Arab Traders in their Own Words explores for the first time the largest unified corpus of merchant correspondence to have survived from the Ottoman period. The writers chosen for this first volume were mostly Christian merchants who traded within a network that connected the Syrian and Egyptian provinces and extended from Damascus in the North to Alexandria in the South with particular centers in Jerusalem and Damietta. They lived through one of the most turbulent intersections of Ottoman and European imperial history, the 1790s and early 1800s, and had to navigate their fortunes through diplomacy, culture, and commerce. Besides an edition of more than 190 letters in colloquial Arabic this volume also offers a profound introductory study.

The issue of government or state involvement in the process of economic development and reform has become very popular in the economic development literature. This timely volume examines China's post-Mao economic reforms, and the Chinese government's involvement in the process of managing those reforms. Focusing on management issues, the book considers the state led reforms from a comprehensive and interdisciplinary perspective. The work consists of two parts--the experience of China's post-Mao reforms and major issues associated with the reforms. The first part covers the background, stages and measures, and achievements and problems of economic reforms. The second part addresses major changes in China's regional development, administrative system, and state-society relations. A final chapter considers the lessons of China's economic reforms.

The use of American POW's as slave labor by Japanese companies is the great unresolved issue of the Second World War in the Pacific. Unjust Enrichment provides a forum for American servicemen to tell their own stories, while Linda Holmes gives the reader the historic context to recognize the seriousness of the crimes. Bio: Linda Goetz Holmes has been interviewing and writing about World War II prisoners in the Pacific for over 30 years. She is the first historian appointed to the U.S. Government Interagency Working Group, formed in 1999 under the aegis of the National Archives to locate and declassify material about World War II war crimes.

The years 1900 to 1954 marked the transformation from an exotic, colonized "Far East" to a more autonomous, prominent "Asia Pacific". This anthology examines the grand strategies of great powers as they vied for influence and ultimately hegemony in the region. At the turn of the twentieth century, the main contestants included the venerable British Empire and the aspiring Japan and United States. The unwieldy leviathan of China, the European imperial holdings in Southeast Asia, and the expanses of the western Pacific emerged as battlegrounds in literal and geopolitical terms. Other less powerful nations, such as India, Burma, Australia, and French Indochina, also exercised agency in crafting grand strategies to further their interests and in their interactions with those great powers. Among the many factors affecting all nations invested in the Asia Pacific were such traditional elements as economics, military power, and diplomacy, as well as fluid traits like ideology, culture, and personality. The era saw the decline of British and European influence in the Asia Pacific, the rise and fall of Japanese imperialism, the emergence of American primacy, the ongoing struggle for independence in Southeast Asia, and China's resurrection as a contender for hegemony. Great powers shifted and so too did their grand strategies.

Ever since the death of Mao, China has undergone a transformation almost as radical as the Communist Revolution that Mao instigated. This book tells the stories of the many difficult economic, political, and social struggles that have taken place in post-Maoist China. Using both Chinese and non-Chinese sources, Alfred K. Ho unravels the complexities of life in China during the past generation. As Ho explains, contemporary Chinese are seeking to find solutions to their problems that reflect their own cultural values. As such, reform in China cannot be seen solely as an effort to emulate the West, especially the free market and democratic United States. Rather, Ho places current efforts at reform as part of a prolonged and continual process by Chinese to deal with their internal problems as well as the challenges and opportunities they face as a result of greater contact with the outside world.

An up-to-date, concise examination of China-past and present-providing detailed information on a country whose substantial impact on the global economy and consumer culture continues to grow. Part of ABC-CLIO's Asia in Focus series, this authoritative resource is designed to help a wide variety of readers understand the complexities of the world's most populous country-a nation of ancient glory and rising importance, yet one that remains elusive and not generally well known. Packed with recent scholarship and fascinating details, this concise, multifaceted volume offers an updated look at China's geography and history, from the political and technological dominance of the imperial period to the communist revolution and the present state. The work also vividly captures the "living" China of today-its economy, politics, and culture-with extensive coverage of topics ranging from education, languages, arts, and cuisine to industrialization, gender issues, population control efforts, and human rights controversies that have impacted the country's relationship to the global community. Contributions from an accomplished team of scholars and experts on Chinese history, economics, art, music, literature, politics, and other topics-organized to facilitate clear and focused conveyance of information More than 50 sidebars focusing on key people, places, and events, plus a variety of maps created to help readers better understand the nation's history, geography, language distribution, and other important facets

