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Books > History > Asian / Middle Eastern history > General
In 1968 a cohort of politically engaged young academics established
the Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars (CCAS). Critical of the
field of Asian studies and its complicity with the United States'
policies in Vietnam, the CCAS mounted a sweeping attack on the
field's academic, political, and financial structures. While the
CCAS included scholars of Japan, Korea, and South and Southeast
Asia, the committee focused on Maoist China, as it offered the
possibility of an alternative politics and the transformation of
the meaning of labor and the production of knowledge. In The End of
Concern Fabio Lanza traces the complete history of the CCAS,
outlining how its members worked to merge their politics and
activism with their scholarship. Lanza's story exceeds the
intellectual history and legacy of the CCAS, however; he narrates a
moment of transition in Cold War politics and how Maoist China
influenced activists and intellectuals around the world, becoming a
central element in the political upheaval of the long 1960s.
Singapore Then and Now brings together rare archival images of this
global city-state and matches them with specially commissioned
photos of the same sites as they appear today. Vaughan Grylls
(author/photographer of Oxford Then and Now, Cambridge Then and Now
and Hong Kong Then and Now) has rounded up all of the key sites
that make up this fascinating and diverse place, from gleaming new
skyscrapers and shopping malls to magnificent temples and ancient
rainforests. The breathtaking contrast between past and present
make this a fascinating addition to the long-running Then and Now
series. Sites include: Elgin Bridge, Empress Place Building,
Victoria Theatre and Concert Hall, Fullerton Hotel, Johnston's
Pier, Singapore Cricket Club, the Supreme Court, Capitol Theatre,
Raffles Hotel, Masjid Sultan Mosque, Ellison Building, Coleman
Bridge, Fort Canning, National Museum, YMCA Building, Cathay
Building, Thian Hock Keng Temple, Sri Mariamman Temple, Tanjong
Pagar Dock, Marina Bay Sands Hotel, Johor-Singapore Causeway, Ford
Factory, Changi Village.
The primary objective of this book is to unearth the Mosul
Incident, place it in a historical narrative and introduce it to
the literature. Despite creating a historical turning point, the
incident has not attracted the necessary attention in neither the
Ottoman nor Iraqi historiography until now. By interpreting the
preferences, policies and practices associated with this particular
incident, the book is engaged to analyze the Post-Constitutional
power shifts, perceptions of collective violence and the origins of
Arab-Kurdish Dispute. The banishment and murder of Sheikh Said
Barzanji who was the family head of Sadaat al-Barzanjiyya as the
most influential religious organization of region, created a
critical threshold in the history of Mosul. As the urban shootout
on January 5 turned into a provincial bloodshed, Kurdish Sayyids,
tribes and religious orders consolidated and revolted against the
Ottoman authorities. Governors who were polarized as Anti Sâdât
and Pro Sâdât allegedly misconducted their offices and misguided
the authorities of law enforcement and judiciary. By overcoming the
historical rupture between Ottoman Mosul and Modern Iraq, the book
introduces an analytical framework to associate the origins of
collective violence and ethnic fragmentation experienced in
today’s Iraq with the past.
In 2001, Thailand introduced universal health care reforms that
have become some of the most celebrated in the world, providing
almost its entire population with health protection coverage.
However, this remarkable implementation of health policy is not
without its weaknesses. Drawing on two years of fieldwork at a
district hospital in northern Thailand, Bo Kyeong Seo examines how
people in marginal and dependent social positions negotiate the
process of obtaining care. Using the broader concept of
elicitation, Seo analyzes the social encounters and forces that
shape caregivers. These dynamics challenge dichotomies of
subjugation and resistance, consent and coercion, and dependence
and autonomy. The intimate and moving stories at the core of
Eliciting Care from patients and providers draw attention to a
broader, critically important phenomenon at the hospital level.
Seo's poignant ethnography engages with feminist theory on the
ethics of care, and in so doing, makes a significant contribution
to emerging work in the field of health policy and politics.
The Cairo Genizah is considered one of the world's greatest Hebrew
manuscript treasures. Yet the story of how over a quarter of a
million fragments hidden in Egypt were discovered and distributed
around the world, before becoming collectively known as "The Cairo
Genizah," is far more convoluted and compelling than previously
told. The full story involves an international cast of scholars,
librarians, archaeologists, excavators, collectors, dealers and
agents, operating from the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth
century, and all acting with varying motivations and intentions in
a race for the spoils. Basing her research on a wealth of archival
materials, Jefferson reconstructs how these protagonists used their
various networks to create key alliances, or to blaze lone trails,
each one on a quest to recover ancient manuscripts. Following in
their footsteps, she takes the reader on a journey down into
ancient caves and tombs, under medieval rubbish mounds, into hidden
attic rooms, vaults, basements and wells, along labyrinthine souks,
and behind the doors of private clubs and cloistered colleges.
Along the way, the reader will also learn about the importance of
establishing manuscript provenance and authenticity, and the impact
to our understanding of the past when either factor is in doubt.
The influence of the ulema, the official Sunni Muslim religious
scholars of the Ottoman Empire, is commonly understood to have
waned in the empire's last century. Drawing upon Ottoman state
archives and the institutional archives of the ulema, this study
challenges this narrative, showing that the ulema underwent a
process of professionalisation as part of the wider Tanzimat
reforms and thereby continued to play an important role in Ottoman
society. First outlining transformations in the office of the
Sheikh ul-islam, the leading Ottoman Sunni Muslim cleric, the book
goes on to use the archives to present a detailed portrait of the
lives of individual ulema, charting their education and
professional and social lives. It also includes a glossary of
Turkish-Arabic vocabulary for increased clarity. Contrary to
beliefs about their decline, the book shows they played a central
role in the empire's efforts to centralise the state by acting as
intermediaries between the government and social groups,
particularly on the empire's peripheries.
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