First published by E.J. Brill (The Netherlands) in 1969 as Geschichte der Islamischen Lander, this volume is still one of the few studies to deal -- authoritatively, comprehensively, and clearly to the non-specialist -- with the Mongols. It provides a lucid account of the empires of the two greatest Mongol empire-builders, Jingiz (Genghis) Khan and Timur (Tamerlane), and their successor states in Western Eurasia. Arthur Waldron's new introduction discusses the contribution of the Mongols and other nomadic societies to world history.

The international bestselling author returns with an exploration of one of the grandest obsessions of the twentieth century

'The Bomber Mafia is a case study in how dreams go awry. When some shiny new idea drops from the heavens, it does not land softly in our laps. It lands hard, on the ground, and shatters.'

In the years before the Second World War, in a sleepy air force base in central Alabama, a small group of renegade pilots put forth a radical idea. What if we made bombing so accurate that wars could be fought entirely from the air? What if we could make the brutal clashes between armies on the ground a thing of the past?

This book tells the story of what happened when that dream was put to the test. The Bomber Mafia follows the stories of a reclusive Dutch genius and his homemade computer, Winston Churchill's forbidding best friend, a team of pyromaniacal chemists at Harvard, a brilliant pilot who sang vaudeville tunes to his crew, and the bomber commander, Curtis Emerson LeMay, who would order the bloodiest attack of the Second World War.

In this tale of innovation and obsession, Gladwell asks: what happens when technology and best intentions collide in the heat of war? And what is the price of progress?

How does a craft reinvent itself as `traditional' following cultural, social and political upheaval? In the township of Dingshu, Jiangsu province of China, artisans produce zisha or Yixing teapots that have been highly valued for centuries. Yet in twentieth-century socialist imagination, handicrafts were an anomaly in a modern society. The Maoist government had clear ambitions to transform the country by industrialization, replacing craft with mechanized methods of production. Four decades later, some of the same artisans identified as `backward' handicraft producers in the 1950s and made to join workers' cooperatives, were now encouraged to set up private workshops, teach their children and become entrepreneurs. By the 2000s ceramic production in Dingshu is booming and artisans are buying their first cars, often luxury brands. However, many involvements of the Chinese state are apparent, from the control of raw materials, to the inscription of the craft on China's national list of intangible cultural heritage. In this perceptive study, Gowlland argues that this re-evaluation of heritage is no less inherently political than the collectivism of the communist regime. Reflecting that the craft objects, although produced in very different contexts, have remained virtually the same over time and that it is the artisans' subjectivities that have been transformed, he explores the construction of mastery and its relationship to tradition and authenticity, bringing to the fore the social dimension of mastery that goes beyond the skill of simply making things, to changing the way these things are perceived, made and talked about by others.

The Sykes-Picot Agreement was one of the defining moments in the history of the modern Middle East. Yet its co-creator, Sir Mark Sykes, had far more involvement in British Middle East strategy during World War I than the Agreement for which he is now most remembered. Between 1915 and 1916, Sykes was Lord Kitchener's agent at home and abroad, operating out of the War Office until the war secretary's death at sea in 1916. Following that, from 1916 to 1919 he worked at the Imperial War Cabinet, the War Cabinet Secretariat and, finally, as an advisor to the Foreign Office. The full extent of Sykes's work and influence has previously not been told. Moreover, the general impression given of him is at variance with the facts. Sykes led the negotiations with the Zionist leadership in the formulation of the Balfour Declaration, which he helped to write, and promoted their cause to achieve what he sought for a pro-British post-war Middle East peace settlement, although he was not himself a Zionist. Likewise, despite claims he championed the Arab cause, there is little proof of this other than general rhetoric mainly for public consumption. On the contrary, there is much evidence he routinely exhibited a complete lack of empathy with the Arabs. In this book, Michael Berdine examines the life of this impulsive and headstrong young British aristocrat who helped formulate many of Britain's policies in the Middle East that are responsible for much of the instability that has affected the region ever since.

The Mohammadan Anglo-Oriental College (MAO), that became the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) in 1920 drew the Muslim elite into its orbit and was a key site of a distinctively Muslim nationalism. Located in New Dehli, the historic centre of Muslim rule, it was home to many leading intellectuals and reformers in the years leading up to Indian independence. During partition it was a hub of pro-Pakistan activism. The graduates who came of age during the anti-colonial struggle in India settled throughout the subcontinent after the Partition. They carried with them the particular experiences, values and histories that had defined their lives as Aligarh students in a self-consciously Muslim environment, surrounded by a non-Muslim majority. This new archive of oral history narratives from seventy former AMU students reveals histories of partition as yet unheard. In contrast to existing studies, these stories lead across the boundaries of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Partition in AMU is not defined by international borders and migrations but by alienation from the safety of familiar places. The book reframes Partition to draw attention to the ways individuals experienced ongoing changes associated with "partitioning"-the process through which familiar spaces and places became strange and sometimes threatening-and they highlight specific, never-before-studied sites of disturbance distant from the borders.