This book provides a new translation of all the surviving portions of the description of India written by Megasthenes in about 310 BCE, the fullest account of Indian geography, history and customs available to the classical world. The Indica was a pioneering work of ethnography that exemplified a new direction in Hellenistic writing; India was little-known to the Greeks before the expedition of Alexander the Great in 326-325 BCE, and Megasthenes, who resided as an ambassador in the Maurya capital Pataliputra for some time, provided the classical world with most of what it knew about India. Megasthenes' book, which became a classic in antiquity, now survives only in fragments preserved in other Greek and Latin authors. Stoneman's work offers a reliable and accessible version of all the writings that can plausibly be ascribed to Megasthenes. His subject ranges from detailed accounts of social structure and the royal household, to descriptions of elephant hunting and Indian philosophical ideas. His book is the only written source contemporary with the Maurya kingdom of Candragupta, since writing was not in use in India at this date. This translation provides a path to clearer understanding of Greek ethnography and a valuable resource on Indian history. The book will be of value not only to classical scholars with an interest in Hellenistic history and cultural attitudes, and to their students, but also to scholars working on the early history of India, who have had to rely (unless they are also Greek scholars) on scattered and dated collections of evidence.

Climate Change Law and Policy in the Middle East and North AfricaRegion provides an in-depth and authoritative examination of the guiding principles of climate change law and policy in the MENA region. This volume introduces readers to the latest developments in the regulation of climate change across the region, including the applicable legislation, institutions, and key legal innovations in climate change financing, infrastructure development, and education. It outlines participatory and bottom-up legal strategies-focusing on transparency, accountability, gender justice, and other human rights safeguards-needed to achieve greater coherence and coordination in the design, approval, financing, and implementation of climate response projects across the region. With contributions from a range of experts in the field, the collection reflects on how MENA countries can advance existing national strategies around climate change, green economy, and low carbon futures through clear and comprehensive legislation. Taking an international and comparative approach, this book will be of great interest to students, scholars, and practitioners who work in the areas of climate change, environmental law and policy, and sustainable development, particularly in relation to the MENA region.

Science fiction, as a literature of fantasy, goes beyond the mundane to ask the question: what if the world were different from the way it is? It often challenges the real, builds on imagination, places no limits on human capacities, and encourages readers to think outside their social and cultural conditioning. This book presents a systematic study of Indian women's science fiction. It offers a critical analysis of the works of four female Indian writers of science fiction: Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, Manjula Padmanabhan, Priya Sarukkai Chabria and Vandana Singh. The author considers not only the evolution of science fiction writing in India, but also discusses the use of innovations and unique themes including science fiction in different Indian languages; the literary, political, and educational activism of the women writers; and eco-feminism and the idea of cloning in writing, to argue that this genre could be viewed as a vibrant representation of freedom of expression and radical literature. This ground-breaking volume will be useful for scholars and researchers of English literature. It will also prove a very useful source for further studies into Indian literature, science and technology studies, women's and gender studies, comparative literature and cultural studies.

This book explores European student migration from the perspectives of Eastern European students moving to Western Europe for study. Whilst most research on student migration in Europe focuses on the experiences of Western European students, this book uniquely casts a light on Eastern European student migrants moving to the 'West'. Mette Ginnerskov-Dahlberg deploys a novel approach to the subject by drawing on insights gleaned from a longitudinal study of master's students pursuing an education abroad and their multifaceted journeys after graduation. Thereby, she brings their narratives to life and highlights the changes and continuities they experienced over a period of seven years, fostering an understanding of student mobility as an activity enmeshed with adult commitments and long-term aspirations. Using Denmark as a case study of a host country, Ginnerskov-Dahlberg analyses the trajectories of these students and situates their experiences within the wider socio-historical context of Eastern European post-socialism and the contemporary dynamics between EU and non-EU citizens in the welfare state of Denmark - reflecting issues playing out on the global stage today. This book will be a valuable resource for students and scholars of migration and mobility studies, as well as human geography, sociology, higher education, area studies and anthropology.

This book examines the relation between energy and politics in South Asia and explores the geo-politics surrounding energy security in the region. Analysing energy security and the scramble for resources in South Asia, the book highlights the important role of energy in light of the rapid economic growth of South Asian countries. This book will be of interest to researchers in the fields of energy studies and security, International Relations, South Asian Studies and Asian Politics.