Making use of legal and historical sources, Viorel Panaite analyzes the status of tribute-payers from the north of the Danube with reference to Ottoman law of peace and war. He deals with the impact of Ottoman holy war and the way conquest in Southeast Europe took place; the role of temporary covenants, imperial diplomas and customary norms in outlining the rights and duties of the tributary princes; the power relations between the Ottoman Empire and the tributary-protected principalities of Wallachia, Moldavia and Transylvania. He also focuses on the legal and political methods applied to extend the pax ottomanica system in the area, rather than on the elements that set these territories apart from the rest of the Ottoman Empire.

How do you contend with Josephus's interpretation of events when undertaking historical inquiry? Taking as a test case the presentation of Judaea in the first century CE, McLaren argues that existing scholarship fails to achieve conceptual independence from Josephus. It simply repeats Josephus's presentation of a society engulfed in an escalating turmoil that allegedly culminated in the revolt of 66-70 CE. A new strategy is offered here by applying a case-study approach and formulating open-ended questions. In so doing, McLaren calls for an entirely fresh appraisal of the situation in Judaea and other areas where Josephus serves as a major source.

The formula 'for the life of' is often found in votive inscriptions, cast in Aramaic and other languages, which originate from the Syrian-Mesopotamian desert and adjacent areas and which roughly date from the first three centuries A.D. They belong to objects like statues and altars that usually were erected in temples and other structures with a ritual or sacred function. The inscriptions establish a relationship between the dedicator and one or more beneficiaries, those persons for whose life the dedication was made.
Since the social context evidently bears on both the meaning of the inscriptions as well as the status of the dedications, this volume deals with the nature of the relationships and the socio-religious function the dedications perform.

In October 1946, Colonel Presley Rixey arrived by destroyer at Chichi Jima to repatriate 22,000 Japanese who had been bypassed during the war in the Pacific. While waiting for a Marine battalion to arrive, the colonel met daily with a Japanese commission assigned to assist him. When asked what had happened to American prisoners on the island, the Japanese hatched a story to hide the atrocities that they had committed. In truth, the downed flyers had been captured, executed, and eaten by certain senior Japanese officers. This is the story of the investigation, the cover-up, and the last hours of those Americans who disappeared into war's wilderness and whose remains were distributed to the cooking galleys of Chichi Jima. Rixey's suspicion of a cover-up was later substantiated by a group of Americans returning from Japan who had lived on Chichi Jima for generations. It would take five months of gathering testimony to uncover all the details. Thirty war criminals were eventually tried at Guam in 1947, five of whom met their fate on the gallows.

The movement of goods and passengers between port cities not only stimulates growth in coastal trading networks and centers but also inevitably changes the social and economic lives of people in these port cities and, subsequently, of their fellow compatriots farther inland. Studies of port cities have focused on the interactive political and economic relationship between trading centers. The center of attention in this book is socioeconomic life and cultural identity, which are shaped by the movement of goods, people, knowledge, and information, particularly when the community faces a crisis. Transnational studies focus on cross-border connections between people, institutions, commodities, and ideas, with an emphasis on their global presence. This book looks at the responses of different localities to the same global crisis. It gathers a selection of the fifty papers presented at the conference on "Coping with Transnational Crisis: Chinese Economic and Social Lives in East Asian Port Cities, 1850-1950," held in Hong Kong on June 7-11, 2016. The period from the 1850s to the outbreak of war in the Pacific in the late 1930s encompasses two major transnational crises with significant impacts on the Chinese population in Southeast Asian port cities in terms of their way of living and the construction of their identity: the emergence of bubonic plague in the 1880s and 1920s and the global economic crisis in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The authors discuss the social and economic lives in various South East Asian port cities where many residents had to cope with these transnational crises. They do so through examining institutional measurements, rituals and festivals, communication, knowledge and information exchange as well as identity (re)construction. In addition, they explore how local communities responded to knowledge and information between the port cities and cities as well as inland locations. The chapters in this book offer solid grounds for future comparisons, not only based on a specific time or event but also on how society reacted over time, space, and various types of crises.

