In August 1765 the East India Company defeated the young Mughal emperor and forced him to establish a new administration in his richest provinces. Run by English merchants who collected taxes using a ruthless private army, this new regime saw the East India Company transform itself from an international trading corporation into something much more unusual: an aggressive colonial power in the guise of a multinational business.

William Dalrymple tells the remarkable story of the East India Company as it has never been told before, unfolding a timely cautionary tale of the first global corporate power.

"Britain in the Middle East" provides a comprehensive survey of British involvement in the Middle East, exploring their mutual construction and influence across the entire historical sweep of their relationship. In the 17th century, Britain was establishing trade links in the Middle East, using its position in India to increasingly exclude other European powers. Over the coming centuries this commercial influence developed into political power and finally formal empire, as the British sought to control their regional hegemony through military force. Robert Harrison charts this relationship, exploring how the Middle East served as the launchpad for British offensive action in the World Wars, and how resentment against colonial rule in the region led ultimately to political and Islamic revolutions and Britain's demise as a global, imperial power.

This book, edited by April Myung of Bergen County Academies in New Jersey, contains autobiographies of ten Korean teenagers, currently studying in American high schools. This historically significant volume contains writings by break-dancing Julius Im, who understands his Korean-American identity through this medium of African-American dance, to Rei Fujino Park of Flushing, New York, who explores her own dual identiy with a Korean father (who served in the elite Korean military special forces) and a Japanese mother. Rei Fujino describes her parents' marriage as a loving union of "enemies" given the history of Japanese colonization of Korea (1910-1945). Julie Oh describes the difficult situation of the children of Korean company workers for Samsung, LG, SK, Woori Bank, and other Korean companies, who come with a short-term working visa to the United States. The children of these "Joo-Jae-Won" have to go to Saturday school (in her case, "Woori School") in order to maintain the skill level of Korean high schools, in the case that their parents get recalled to South Korea - their children would have to apply for Korean universities and meet the requirements of Korean university entrance tests, which are vastly different from America's SAT, ACT, and AP tests. Andrew Hyeon shars his experience as a Korean Catholic, attending Hopkins School, an elite private school in Connecticut, where former Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh, a famous Korean, attended. Ruby Hong's autobiography is written as a fairytale account of her own life. The autobiographies in this book are not only creatively written as to capture the readers' interest, but they also provide valuable resources for Korean American Studies. (This book is the second in the Hermit Kingdom Sources in Korean-American Studies, whose series editor is Dr. Onyoo Elizabeth Kim, Esq.)

While there is much discussion on Africa-China relations, the focus tends to lean more on the Chinese presence in Africa than on the African presence in China. There are numerous studies on the former but, with the exception of a few articles on the presence of African traders and students in China, little is known of the latter, even though an increasing number of Africans are visiting and settling in China and forming migrant communities there. This is a phenomenon that has never happened before the turn of the century and has thus led to what is often termed Africa's newest Diaspora. This book focuses on analyzing this new Diaspora, addressing the crucial question: What is it like to be an African in China? Africans in China is the first book-length study of the process of Africans travelling to China and forming communities there. Based on innovative intermingling of qualitative and quantitative research methods involving prolonged interaction with approximately 800 Africans across six main Chinese cities--Guangzhou, Yiwu, Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong and Macau--sociolinguistic and sociocultural profiles are constructed to depict the everyday life of Africans in China. The study provides insights into understanding issues such as why Africans go to China, what they do there, how they communicate with their Chinese hosts, what opportunities and problems they encounter in their China sojourn, and how they are received by the Chinese state. Beyond these methodological and empirical contributions, the book also makes a theoretical contribution by proposing a crosscultural bridge theory of migrant-indigene relations, arguing that Africans in China act as sociopolitical, socioeconomic, and sociocultural bridges linking Africa to China. This approach to the analysis of Diaspora communities has consequences for crosscultural and crosslinguistic studies in an era of globalization. Africans in China is an important book for African Studies, Asian Studies, Africa-China relations studies, linguistics, anthropology, sociology, international studies, and migration and Diaspora studies in an era of globalization.

