Philippine observers are often baffled by the economic and political turmoil that dominates headlines about the country. Yet, at the same time, the Philippines continues to hold the potential for successfully combining political freedoms with sustained economic growth and, thus, improving the lives of its people. In this book, a team of distinguished scholars examines these seemingly contradictory trends in order to gain a sense of the country's prospects. Reassessing the fascinating and puzzling "Philippines conundrum" from various angles, the analyses contribute sharp and fresh insights into a variety of areas including: the presidency and political parties; constitutional change and federalism; the roles of the military, religion, and the media in politics; the conflict in Mindanao; the communist insurgency; macroeconomic developments, issues, and trends; the investment climate and business opportunities; poverty, unemployment, and income inequality; migration and remittances; and the Philippine development record in comparative perspective. While the analyses offered in this volume do not arrive at a consensus, they provide a deeper perspective and a more balanced appreciation of events in the country and a glimpse of the prospects and challenges that it faces.

For nearly a millennium, a large part of Asia was ruled by Turkic or Mongol dynasties of nomadic origin. What was the attitude of these dynasties towards the many cities they controlled, some of which were of considerable size? To what extent did they live like their subjects? How did they evolve? Turko-Mongol Rulers, Cities and City-life aims to broaden the perspective on the issue of location of rule in this particular context by bringing together specialists in various periods, from pre-Chingissid Eurasia to nineteenth-century Iran, and of various disciplines (history, archaeology, history of art). Contributors include: Michal Biran, David Durand-Guedy, Kurt Franz, Peter Golden, Minoru Inaba, Nobuaki Kondo, Yuri Karev, Tomoko Masuya, Charles Melville, Jurgen Paul and Andrew Peacock

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

Winner of the 2022 Association for the Study of Japanese Mountain Religion Book Prize Defining Shugendo brings together leading international experts on Japanese mountain asceticism to discuss what has been an essential component of Japanese religions for more than a thousand years. Contributors explore how mountains have been abodes of deities, a resting place for the dead, sources of natural bounty and calamities, places of religious activities, and a vast repository of symbols. The book shows that many peoples have chosen them as sites for ascetic practices, claiming the potential to attain supernatural powers there. This book discusses the history of scholarship on Shugendo, the development process of mountain worship, and the religious and philosophical features of devotion at specific sacred mountains. Moreover, it reveals the rich material and visual culture associated with Shugendo, from statues and steles, to talismans and written oaths.

I was hooked by the unusual style and, moreso, by the unusual approach to the familiar material . . . Articulate, sensitive, and intelligent . . . an unusually readable and persuasive narrative. Robert W. Lewis North Dakota Quarterly When in 1968 an American rifle battalion known as the First Wolfhounds landed near Dau Tieng, a rest area controlled by the North Vietnamese Army, they expected to interdict the NVA supply line there within three days. Instead, the soldiers found a prohibitive network of NVA troops, headquarters, hospitals, supplies, and local support for the NVA. It seemed impossible, even for the Wolfhounds, famed for their numbers and fighting strength. In the vivid prose of a mission survivor, Some Even Volunteered chronicles these brave soldiers' daily, deadly contact with the NVA, their attempts to win the villagers' trust, and how they struggled to accept and survive their circumstances. Eight months later, the Wolfhounds succeeded--destroying, in the process, an NVA unit of their own size. Alfred Bradford's sardonic voice is compelling. This narrative is witty, sometimes hilarious, and always captivating. Bradford--now a history professor--also provides one of the most insightful discussions ever written of Vietnam's assumed position in military history. Some Even Volunteered provides a marvelous description and a succinct evaluation of the life and the achievement of the American soldier in Vietnam trying to win the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese. In a style reminiscent of Michael Herr in Dispatches but still distinctly his own, Bradford relates the story of the First Battalion of the 27th Infantry Regiment (First Wolfhounds) of the 25th Infantry Division as they pacified the district of Tri Tam. The First Battalion--which had the highest body count of any rifle battalion in Vietnam--was air-lifted into an NVA rest area south of Dau Tieng (IIId Brigade basecamp) in the district of Tri Tam on 24 October 1968. They had been ordered to interdict the NVA supply line that stretched from the Ho Chi Minh trail in Cambodia through Dau Tieng to Saigon. They were expected to complete their mission in three days, but they uncovered such an extensive network of headquarters, hospitals, supply, troop concentrations and local support that the mission was extended to a week, then to a month, and finally, to eight months. Eight months later, the Wolfhounds had succeeded. Their fire support base was assaulted three times, their Brigade base twice. They established four independent forts, ran missions throughout the Third Brigade Area of Operations, and accepted the surrender of dozens of Viet Cong and NVA. In effect, they had destroyed an NVA unit of their own size. In vivid, staccato prose, Bradford delivers a first-rate narrative. In addition, the last chapter, entitled, The Will of the People, provides the reader with one of the best discussions ever written of Vietnam's assumed position in military history.