This book examines the development of bilateral energy relations between China and the two oil-rich countries, Kazakhstan and Russia. Challenging conventional assumptions about energy politics and China's global quest for oil, this book examines the interplay of politics and sociocultural contexts. It shows how energy resources become ideas and how these ideas are mobilized in the realm of international relations. China's relations with Kazakhstan and Russia are simultaneously enabled and constrained by the discursive politics of oil. It is argued that to build collaborative and constructive energy relations with China, its partners in Kazakhstan, Russia, and elsewhere must consider not only the material realities of China's energy industry and the institutional settings of China's energy policy but also the multiple symbolic meanings that energy resources and, particularly, oil acquire in China. China's Energy Security and Relations with Petrostates offers a nuanced understanding of China's bilateral energy relations with Kazakhstan and Russia, raising essential questions about the social logic of international energy politics. It will appeal to students and scholars of international relations, energy security, Chinese and post-Soviet studies, along with researchers working in the fields of energy policy and environmental sustainability.

Preface - Introduction 1 Heiderose Kilper "New Disparities in Spatial Development in Europe" - several topics are included in both the title and theme of the German Annual of Spatial Research and Policy for the Year 2009. We are frst of all concerned with the concept of spatial disparities, which has its roots in national spatial planning and spatial development policy. Regional development as interregional equalisation policy, for example, is well-anchored in the German constitution through fundamental legal standards and the division of powers among the respective federal states. The "establishment of uniform living conditions within the federal territory" and "securing the uniformity of living conditions beyond the borders of any single federal state" (Section 72 Paragraph 2 of German Basic Law [GG]) are expressly specifed as aims of government action in the constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany. With the major reform of Germany's fnancial system in 1969 and incorporation of the joint task "Improvement 1 of the Regional Economic Structure" in Section 91a of German Basic Law [GG] interventions on the part of the federal government and the wealthy federal states for the beneft of states and regions with less economic success were legitimised in constitutional terms as well. All of this would be inconceivable without the concept of spatial disparities.

1) This book examines agrarian development and state policies in the Gangetic Bihar of colonial India. 2) Rich in archival sources this book is a significant contribution to the history of modern Bihar. 3) The author being a renowned historian in UK, this book will be of interest in departments of history in UK.

- Brings together 20 first hand practitioner accounts of key topics within humanitarian practice - Addresses a need within humanitarian studies research and teaching for more case studies and first hand accounts - No other book brings together first hand practitioner accounts in this way

- Brings together 20 first hand practitioner accounts of key topics within humanitarian practice - Addresses a need within humanitarian studies research and teaching for more case studies and first hand accounts - No other book brings together first hand practitioner accounts in this way

This book tells the story of the dissident imaginary of samizdat activists, the political culture they created, and the pivotal role that culture had in sustaining the resilience of the oppositional movement in Poland between 1976 and 1990. This unlicensed print culture has been seen as one of the most emblematic social worlds of dissent. Since the Cold War, the audacity of harnessing obsolete print technology known as samizdat to break the modern monopoly of information of the party-state has fascinated many, yet this book looks beyond the Cold War frame to reappraise its historical novelty and significance. What made that culture resilient and rewarding, this book argues, was the correspondence between certain set of ideas and media practices: namely, the form of samizdat social media, which both embodied and projected the prefigurative philosophy of political action, asserting that small forms of collective agency can have a transformative effect on public life here and now, and are uniquely capable of achieving a democratic new beginning. This prefigurative vision of the transition from communism had a fundamental impact on the broader oppositional movement. Yet, while both the rise of Solidarity and the breakthrough of 1989 seemed to do justice to that vision, both pivotal moments found samizdat social media activists making history that was not to their liking. Back in the day, their estrangement was overshadowed by the main axis of contention between the society and the state. Foregrounding the internal controversies they protagonized, this book adds nuance to our understanding of the broader legacy of dissent and its relevance for the networked protests of today.

This book demonstrates the insights that literature brings to transdisciplinary urban studies, and particularly to the study of cities of the South. Starting from the claim staked by mining capital in the late nineteenth century and its production of extractive and segregated cities, it surveys over a century of writing in search of counterclaims through which the literature reimagines the city as a place of assembly and attachment. Focusing on how the South African city has been designed to funnel gold into the global economy and to service an enclaved minority, the study looks to the literary city to advance a contrary emphasis on community, conviviality and care.

