Experiences of battle and hardship in early 20th century China
The siege of the foreign legations in Peking in 1900 is a familiar moment in history principally because it joined in common adversity the ministers, citizens and military men of several nations in a defence within exotic surroundings against the Boxers and Imperial Chinese Army. The United States, Japan, Russia, Italy, The Netherlands, France, Great Britain, Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Germany and Spain were all involved. The first attempt to relieve the besieged failed and the multi-national garrison was left to its own devices for several weeks. This account of the siege from within, by an American civilian, provides the reader with an invaluable insight into one of the most unusual episodes of modern military history. Available in soft cover and hard cover with dust jacket.

This eclectic collection contains 16 articles on a variety of topics within Qumran Studies from a conference held in memory of the late Professor Alan Crown. Essays cover the impact of the Qumran discoveries on the study of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament to the study of the scrolls themselves and the community organizations presupposed in them, focusing as well on topics as diverse as sexuality, scribal practice and the attitude to the Temple in the scrolls.

Take a journey through the Middle East, examining the dynamics that made it a lightning rod for political controversy, religious dissension, and violence between 1968 and 1988.

Born in Egypt and educated there and in Beirut, Lebanon, author Bassil A. Mardelli has a unique perspective on the issues that continue to affect the region. He explores the region, from the deserts of Sinai to the highlands of the Golan, before moving on to Lebanon, which is in the eye of the storm. Drawing upon his own experiences, Mardelli establishes his Lebanese views. Learn about the complex conditions of the Middle East prior to Lebanon's destruction, including the Six Day War's demoralization of the Arab cause. Mardelli also shares his view that the main underlying cause of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is driven by violent extremists from multiple sides.

To understand the Middle East and the challenges it faces, it is essential to learn about this relatively small but vital country. Without knowledge, the steady quest for power will continue, and the results will be horrific.

Gandhi's involvement in Middle Eastern politics is largely forgotten yet it goes to the heart of his teaching and ambition - to lead a united freedom movement against British colonial power.
Gandhi became involved in the politics of the Middle East as a result of his concern over the abolition of the Ottoman Caliphate following the First World War. He subsequently - at the invitation of the Jewish Agency - sought to reconcile Jews and Arabs in a secret deal at the time of the Mandate of Palestine. However, Jewish and British interference coupled with the Arab Revolt and the rise of the Muslim League in India thwarted Gandhi's efforts in the region. Like so many who would follow, Gandhi was unable to solve the problems of the Middle East, but this book for the first time reveals his previously obscure attempt to do so.
Gandhi's experience in the Middle East was in marked contrast to his other successes around the world and is crucial for a full understanding of his life and teachings. Gandhi in the Middle East offers many new and revealing insights into the goals and limits of an international statesman at a critical period of imperial history.

Awais Reza is a shopkeeper in Lahore's Anarkali Bazaar--the largest open market in South Asia--whose labyrinthine streets teem with shoppers, rickshaws, and cacophonous music.
But Anarkali's exuberant hubbub cannot conceal the fact that Pakistan is a country at the edge of a precipice. In recent years, the easy sociability that had once made up this vibrant community has been replaced with doubt and fear. Old-timers like Awais, who inherited his shop from his father and hopes one day to pass it on to his son, are being shouldered aside by easy money, discount stores, heroin peddlers, and the tyranny of fundamentalists.
Every night before Awais goes to bed, he plugs in his cell phone and hopes. He hopes that the city will not be plunged into a blackout, that the night will remain calm, that the following morning will bring affluent and happy customers to his shop and, most of all, that his three sons will safely return home. Each of the boys, though, has a very different vision of their, and Pakistan's, future.
The Bargain from the Bazaar--the product of eight years of field research--is an intimate window onto ordinary middle-class lives caught in the maelstrom of a nation falling to pieces. It's an absolutely compelling portrait of a family at risk--from a violently changing world on the outside and a growing terror from within.

This volume approaches China's Belt and Road Initiative as a process of culturalization, one that started with the Silk Road and continued over the millennium. In mainstream literature, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has been portrayed as the geo-economic vision and geo-political ambition of China's current leaders, intended to shape the future of the world. However, this volume argues that although geo-politics and geo-economy may play their part, the BRI more importantly creates a venue for the meeting of cultures by promoting people-to-people interaction and exchange. This volume explores the journey from the Silk-Road to Belt-Road by analyzing topics ranging from history to religion, from language to culture, and from environment to health. As such, scholars, academics, researchers, undergraduate and graduate students from the Humanities, Social Sciences, and Business will find an alternative approach to the Belt and Road Initiative.