Society, Law, and Culture in the Middle East:"Modernities" in the Making is an edited volume that seeks to deepen and broaden our understanding of various forms of change in Middle Eastern and North African societies during the Ottoman period. It offers an in-depth analysis of reforms and gradual change in the longue duree, challenging the current discourse on the relationship between society, culture, and law. The focus of the discussion shifts from an external to an internal perspective, as agency transitions from "the West" to local actors in the region. Highlighting the ongoing interaction between internal processes and external stimuli, and using primary sources in Arabic and Ottoman Turkish, the authors and editors bring out the variety of modernities that shaped south-eastern Mediterranean history. The first part of the volume interrogates the urban elite household, the main social, political, and economic unit of networking in Ottoman societies. The second part addresses the complex relationship between law and culture, looking at how the legal system, conceptually and practically, undergirded the socio-cultural aspects of life in the Middle East. Society, Law, and Culture in the Middle East consists of eleven chapters, written by well-established and younger scholars working in the field of Middle East and Islamic Studies. The editors, Dror Ze'evi and Ehud R. Toledano, are both leading historians, who have published extensively on Middle Eastern societies in the Ottoman and post-Ottoman periods.

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

Concepts such as influence, imitation, emulation, transmission or plagiarism are transcendental to cultural history and the subject of universal debate. They are not mere labels imposed by modern historiography on ancient texts, nor are they the result of a later interpretation of ways of transmitting and teaching, but are concepts defined and discussed internally, within all cultures, since time immemorial, which have yielded very diverse results. In the case of culture, or better Arab-Islamic cultures, we could analyze and discuss endlessly numerous terms that refer to concepts related to the multiple ways of perceiving the Other, receiving his knowledge and producing new knowledge. The purpose of this book evolves around these concepts, and it aims to become part of a very long tradition of studies on this subject that is essential to the understanding of the processes of reception and creation. The authors analyze them in depth through the use of examples that are based on the well-known idea that societies in different regions did not remain isolated and indifferent to the literary, religious or scientific creations that were developed in other territories and moreover that the flow of ideas did not always occur in only one direction. Contacts, both voluntary and involuntary, are never incidental or marginal, but are rather the true engine of the evolution of knowledge and creation. It can also be stated that it has been the awareness of the existence of multidimensional cultural relations which has allowed modern historiography on Arab cultures to evolve and be enriched in recent decades.

How should failed states in Africa be understood? Catherine Scott here critically engages with the concept of state failure and provides an historical reinterpretation. She shows that, although the concept emerged in the context of the post-Cold War new world order, the phenomenon has been attendant throughout (and even before) the development of the Westphalian state system. Contemporary failed states, however, differ from their historical counterparts in one fundamental respect: they fail within their existing borders and continue to be recognised as something that they are not. This peculiarity derives from international norms instituted in the era of decolonisation, which resulted in the inviolability of state borders and the supposed universality of statehood. Scott argues that contemporary failed states are, in fact, failed post-colonies. Thus understood, state failure is less the failure of existing states and more the failed rooting and institutionalisation of imported and reified models of Western statehood. Drawing on insights from the histories of Uganda and Burundi, from pre-colonial polity formation to the present day, she explores why and how there have been failures to create effective and legitimate national states within the bounds of inherited colonial jurisdictions on much of the African continent.

This volume approaches the topic of mobility in Southeast Europe by offering the first detailed historical study of the land route connecting Istanbul with Belgrade. After this route that diagonally crosses Southeast Europe had been established in Roman times, it was as important for the Byzantines as the Ottomans to rule their Balkan territories. In the nineteenth century, the road was upgraded to a railroad and, most recently, to a motorway. The contributions in this volume focus on the period from the Middle Ages to the present day. They explore the various transformations of the route as well as its transformative role for the cities and regions along its course. This not only concerns the political function of the route to project the power of the successive empires. Also the historical actors such as merchants, travelling diplomats, Turkish guest workers or Middle Eastern refugees together with the various social, economic and cultural effects of their mobility are in the focus of attention. The overall aim is to gain a deeper understanding of Southeast Europe by foregrounding historical continuities and disruptions from a long-term perspective and by bringing into dialogue different national and regional approaches.