This book is the first economic history of the Tangut Empire. With a wealth of historical records: taxes, registers, and contracts, it studies the economic lives and activities, laws and institutions, trade and transactions of Western Xia. It offers a gateway to the outer shape and inner life of the Western Xia (Xixia) economy and society, and rethinks the Tanguts' influence on the Hexi Corridor and the Silk Road.

This book centers on the history of polders and investigates the complex hydro-social relationships of the Jianghan Plain in late imperial China. Once a hydraulic frontier where local communities managed the polders, the Jianghan Plain had become a state-led hydro-electric powerhouse by the mid-twentieth century. Through in-depth historical analysis, this book shows how water politics, cultural practice, and ecology interplayed and transformed the landscape and waterscape of the plain from a long-term perspective. By touching on topics such as religious practice, ethnic tensions and local militarization, the author reveals a plain forever caught between land and water, and nature and culture.

The book examines the local culture, its customs, its people and its philosophy before arrival of the outside invaders. It also examines the impact of the arrival of the outside invaders, spread of Islam, coming of the Sikh Gurus, the establishment of the Mughal Empire, and the British. It traces the historical thread that makes the Punjabis what they are today. Surprisingly enough the people of Punjab did not hate all outside invaders. Although the Arabs, the Turks, the Iranians, and the Afghanis were all considered outsiders. The people of Punjab felt pride in learning the Persian language, copying some of the Persian literature, customs and so on. The book explains the events, bench marks and their impact on the people of Punjab. For example major events took place in 1763 era and no one can imagine how it would have been during that era without reading a lot of history books. However, no one can read hundreds of books to get some understanding of any subject. It is important to understand why Sikhs were not writing history books because they were fighting wars. The 1763 was a pivotal era for the Sikhs, for the Mughals, and to some extent the British East India Company. Although there were also East India Companies from France, Germany, and Portugal, but only the British were able to outsmart everyone. Not only that, the British got rid of the Mughal Empire and the Sikh rule. The British did not favor Hindus or the Muslims or the Sikhs, they merely used them against each other. The divide and rule method was used by the British to suit their purpose. The British had only one purpose; money to be made in India. The book deals with the Hindus, the Sikhs, the Muslims, the British andtheir influence over each other in that region. The book gives credit where due and bluntly criticizes the fragmented society. It does not favor one group over the other instead it exposes the narrow-minded aspects of the society. Because some events were taking place simultaneously cross references have been included for the ease of understanding. If the reader wants to learn about Punjab, its culture, its food, its customs, its history and a Punjabi heritage then this book reading is a must. The people from Punjab, their children and Punjabi immigrants will get a charge out of reading this book. It preserves those aspects of the Punjabi culture that tend to fade out with the televisions, cell phones, automobiles, televisions and managed river water. The Hindu religion, its culture, its religious literature and its spirituality far exceeds any other religion. On one hand there is extremely high caliber spiritual thought and yet on the other hand there is nothing but degradation and fragmentation of the society. The Mughals were not merely outsiders they left behind the most beautiful architecture, music, Urdu language and poetry. It would be unfair to ignore their contribution to the culture, to the landscape and to the population. The sacrifice and contribution of the Sikhs exceeds all other groups. This book brings out those certain aspect of the Sikh warriors that had not been fully explored before. Sikhs had been fighting for hundreds of years instead of writing history. The Sikhs did not write history books, even when they knew how to write. The contribution of the British towards the development of systems in India and in Punjab deserves a lot more than simple praise or thankyou. It is the British who united the country, it is the British who created educational system, the public works, the railroads, the telegraph, the civil service and the civil law to name a few.