An accessible and informative introduction to literature of the South African city at significant historical junctures, this book will also be of great interest to scholars and students in urban studies and Global South studies.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction 2. All that glitters 3. Light city, dark city 4. Resistant cities 5. Reassembling the city

The countries of East and Southeast Asia, taken as a whole, display a laboratory of social and political conditions, with individual countries presenting a variety of political, cultural and social characteristics. Some with one-party state systems, others with stable liberal democracies and yet others with more fragile democratic systems. As such the region presents a unique opportunity to examine the relationship between diverse national environments and social work education regimes. In this book, social work educators and theorists from around East and Southeast Asia provide accounts of the social work programs within the higher education systems of their respective countries and compare them to those of their neighbours. This is the first book to offer a structured account of how social work and social work education have emerged and finds their present place in the historical, economic, political, urban/rural and higher education contexts of Southeast Asia and East Asia. Experts from the region assess the extent to which these countries' systems possess a collective coherence, while examining the diversity among them.

This edited collection explores how the relationship between comic art and feminism has been shaped by global, transnational, and local trends, curating analyses of multinational comic art that encompass themes of gender, sexuality, power, vulnerability, assault, abuse, taboo, and trauma. The chapters illuminate in turn the defining features of the aesthetics, materiality, and thematic content of their source material - often expressed with humorous undertones of self-reflection or social criticism - as well as recurring strategies of visualising and narrating female experiences. Broadening the research perspective of feminist comics to include national comics cultures peripheral to the cultural centers of Anglo-American, Franco-Belgian, and Japanese comics, the anthology explores how the dominant narrative or history of canonical works can be challenged or deconstructed by local histories of comics and feminism and their transnational connections, and how local histories complement or challenge the current understanding of the relationship between feminism and comic art. This is an essential collection for scholars and students in comics studies, women and gender studies, media studies, and literature.

This book demonstrates how active and meaningful collaboration between researchers and local stakeholders and indigenous communities can lead to the co-production of knowledge and the empowerment of communities. Focusing on the Asia Pacific region, this interdisciplinary volume looks at local and indigenous relations to the landscape, showing how applied scholarship and collaborative research can work to empower indigenous and descendant communities. With cases ranging across Indonesia, Thailand, Taiwan, the Philippines, Cambodia, Pohnpei, Guam, and Easter Island, this book demonstrates the many ways in which co-production of knowledge is reconnecting local and indigenous relations to the landscape, and diversifying the philosophy of human-land relations. In so doing, the book is enriching the knowledge of landscape, and changing the landscape of knowledge. This important contribution to our understanding of knowledge production will be of interest to readers across Anthropology, Archaeology, Development, Geography, Heritage Studies, Indigenous Studies, and Policy Studies.

When this book was first published in 1982, despite considerable research on 19th Century towns in Britain and America, there had been little attempt to search for links between these empirical studies and to relate them more to more general theories of 19th Century urban development. The book provides an integrated series of chapters which discuss trends and research problems in the study of 19th Century cities. It will be of value to researchers in urban geography, social history and historical geography.

Originally published in 2002 Culture, Ritual and Revolution in Vietnam is a study of the history and consequences of the revolutionary campaign to transform culture and ritual in northern Vietnam. Based upon official documents and several years of field research in Thinh Liet Commune, a Red River delta community near Hanoi, it provides the first detailed account of the nature of revolutionary cultural reforms in Vietnam as how those reforms continue to animate contemporary socio-cultural life. The study examines the key foci of revolutionary cultural change, such as the articulation of a new moral system, the attempts to eliminate explanations that invoke supernatural causality, the creation of socialist weddings and funerals, and the development of innovation ties to commemorate war dead. By examining debates over culture, ritual, and morality that have emerged between residents, notably between men and women, and party members and non-party members, the study shows how ideas and values that preceded the revolution have entered into a creative dialogue with those that were articulated by the revolution, and how this has produced an innovative set of ritual and other practices, particularly since the relaxation of the cultural reform agenda in the post-1986 period.

Originally published in 1991, this book focusses on the philosophies, histories and processes which have made the West European city system rich in internal variety yet distinct from that of the rest of western industrialised urban society. It synthesizes international experiences in particular aspects of urban policy making, with reference to Germany, France and Benelux. The book covers urban planning in its broadest sense - from economic, socio-spacial, recreational, housing and transport perspectives.

Originally published in 1977, and now with an updated new Preface, this volume covers the question of Irish urban origins in the pre-Norman period, the character and development of the medieval towns, the changing forms and functions of towns and cities in the early modern period. It also examines the substantial changes in size and form effected by population growth and town planning in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Ireland's urban history is unique and particularly interesting for the way it contrasts with developments in the urban history of western Europe. Unlike most west European regions, it was not colonised by the Romans.