As the title implies, New Approaches to Ilkhanid History explores new methodologies and avenues of research for the Mongol state in the Middle East. Although the majority of the Ilkhanate was situated in Iran, this volume considers other regions within the state and moves away from focusing on the center and the Ilkhanid court. New consideration is given to the source material, particularly how they have been composed, but also how the sources can inform on the provinces of the Ilkhanate. Several authors also examine lower-tier personages, groups, and institutions. Contributors include: A.C.S. Peacock; Kazuhiko Shiraiwa; Christopher P. Atwood; Stefan Kamola; Qiu Yihao; Koichi Matsuda; Judith Kolbas; Reuven Amitai; Na'ama O. Arom; Timothy May; Michael Hope; Pier Giorgio Borbone; Dashdondog Bayarsaikhan; Dmitri Korobeinikov.

Continuing the narrative from Volume One of: From Bharata to India, this second volume spans the years from the Muslim conquests down to the present era.

The Volume begins by contrasting the stifling theocracy of the Abrahamic religions (Judaism and Christianity), and of Islam, to the pristine ideation of compassion, love and universal wellbeing inherent in the Vedic world. The forced conversion of "pagan" peoples and their places of worship was consequently institutionalized by intolerance, savagery, barbarism, cruelty, and unparalleled brutality.

This cultural and religious Invasion shook the very foundations of the Vedic patrimony as the native Hindus adapted Alien lifestyles where Vedic values were repackaged as European and/ or Islamic. Consequently, the modern Indians began to despise what had once been their own legacy, the Cradle of civilization, and embraced imported modes of behavior. The transformed, native polity, supported by foreign vested interests, exploited their own country even more than the alien invaders.

As the Western world frees itself from the shackles of Middle Age conformism and depravity, this second volume concludes that the eternal values of Vedic Bharata are to inspire the nascent Civilization of tomorrow. Eastern introspection will replace, then, the Western tradition of a 'wholly other' divinity.

A curious figure stalks the pages of a distinct subset of mass-market romance novels, aptly called "desert romances." Animalistic yet sensitive, dark and attractive, the desert prince or sheikh emanates manliness and raw, sexual power. In the years since September 11, 2001, the sheikh character has steadily risen in popularity in romance novels, even while depictions of Arab masculinity as backward and violent in nature have dominated the cultural landscape. An Imperialist Love Story contributes to the broader conversation about the legacy of orientalist representations of Arabs in Western popular culture. Combining close readings of novels, discursive analysis of blogs and forums, and interviews with authors, Jarmakani explores popular investments in the war on terror by examining the collisions between fantasy and reality in desert romances. Focusing on issues of security, freedom, and liberal multiculturalism, she foregrounds the role that desire plays in contemporary formations of U.S. imperialism. Drawing on transnational feminist theory and cultural studies, An Imperialist Love Story offers a radical reinterpretation of the war on terror, demonstrating romance to be a powerful framework for understanding how it works, and how it perseveres.

Since the beginning of the twentieth century, hundreds of thousands of documents of all sorts have been unearthed in China, opening whole new fields of study and transforming our modern understanding of ancient China. While these discoveries have necessarily taken place in China, Western scholars have also contributed to the study of these documents throughout this entire period. This book provides a comprehensive survey of the contributions of these Western scholars to the field of Chinese paleography, and especially to study of oracle-bone inscriptions, bronze and stone inscriptions, and manuscripts written on bamboo and silk. Each of these topics is provided with a comprehensive narrative history of studies by Western scholars, as well as an exhaustive bibliography and biographies of important scholars in the field. It is also supplied with a list of Chinese translations of these studies, as well as a complete index of authors and their works. Whether the reader is interested in the history of ancient China, ancient Chinese paleographic documents, or just in the history of the study of China as it has developed in the West, this book provides one of the most complete accounts available to date.

In celebration of the many contributions of Claude Gilliot to Islamic studies, an international group of twenty-one friends and colleagues join together to explore books and written culture in the Muslim world. Divided into three sections - authors, genres and traditions - the essays explore themes that have been of central interest and concern to Gilliot himself including the Qur'an, tafsir, hadith, poetry, and mysticism. Gilliot's detailed and extensive work on many authors and texts, literary genres, and specific case-studies on many Muslim traditions renders this volume an apt tribute to him as well as offering Islamic studies' scholars valuable research insights on these subjects. The authors of these English, French and German essays are all renowned scholars from Europe and North America, each of whom have benefitted substantially from Gilliot's work and collegiality. With contributions by: Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi, Mehdi Azaiez, Anne-Sylvie Boisliveau, Abdallah Cheikh-Moussa, Jean-Louis Declais, Denis Gril, Manfred Kropp, Pierre Larcher, Michael Lecker, Jane Dammen McAuliffe, Harald Motzki, Tilman Nagel, Angelika Neuwirth, Emilio Platti, Jan van Reeth, Andrew Rippin, Uri Rubin, Walid Saleh, Roberto Tottoli, Reinhard Weipert, Francesco Zappa