This book explores the diverse experience of Bangladesh's development over the last fifty years and provides systematic explanations of its success in socioeconomic development. It also assesses future trends on the basis of past experiences. It is widely acknowledged that Bangladesh provides one of the most striking examples in the study of present day development along with rapid growth and catching up. The analysis highlights the development traps that Bangladesh faced during its journey and the ones that may have to be faced in the coming decades in order to move towards prosperity. The book asserts that explaining Bangladesh's development is not for the simpleminded; any single mono-causal explanation for Bangladesh's development is bound to fall down in the face of reality. This book will be of interest to academics, students, policy makers and development practitioners especially in developing countries-in particular in South Asia and Bangladesh.

Exhaustively researched and updated, South Asia 2021 is an in-depth library of information on the countries and territories of this vast world region. General Survey Essays by specialists examine issues of regional importance. Country Surveys Individual chapters on each country, containing: - essays on the geography, recent history and economy of each nation - up-to-date statistical surveys of economic and social indicators - a comprehensive directory providing contact details and other useful information for the most significant political and commercial institutions. In addition, there are separate sections covering each of the states and territories of India. Regional Information - detailed coverage of international organizations and their recent activities in South Asia - information on research institutes engaged in the study of the region - a survey of the major commodities of South Asia - bibliographies of relevant books and periodicals. Additional features - biographical profiles of almost 300 prominent individuals in the region.

The Confucian-Legalist State analyzes the history of China between the 11th century BCE and 1911 under the guidance of a new theory of social change. It centers on two questions. First, how and why China was unified and developed into a bureaucratic empire under the state of Qin in 221 BCE? Second, how was it that, until the nineteenth century, the political and cultural structure of China that was institutionalized during the Western Han dynasty (206 BCE - 8 CE) showed great resilience, despite great changes in demography, socioeconomic structure, ethnic composition, market relations, religious landscapes, technology, and in other respects brought by rebellions or nomadic conquests? In addressing these two questions, author Dingxin Zhao also explains numerous other historical patterns of China, including but not limited to the nature of ancient China's interstate relations, the logics behind the rising importance of imperil Confucianism during the Western Han dynasty and behind the formation of Neo-Confucian society during the Song dynasty (960-1279 CE), the changing nature of China's religious ecology under the age of Buddhism and Neo-Confucianism, the pattern of interactions between nomads and sedentary Chinese empires, the rise and dominance of civilian government, and China's inability to develop industrial capitalism without the coercion of Western imperialism.

This edited volume contains 24 different research papers by members of the History and Heritage Working Group of the Southeast Asian Astronomy Network. The chapters were prepared by astronomers from Australia, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Scotland, Sweden, Thailand and Vietnam. They represent the latest understanding of cultural and scientific interchange in the region over time, from ethnoastronomy to archaeoastronomy and more. Gathering together researchers from various locales, this volume enabled new connections to be made in service of building a more holistic vision of astronomical history in Southeast Asia, which boasts a proud and deep tradition.

Hong Kong is in turmoil, with a new generation of young and politically active citizens shaking the regime. From the Umbrella Movement in 2014 to the defeat of the Extradition Bill and beyond, the protestors' demands have become more radical, and their actions more drastic. Their bravery emboldened the labor movement and launched the first successful political strike in half a century, followed by the broadening of the democratic movement as a whole. The book also sets the new protest movements within the context of the colonization, revolution and modernization of China. Au Loong-Yu explores Hong Kong's unique position in this history and the reaction the protests have generated on the Mainland. But the new generation's aspiration goes far beyond the political. It is a generation that strongly associates itself with a Hong Kong identity, with inclusivity and openness. Looking deeper into the roots and intricacies of the movement, the role of 'Western Values' vs 'Communism' and 'Hong Kongness' vs 'Chineseness', the cultural and political battles are understood through a broader geopolitical history. For good or for bad, Hong Kong has become one of the battle fields of the great historic contest between the US, the UK and China.

