in Canton in the period between the two World Wars, this book helps broaden our limited knowledge of the social and cultural lives of the common people in this largest city of South China. The author examines how the Cantonese in this period indulged in their imagined cultural superiority as "modern" citizens, ushering in a cult of the modern city. During this period, Cantonese opera was also emerging and evolving into a widely accepted form of commercialised mass entertainment. The process of social and cultural change and its impact on the development of this city and its people are revealed throughout the book. This book also aims to redress some major misconceptions of the socio-cultural realities as seen in official rhetoric or academic discourse on the matters of patriotism and anti-foreignism, gambling, prostitution, and opium consumption. Contemporary non-official and folk materials reveal that the common people were much more pro-Western than xenophobic in attitude, and the alleged social and political "calamities" of gambling, opium consumption and prostitution were more rhetorical than real. Understanding Canton provides us with, not only a fuller and more comprehensive picture of city life and popular mentalities, but also an important clue to understand how and why the social history of this city was distorted and constructed in ways that suited the political ideology and nation-building agenda of the ruling regimes.

This fully updated second edition provides a succinct and self-contained history of China. The text emphasizes the relationship between China's modern era and its past, employing a unique approach that presents the story in terms of traditional Chinese historical theories. When the West enters the scene in modern times, Schrecker fits its impact into the Chinese story, rather than the reverse, as is commonly done. This study demonstrates that traditional China was not homogeneous or changeless, thus offering a much-needed corrective to common stereotypes about other cultures that is essential for both classroom use and for the general reader. The Chinese Revolution in Historical Perspective, available here in a fully updated second edition, provides a succinct and self-contained history of China. The text emphasizes the relationship between China's modern era and its past, employing a unique approach that presents the story in terms of traditional Chinese historical theories. When the West enters the scene in modern times, Schrecker fits its impact into the Chinese story, rather than the reverse, as is commonly done. This study demonstrates that traditional China was not homogeneous or changeless, thus offering a much-needed corrective to common stereotypes about other cultures that is essential for both classroom use and for the general reader. Schrecker's approach permits a full appreciation of the connections between the contemporary scene and the Chinese past-an appreciation that is increasingly important as China moves away from typical Communist practices and returns to more traditional Chinese patterns-for example, recreating a lively entrepreneurial economy of the sort that characterized China for a thousand years. This edition brings China's story up to the present. An additional preface and map are included, along with an updated bibliography and supplemental notes. A new appendix details the traditional understanding of the key Chinese historiographical terms used in the book.

Since the earliest period of Islamic history, Arab thought has been dominated by a reverence for tradition and textual analysis. In this groundbreaking work, the great contemporary Arab philosopher Mohammed Abed Al-Jabiri seeks to chart a route towards modernity via the proposition that respect for textualism and tradition are not inconsistent with rationalism and that both history and philosophy are key to the evolution of knowledge systems and ways of reasoning in Arab culture. This book has been an enormous influence within the Arab world on the Islam and modernity discourse. It is published here for the first time in English and provides a fascinating insight into the currents of contemporary Arab thought.

Following World War II, members of the sizable Jewish community in what had been Kurdistan, now part of Iraq, left their homeland and resettled in Palestine where they were quickly assimilated with the dominant Israeli-Jewish culture. Anthropologist Erich Brauer interviewed a large number of these Kurdish Jews and wrote The Jews of Kurdistan prior to his death in 1942. Raphael Patai completed the manuscript left by Brauer, translated it into Hebrew, and had it published in 1947. This new English-language volume, completed and edited by Patai, makes a unique ethnological monograph available to the wider scholarly community, and, at the same time, serves as a monument to a scholar whose work has to this day remained largely unknown outside the narrow circle of Hebrew-reading anthropologists. The Jews of Kurdistan is a unique historical document in that it presents a picture of Kurdish Jewish life and culture prior to World War II. It is the only ethnological study of the Kurdish Jews ever written and provides a comprehensive look at their material culture, life cycles, religious practices, occupations, and relations with the Muslims. In 1950-51, with the mass immigration of Kurdish Jews to Israel, their world as it had been before the war suddenly ceased to exist. This book reflects the life and culture of a Jewish community that has disappeared from the country it had inhabited from antiquity. In his preface, Raphael Patai offers data he considers important for supplementing Brauer's book, and comments on the book's values and limitations fifty years after Brauer wrote it. Patai has included additional information elicited from Kurdish Jews in Jerusalem, verified quotations, correctedsome passages that were inaccurately translated from Hebrew authors, completed the bibliography, and added occasional references to parallel traits found in other Oriental Jewish communities.

British post-imperial decline has been much examined. In these memoirs, David Hannay, one of Britain's leading behind-the-scenes players in this process, provides fascinating frontline information and insights into Britain's complex relations with Washington and Europe. From his early career in the Middle East to his role as a top diplomat, Hannay presents a detailed and authoritative narrative of British foreign policy in the second half of the 20th Century. A key player in European policy-making, he was directly involved in bringing about the UK's entry into the European Community, as well as being closely involved in the Annan plan while he was the UK's Special Representative in Cyprus. Hannay illuminates vital themes in the early relationship between Britain and the EU that are increasingly relevant today: British membership, EU enlargement and Britain's contribution to the European budget. From the complex relations between Margaret Thatcher and her diplomatic establishment to Britain's decisions leading up to the 1970s oil supply crisis, Hannay analyses the causes and consequences of major British foreign policy decisions over the past 50 years. An informed and balanced ringside view of diplomatic history over 50 years, this book will fascinate general readers and prove essential reading for specialists.