The Umayyad caliphate, ruling over much of what is now the modern Middle East after the death of the Prophet Muhammad, governe from Damascus from 661 to750CE, when they were expelled by the Abbasids. Here, Mohammad Rihan sheds light on the tribal system of this empir, by looking at one of its Syrian tribes; the 'Amila, based around today's Jabal 'Amil in southern Lebanon. Using this tribe as a lens through which to examine the wider Umayyad world, he looks at the political structures and conflicts that prevailed at the time, seeking to nuance the understanding of the relationship between the tribes and the ruling elite. For Rihan, early Islamic political history can only be understood in the context of the tribal history. This book thus illustrates how the political and social milieu of the 'Amila tribe sheds light on the wider history of the Umayyad world. Utilizing a wide range of sources, from the books of genealogies to poetry, Rihan expertly portrays Umayyad political life. First providing a background on 'Amila's tribal structure and its functions and dynamics, Rihan then presents the pre-Islamic past of the tribe. Building on this, he then investigates the role the 'Amila played in the emergence of the Umayyad state to understand the ways in which political life developed for the tribes and their relations with those holding political power in the region. By exploring the literature, culture, kinship structures and the socio-political conditions of the tribe, this book highlights the ways in which alliances and divisions shifted and were used by caliphs of the period and offers new insights into the Middle East at a pivotal point in its early and medieval history. This historical analysis thus not only illuminates the political condition of the Umayyad world, but also investigates the ever-important relationship between tribal political structures and state-based rule.

This volume is dedicated to the topic of the human evaluation and interpretation of animals in ancient and medieval cultures. From a transcultural perspective contributions from Assyriology, Byzantine Studies, Classical Archaeology, Egyptology, German Medieval Studies and Jewish History look into the processes and mechanisms behind the transfer by people of certain values to animals, and the functions these animal-signs have within written, pictorial and performative forms of expression.

The purpose of this book is to illustrate that reading is a subjective process which results in multivalent interpretations. This is the case whether one looks at a text in its historical contexts (the diachronic approach) or its literary contexts (the synchronic approach). Three representative biblical texts are chosen: from the Law (Genesis 2-3), the Writings (Isaiah 23) and the Prophets (Amos 5), and each is read first by way of historical analysis and then by literary analysis. Each text provides a number of variant interpretations and raises the question, is any one interpretation superior? What criteria do we use to measure this? Or is there value in the complementary nature of many approaches and many results?

The Technique of Islamic Bookbinding is the first monograph dedicated to the technical development of the bookbinding tradition in the Islamic world. Based on an assessment of the extensive oriental collections in the Leiden University Library, the various sewing techniques, constructions and the application of covering materials are described in great detail. A comparative analysis of the historic treatises on bookbinding provides further insight into the actual making of the Islamic book. In addition, it is demonstrated that variations in time and place can be established with the help of distinctive material characteristics. Karin Scheper's work refutes the perception of Islamic bookbinding as a weak structure, which has generally but erroneously been typified as a case-binding. Instead, the author argues how diverse methods were used to create sound structures, thus fundamentally challenging our understanding of the Islamic bookbinding practice. Karin Scheper has been awarded the De La Court Award 2016 by The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences for her study of the bookbinding tradition in the Islamic world.

Since the 1993 Oslo Accords, the Occupied Palestinian Territory has been the subject of extensive international peacebuilding and statebuilding efforts coordinated by Western donor states and international finance institutions. Despite their failure to yield peace or Palestinian statehood, the role of these organisations in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is generally overlooked owing to their depiction as tertiary actors engaged in technical missions. In Palestine Ltd., Toufic Haddad explores how neoliberal frameworks have shaped and informed the common understandings of international, Israeli and Palestinian interactions throughout the Oslo peace process. Drawing upon more than 20 years of policy literature, field-based interviews and recently declassified or leaked documents, he details how these frameworks have led to struggles over influencing Palestinian political and economic behaviour, and attempts to mould the class character of Palestinian society and its leadership. A dystopian vision of Palestine emerges as the by-product of this complex asymmetrical interaction, where nationalism, neo-colonialism and `disaster capitalism' both intersect and diverge. This book is essential for students and scholars interested in Middle East Studies, Arab-Israeli politics and international development.

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.

Edmund Allenby, Viscount Allenby of Megiddo and Felixstowe, as he became later, was the principal British military figure in the Middle East from 1917 to 1919. He fulfilled a similar proconsular role in Egypt from the latter year until 1925. In these two roles Allenby's eight years in the Middle East were of great impact, and in probing his life an especially revealing window can be found through which to observe closely and understand more fully the history that has resulted in the terminal roil afflicting the Middle East and international affairs today. In this biography Brad Faught explores the events and actions of Allenby's life, examining his thinking on both the British Empire and the post-World War I international order. Faught brings clarity to Allenby's decisive impact on British imperial policy in the making of the modern Middle East, and thereby on the long arc of the region's continuing and controversial place in world affairs.