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.

For more than 140 years, Japan's koseki registration system has functioned as the official means by which an individual qualifies as "Japanese". Information concerning each family is entered into one koseki register record in a system that documents the status relationship information of Japan's population based on the notion of "bloodline". Tracing the history of the koseki registration system from its inception in the Meiji era through its use in Japan's colonial holdings in the pre-war era and to the present day, The State Construction of "Japaneseness" challenges the very foundations of the system, arguing that it promotes prejudice and discrimination and fosters a divisive understanding of the "Japanese"as a people. This significant work presents conclusive evidence on how the koseki registration system has used deeply problematic understandings of ethnicity, citizenship and the family to define "the Japanese", excluding and discriminating against those unable to fit into the framework of this highly politicised bureaucratic system. Suntory Culture Award for Social Sciences and Humanities

This volume explores some of the many different meanings of community across medieval Eurasia. How did the three 'universal' religions, Christianity, Islam and Buddhism, frame the emergence of various types of community under their sway? The studies assembled here in thematic clusters address the terminology of community; genealogies; urban communities; and monasteries or 'enclaves of learning': in particular in early medieval Europe, medieval South Arabia and Tibet, and late medieval Central Europe and Dalmatia. It includes work by medieval historians, social anthropologists, and Asian Studies scholars. The volume present the results of in-depth comparative research from the Visions of Community project in Vienna, and of a dialogue with guests, offering new and exciting perspectives on the emerging field of comparative medieval history. Contributors are (in order within the volume) Walter Pohl, Gerda Heydemann, Eirik Hovden, Johann Heiss, Rudiger Lohlker, Elisabeth Gruber, Oliver Schmitt, Daniel Mahoney, Christian Opitz, Birgit Kellner, Rutger Kramer, Pascale Hugon, Christina Lutter, Diarmuid O Riain, Mathias Fermer, Steven Vanderputten, Jonathan Lyon and Andre Gingrich.

From the early phases of modern missions, Christian missionaries supported many humanitarian activities, mostly framed as subservient to the preaching of Christianity. This anthology contributes to a historically grounded understanding of the complex relationship between Christian missions and the roots of humanitarianism and its contemporary uses in a Middle Eastern context. Contributions focus on ideologies, rhetoric, and practices of missionaries and their apostolates towards humanitarianism, from the mid-19th century Middle East crises, examining different missionaries, their society's worldview and their networks in various areas of the Middle East. In the early 20th century Christian missions increasingly paid more attention to organisation and bureaucratisation ('rationalisation'), and media became more important to their work. The volume analyses how non-missionaries took over, to a certain extent, the aims and organisations of the missionaries as to humanitarianism. It seeks to discover and retrace such 'entangled histories' for the first time in an integral perspective. Contributors include: Beth Baron, Philippe Bourmaud, Seija Jalagin, Nazan Maksudyan, Michael Marten, Heleen (L.) Murre-van den Berg, Inger Marie Okkenhaug, Idir Ouahes, Maria Chiara Rioli, Karene Sanchez Summerer, Bertrand Taithe, and Chantal Verdeil

Covering the Arab-Israeli conflict from its origins to the present, this valuable resource traces the evolution of this ongoing, seemingly unresolvable dispute through a wide array of primary source documents. Arab-Israeli Conflict: A Documentary and Reference Guide provides a fresh, accessible, and thorough overview of the Arab-Israeli conflict, covering its origins in the late-19th century to the present-day situation and enabling readers to grasp why peace has proved so elusive, despite massive international efforts to reach a permanent and lasting solution to this protracted animosity. Chronological chapters first address the years up to the establishment of Israel in 1948, then move forward to the wars of 1956 and 1967 and their impact; the 1973 Yom Kippur War and early efforts to reach a lasting peace settlement; and the ongoing international and Israeli-Palestinian negotiations since the mid-1980s. Readers will come away with not only an understanding of why so many great powers were from the beginning interested in the fate of the territory known as Palestine and of the current issues from an international perspective, but also an appreciation of the personalities and ethnic backgrounds involved that make the conflict so difficult to resolve. Allows a wide audience of readers-from high school and college students to general readers-to understand the complex roots of the conflicting claims to the territory of Palestine Places the Arab-Israeli conflict in the broader international context of World Wars I and II and the Cold War, providing readers with an appreciation of why so many outside powers have taken an interest in the battle over this territory Relates the conflict over the territory of Palestine to both the region's imperial and colonial past and the history of 20th-century global decolonization and nationalism Includes some 90 primary source documents, including major official statements by all parties to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, including Zionists, Israel, the Arab League, the Palestine Liberation Organization, Hamas, and Hezbollah as well as Great Britain, France, the League of Nations, the United States, the Soviet Union, and the Quartet Covers key topics-such as the creation of Israel in 1948 and the subsequent wars of 1956, 1967, and 1973; the impact of Israel's territorial acquisitions in 1967; the international peace negotiations of subsequent years that slowly brought peace settlements between Israel and some Arab states; and the establishment of Palestinian rule in the West Bank and Gaza-in detail

Reza Shah's authoritarian and modernising reign transformed Iran, but his rule and Iran's independence ended in ignominy in 1941. In this book, Shaul Bakhash tells the full story of the Anglo-Soviet invasion which led to his forced abdication, drawing upon previously unused sources to reveal for the first time that the British briefly, but seriously, toyed with the idea of doing away altogether with the ruling Pahlavis and considered reinstalling on the throne a little-regretted previous dynasty. Bakhash charts Reza Shah's final journey through Iran and into his unhappy exile; his life in exile, his reminiscences; his testy relationship with the British in Mauritius and Johannesburg; and the circumstances of his death. Additionally, it reveals the immense fortune Reza Shah amassed during his years in power, his finances in exile, and the drawn-out dispute over the settlement of his estate after his death. A significant contribution to the literature on Reza Shah and British imperialism as it played out in the case of one critical country during World War II, the book reveals the fraught relationship between a once powerful ruler in his final days and the British government at a critical moment in recent history.

To understand the turnaround in Spain's stance towards Japan during World War II, this book goes beyond mutual contacts and explains through images, representations, and racism why Madrid aimed at declaring war on Japan but not against the III Reich -as London ironically replied when it learned of Spain's warmongering against one of the Axis members.