The chapters in this volume examine a few facets in the drama of how the beleaguered Jewish people, as a phoenix ascending of ancient legend, achieved national self-determination in the reborn State of Israel within three years of the end of World War II and of the Holocaust. They include the pivotal 1946 World Zionist Congress, the contributions of Jacob Robinson and Clark M. Eichelberger to Israel's sovereign renewal, American Jewry's crusade to save a Jewish state, the effort to create a truce and trusteeship for Palestine, and Judah Magnes's final attempt to create a federated state there. Joining extensive archival research and a lucid prose, Professor Monty Noam Penkower again displays a definitive mastery of his craft.

Japan's population is shrinking. Based on current trends, it will decline by an average of half a million people per year for the next forty years. The country is also getting older and the ratio of dependants to active workers is expected to approach 1:1 by around 2030. These two interdependent processes will bring great changes to Japan in the coming decades. In the twenty-first century, a historic turnaround in global demographic trends will occur. Europe and East Asia are especially vulnerable to demographic shrinkage. Germany is already shrinking, as is Russia. South Korea will begin to shrink soon and, importantly, so will China from around 2035. Overall, this is good news, but it brings with it worldwide changes to ways of living and working. Japan's rural areas have been shrinking for decades. Entire villages have vanished; some have even been "sold." Thousands of municipalities have been judged "non-viable" and merged. Thousands more private and public enterprises have collapsed, leaving colossal debts, while hundreds of thousands of older people live miserable lives in neighbourless communities. Rural shrinkage has been the unseen corollary of Japan's extraordinarily dynamic twentieth century urban expansion; indeed, Japan's postwar economic miracle has been achieved at the expense of rural retreat. Potentially disastrous is the negative-sum game that national depopulation triggers, as one community's gain becomes another's loss. Japan's Shrinking Regions in the 21st Century reveals how communities are responding positively to these emerging circumstances, delivering a message of hope and vitality to shrinking regions worldwide. Setting Japan alongside Europe, and with an epilogue describing the T hoku earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown of 11 March 2011, the book offers policy makers and practitioners up to date advice for community revival born of extensive collaborative fieldwork across the whole Japanese archipelago. Japan's Shrinking Regions in the 21st Century brings together the work of 18 international scholars to present the first comprehensive study of regional shrinkage under Japan's national depopulation. Interspersed throughout with numerous illustrations, the book reveals a richly textured examination of shrinkage at the local level, from which emerges the overall story of Japan's depopulation and its place within the trajectory of world development. This will be an important source for all social science collections, as well as for researchers, policy makers, students, and practitioners with interests in regional development, demography, East Asia, and post-industrial change.

"A dozen experts provide a coherent picture of the Taliban and the Great Game. . . . They discuss the emergence of the Taliban, their military development, the civil war, and their relations with foreign powers. Several of the authors conclusively demonstrate that the Taliban(and their organized opposition) are the creatures of external powers.... Richard Mackenzie provides a devastating summary of the ineptitute with which U.S. policies have been conducted . . . the volume makes it all too clear that outside powers will determine Afghanistan's fate."
--Middle East Quarterly

"A useful analysis of the Taliban and politics and society in Afghanistan today. The four chapters on the intensive foreign involvement--by Pakistan, the United States, Russian, the Central Asian republics, Saudi Arabia, and Iran--show that the venerable "great game" once played between Britain and czarist Russia now has multiple players."
--Foreign Affairs

"A fascinating and thorough analysis of the very complex political/military situation that evolved in Afghanistan follwing the demise of the Soviet puppet regime in 1992. This volume also provides an insightful study of the rise of a new form of puritanical Islamic fundamentalism that overran Kabul in September 1996--namely, the Taliban, and its impact on Afghan society. . . . Highly recommended."
--Choice

"[It] is an important collection of essays by leading experts on Afghanistan and the Taliban...an invaluable academic resource for anyone seeking to understand how the Taliban came to rule and "ruin" Afghanistan."
--"Washington Times"

In 1996, the world watched with varying degrees of interest, surprise, and unease as armed, ultra-fundamentalist insurgents overthrew the Afghan government. Within days of their victory, the Taliban, a militant Islamic sect, were issuing draconian religious decrees, restricting women's employment and movement, rounding up Afghans at gunpoint to pray five times a day, and publicly executing political opponents and criminals.

Composed of essays commissioned from the foremost experts on the Taliban, this anthology traces the movement's origins, its ascendance, the reasons for its success, and its role in the reconstruction of Afghanistan. Crucial to the Taliban's staying power as a governing force will be its relations with neighboring countries and with the West. Interestingly, given their intense hatred of Iran, the Taliban were enthusiastically supported by the U.S. government up to the very moment of their triumphant arrival in Kabul.

Examining yet another country on the brink of ethnic disintegration, Fundamentalism Reborn? is a comprehensive and up-to-date account of the history, rise to power, and future of the most dramatic manifestation of Islamic fundamentalism since the Iranian revolution.

The World of the Aramaeans is a three-volume collection of definitive essays about the Aramaeans and the biblical world of which they were a part. Areas of interest include the language, epigraphy and history of the Aramaeans of Syria as well of their neighbours, the Israelites, Phoenicians, Ammonites, Moabites and Edomites. The third volume, on language and literature, includes essays by Michael Weigl, William Marrow, Grant Frame, James M. Lindenberger, Pierre Bordreuil, Amir Harrak, Theodore Lutz, Josef Tropper, Dennis Pardee and Clemens Leonhard.>