In the first quarter of the twentieth century, the British Government, the banks, and leading individuals in London reached historic decisions that determined the name, shape, nature, and future of the region known as the Middle East. In this fascinating and readable book, Roger Adelson examines who made policy, on what grounds, with what information, and with what results. The setting for the narrative is London, then the world's greatest metropolis and its financial and political center. Adelson evokes the atmosphere of Whitehall, Fleet Street, the City of London, and Westminster, and paints a vivid portrait of the individuals (Churchill, Lloyd George, Curzon, Cromer, and others) who established the international agenda. Using an extensive range of public and private archives, he identifies issues of money, power, and territorial ambition at the heart of policy, and he describes decisions made in ignorance of and often wholly without reference to local interests. The book explores and explains British diplomacy both before and after the 1914-1918 War: the protection of the Suez Canal and Persian Gulf; the fear of a German drive to the East and subjugation of the Turks; the discovery of oil; the post-war suppression of nationalist aspirations and the establishment of collaborative regimes more in tune with London than with the Middle East itself. More clearly than any previous work, it identifies the virtual invention of the modern Middle East and the roots of the ethnic and nationalist antagonisms that characterize the region today.

Sino-Japanese Reflections offers ten richly detailed case studies that examine various forms of cultural and literary interaction between Japanese and Chinese intellectuals from the late Ming to the early twentieth century. The authors consider efforts by early modern scholars on each side of the Yellow Sea to understand the language and culture of the other, to draw upon received texts and forms, and to contribute to shared literary practices. Whereas literary and cultural flow within the Sinosphere is sometimes imagined to be an entirely unidirectional process of textual dissemination from China to the periphery, the contributions to this volume reveal a more complex picture: highlighting how literary and cultural engagement was always an opportunity for creative adaptation and negotiation. Examining materials such as Chinese translations of Japanese vernacular poetry, Japanese engagements with Chinese supernatural stories, adaptations of Japanese historical tales into vernacular Chinese, Sinitic poetry composed in Japan, and Japanese Sinology, the volume brings together recent work by literary scholars and intellectual historians of multiple generations, all of whom have a strong comparative interest in Sino-Japanese studies.

Korea's Fight for Freedom Originally published in 1920, this is an exhaustive examnation of Korea's struggle for freedom from oppressive Japanese rule. 'In this book I describe the struggle of an ancient people towards liberty. I tell of a Mongol nation, roughly awakened from its long sleep, under conditions of tragic terror, that has seized hold of and is clinging fast to, things vital to civilization as wesee it, freedom and faith, the honour of their women, the development of their own souls. I plead for Freedom and Justice. Will the world hear?" Contents include: Opening the Oyster, Japan Makes a False Move, The Murder of the Queen, the Idependence Club, New Era, Rule of Prince Ito, Abdication of Yi Hyeung, Journey to the Righteous Army, Last Days of korean Empire, Missionaries, Torture a la Mode, Independence Movement, The People Speak, Reigh of Terror in Pyeng-Yang, Girl Martyrs for Liberty, World Reactions Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. Obscure Press are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

Selectively drawing on the vast literature on Gandhi since the 1920s, this bibliography covers his life, political campaigns, philosophy of nonviolence, and strategy of nonviolence, or satyagraha. It also includes assessments of his historical significance and works on the Gandhian movement since 1948. The book sets Gandhi in his historical and political context, including material on his colleagues and contemporaries, the Indian National Congress, and how governments in South Africa, India, and Britain responded to his campaigns. Directed to English-speaking students, the work concentrates on English-language materials. It includes important works published in India, but stresses perceptions of Gandhi and his significance in the West. A particularly useful volume for students, as well as scholars of 20th century Indian history, the volume does not assume prior knowledge. It opens with a short biography of Gandhi, followed by a chronology of his life, and includes a glossary of Indian terms. Entries are carefully annotated to set books and authors in their historical context and to distinguish between scholarly and more personal or partisan assessments of Gandhi. Designed specifically for researchers in the Western English-speaking world, the book emphasizes books and articles published in the West and selective literature published in India from the 1920s to the 1990s.