Between 1955 and 1956 the Government of India passed four Hindu Law Acts to reform and codify Hindu family law. Scholars have understood these acts as a response to growing concern about women's rights but, in a powerful re-reading of their history, this book traces the origins of the Hindu law reform project to changes in the political-economy of late colonial rule. The Hindu Family and the Emergence of Modern India considers how questions regarding family structure, property rights and gender relations contributed to the development of representative politics, and how, in solving these questions, India's secular and state power structures were consequently drawn into a complex and unique relationship with Hindu law. In this comprehensive and illuminating resource for scholars and students, Newbigin demonstrates the significance of gender and economy to the history of twentieth-century democratic government, as it emerged in India and beyond.

Separated by a narrow stretch of swamp-like waters, and distinguished by the colour of their skin, the Black Jews and the White Jews have been locked in a rancorous feud for centuries. Only now, when their combined number has diminished to fewer than fifty and they are on the threshold of extinction, have the two remaining Jewish communities in south India begun to realise that their destiny, and their undoing, is the same. Living in Cochin alongside this last generation, Edna Fernandes tells their story from the illustrious arrival of their ancestors from the court of King Solomon, through their long heyday of wealth, tolerance and privilege to their present twilight existence, as synagogues crumble into disuse and weddings become a thing of the past, leaving only funerals.

The Syrian war has been an example of the abuse and insufficient delivery of humanitarian assistance. According to international practice, humanitarian aid should be channelled through a state government that bears a particular responsibility for its population. Yet in Syria, the bulk of relief went through Damascus while the regime caused the vast majority of civilian deaths. Should the UN have severed its cooperation with the government and neglected its humanitarian duty to help all people in need? Decision-makers face these tough policy dilemmas, and often the "neutrality trap" snaps shut. This book discusses the political and moral considerations of how to respond to a brutal and complex crisis while adhering to international law and practice. The author, a scholar and senior diplomat involved in the UN peace talks in Geneva, draws from first-hand diplomatic, practitioner and UN sources. He sheds light on the UN's credibility crisis and the wider implications for the development of international humanitarian and human rights law. This includes covering the key questions asked by Western diplomats, NGOs and international organizations, such as: Why did the UN not confront the Syrian government more boldly? Was it not only legally correct but also morally justifiable to deliver humanitarian aid to regime areas where rockets were launched and warplanes started? Why was it so difficult to render cross-border aid possible where it was badly needed? The meticulous account of current international practice is both insightful and disturbing. It tackles the painful lessons learnt and provides recommendations for future challenges where politics fails and humanitarians fill the moral void.

China and Russia are rising economic and political powers that share thousands of miles of border. Despite their proximity, their interactions with each other - and with their third neighbour Mongolia - are rarely discussed. Although the three countries share a boundary, their traditions, languages and worldviews are remarkably different. Frontier Encounters presents a wide range of views on how the borders between these unique countries are enacted, produced, and crossed. It sheds light on global uncertainties: China's search for energy resources and the employment of its huge population, Russia's fear of Chinese migration, and the precarious independence of Mongolia as its neighbours negotiate to extract its plentiful resources. Bringing together anthropologists, sociologists and economists, this timely collection of essays offers new perspectives on an area that is currently of enormous economic, strategic and geo-political relevance.

This is a monograph about the medieval Jewish community of the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria. Through deep analyses of contemporary historical sources, mostly documents from the Cairo Geniza, life stories, conducts and practices of private people are revealed. When put together these private biographies convey a social portrait of an elite group which ruled over the local community, but was part of a supra communal network.

Physical, sensory, and mental impairments can influence an individual's status in society as much as the more familiar categories of gender, class, religion, race, and ethnicity. This was especially true of the early modern Arab Ottoman world, where being judged able or disabled impacted every aspect of a person's life, including performance of religious ritual, marriage, job opportunities, and the ability to buy and sell property. Sara Scalenghe's book is the first on the history of both physical and mental disabilities in the Middle East and North Africa, and the first to examine disability in the non-Western world before the nineteenth century. Unlike previous scholarly works that examine disability as discussed in religious texts such as the Qur'an and the Hadith, this study focuses on representations and classifications of disability and impairment across a wide range of biographical, legal, medical, and divinatory primary sources.