This book explores the history and agendas of the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) through its activities in South Asia. Focusing on interactions between American 'Y' workers and the local population, representatives of the British colonial state, and a host of international actors, it assesses their impact on the making of modern India. In turn, it shows how the knowledge and experience acquired by the Y in South Asia had a significant impact on US foreign policy, diplomacy and development programs in the region from the mid-1940s. Exploring the 'secular' projects launched by the YMCA such as new forms of sport, philanthropic efforts and educational endeavours, The YMCA in Late Colonial India addresses broader issues about the persistent role of religion in global modernization processes, the accumulation of American soft power in Asia, and the entanglement of American imperialism with other colonial empires. It provides an unusually rich case study to explore how 'global civil society' emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, how it related to the prevailing imperial world order, and how cultural specificities affected the ways in which it unfolded. Offering fresh perspectives on the historical trajectories of America's 'moral empire', Christian internationalism and the history of international organizations more broadly, this book also gives an insight into the history of South Asia during an age of colonial reformism and decolonization. It shows how international actors contributed to the shaping of South Asia's modernity at this crucial point, and left a lasting legacy in the region.

The revolutionary year of 1958 epitomizes the height of the social uprisings, military coups, and civil wars that erupted across the Middle East and North Africa in the mid-twentieth century. Amidst waning Anglo-French influence, growing US-USSR rivalry, and competition and alignments between Arab and non-Arab regimes and domestic struggles, this year was a turning point in the modern history of the Middle East. This multi and interdisciplinary book explores this pivotal year in its global, regional and local contexts and from a wide range of linguistic, geographic, academic specialties. The contributors draw on declassified and multilingual archives, reports, memoirs, and newspapers in thirteen country-specific chapters, shedding new light on topics such as the extent of Anglo-American competition after the Suez War, Turkey's efforts to stand as a key pillar in the regional Cold War, the internationalization of the Algerian War of Independence, and Iran and Saudi Arabia's abilities to weather the revolutionary storm that swept across the region. The book includes a foreword from Salim Yaqub which highlights the importance of Jeffrey G. Karam's collection to the scholarship on this vital moment in the political history of the modern middle east.

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.

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.

Fifteen years after the end of a protracted civil and regional war, Beirut broke out in violence once again, forcing residents to contend with many forms of insecurity, amid an often violent political and economic landscape. Providing a picture of what ordinary life is like for urban dwellers surviving sectarian violence, The Insecure City captures the day-to-day experiences of citizens of Beirut moving through a war-torn landscape. While living in Beirut, Kristin Monroe conducted interviews with a diverse group of residents of the city. She found that when people spoke about getting around in Beirut, they were also expressing larger concerns about social, political, and economic life. It was not only violence that threatened Beirut's ordinary residents, but also class dynamics that made life even more precarious. For instance, the installation of checkpoints and the rerouting of traffic - set up for the security of the elite - forced the less fortunate to alter their lives in ways that made them more at risk. Similarly, the ability to pass through security blockades often had to do with an individual's visible markers of class, such as clothing, hairstyle, and type of car. Monroe examines how understandings and practices of spatial mobility in the city reflect social differences, and how such experiences led residents to be bitterly critical of their government. In The Insecure City, Monroe takes urban anthropology in a new and meaningful direction, discussing traffic in the Middle East to show that when people move through Beirut they are experiencing the intersection of citizen and state, of the more and less privileged, and, in general, the city's politically polarized geography.

The Safavid dynasty originated as a fledgling apocalyptic mystical movement based in Iranian Azarbaijan, and grew into a large, cosmopolitan Irano-Islamic empire stretching from Baghdad to Herat. Here Colin Mitchell examines how the Safavid state introduced and moulded a unique and vibrant political discourse which reflected the social and religious heterogeneity of sixteenth-century Iran. Beginning with the millenarian-minded Shah Isma'il and concluding with the autocrat par excellence, Shah 'Abbas, Mitchell explores the phenomenon of state-sponsored rhetoric. He focuses on the large corpus of epistles, letters and missives produced by a developed Safavid chancellery which show how the Safavids forged and negotiated their political and religious sovereignty in a diverse and complex environment. A thorough investigation of the Safavid state and the significance of rhetoric, power and religion in its functioning, "The Practice of Politics in Safavid Iran" is indispensable for all those interested in Iranian history and politics as well as the wider world of Middle East studies.

The objective of Walking through Jordan is to acknowledge and honor the singular achievements and wider impacts of Jordan's most prominent survey archaeologist, Burton MacDonald. MacDonald is a biblical scholar by training who has written extensively about the Iron Age and early Christianity. However, unlike many biblical scholars, MacDonald has also undertaken large regional survey projects which encompass the entire gamut of Jordanian prehistory and history. Thus, his work is unique in that it attracts the interest of a wide range of scholars.Contributing scholars from around the world reflect on three important areas of MacDonald's archaeological contributions: on archaeological survey in general, including those focusing on methodology and/or field projects that depend to a large extent on surveys, MacDonald's five major surveys- papers that incorporate data from his field projects and sites tested or excavated by others that were first identified by his work, and the archaeology of the Bronze and Iron Ages, as well as the Roman Period and the early Christian era. Despite his important contributions to prehistoric archaeology, the early historical periods constitute the main emphasis of Burton's scholarly output.

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.