Originally published in 1980, this book was written by consultants in urban development with wide experience in the developing world and is a source book aimed at advisers (often from developed countries) who assist with urban planning matters on behalf of multi-lateral agencies such as the World Bank. It presents a style of consultancy which accepts that not all the problems of settlement planning in developing countries can be solved by the transfer of Western methods. Although the book concentrates on the techniques and methods which have been found to be effective in the field, it also argues for a new philosophy of consultancy, in which consultants work with local staff and using the ingenuity and spirit of enterprise among the communities themselves.

Originally published in 1986, this book focusses on life within global cities in the developing world, analysing on a city-level the circulation and consumption of goods and services within them. When the book was first published it was one of only a few to offer systematic comparative analyses of developing world cities, and those stemming from different regions, with examples from different continents in each chapter. It discusses the problems faced by such city populations and shows how the procedures, distributive systems and social conventions reflect the complex histories of the cities, most of which have been subject to colonial rule, and of their inhabitants, many of whom are either migrants or first generation citizens.

Africa: An Introduction invites you into Africa: a continent rich with culture and history, with diverse populations stretching from the dense tropical rain forest of the Congo basin, right up to the Sahara Desert in the north, and down to the Mediterranean climates of the far south. Containing fifty-five countries, and covering over 20 percent of the world's landmass, Africa is the birthplace of humanity, yet the image of Africa in the West is often negative, that of a continent riddled with endemic problems. This accessible and engaging guide to the African continent guides the reader through the history, geography, and politics of Africa. It ranges from the impact of slavery and imperialism through to the rise of African nationalism and the achievement of independence, and up to the present moment. Key topics covered include literature, art, technology, religion, the condition of African women, health, education, and the mounting environmental concerns faced by African people. As Africa moves beyond the painful legacies of slavery and imperialism, this book provides an engaging, uplifting, and accessible introduction to a rapidly modernizing and diverse continent. Suitable for high school and undergraduate students studying Africa, this book will also serve as the perfect introduction for anyone looking to understand the history of Africa and the Africa of today.

Originally published in 1988, this book concentrates on urban land policy and was particularly significant when it was originally published because the 1980s were an era when the rich were getting richer and the poor poorer and in which changes in the ownership of and access to real estate contributed to this polarisation. The book focusses on some core topics, namely: The buying, selling and holding of land by public agencies; the land market, including the impact of taxation and subsidisation; the control of the land market through town planning controls. There are chapters devoted to urban land policy in the former West Germany, The Netherlands, France, the former Yugoslavia, the UK and USA.

This book investigates the ways in which the humanitarian system is secular and understands religious beliefs and practices when responding to disasters. The book teases out the reasons why humanitarians are reluctant to engage with what are seen as "messy" cultural dynamics within the communities they work with, and how this can lead to strained or broken relationships with disaster-affected populations and irrelevant and inappropriate disaster assistance that imposes distant and relatively meaningless values. In order to interrogate secular boundaries within humanitarian response, the book draws particularly on qualitative primary data from the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines. The case study shows how religious practices and beliefs strongly influenced people's disaster experience, yet humanitarian organisations often failed to recognise or engage with this. Whilst secularity in the humanitarian system does not completely exclude religious participation and expression, it does create biases and boundaries. Many humanitarians view their secularity as essential to their position of impartiality and cultural sensitivity in comparison to what were seen as the biased and unprofessional beliefs and practices of religions and religious actors, even though disaster-affected people felt that it was the secular humanitarians that were less impartial and culturally sensitive. This empirically driven examination of the role of secularity within humanitarianism will be of interest to the growing field of "pracademic" researchers across NGOs, government, consultancy, and think tanks, as well as researchers working directly within academic institutions.

Drawing on Australian and comparative case studies, this volume reconceptualises non-metropolitan creative economies through the 'qualities of place'. This book examines the agricultural and gastronomic cultures surrounding 'native' foods, coastal sculpture festivals, universities and regional communities, wine in regional Australia and Canada, the creative systems of the Hunter Valley, musicians in 'outback' settings, Fab Labs as alternatives to clusters, cinema and the cultivation of 'authentic' landscapes, and tensions between the 'representational' and 'non-representational' in the cultural economies of the Blue Mountains. What emerges is a picture of rural and regional places as more than the 'other' of metropolitan creative cities. Place itself is shown to embody affordances, unique institutional structures and the invisible threads that 'hold communities together'. If, in the wake of the publication of Florida's Rise of the Creative Class, creative industries models tended to emphasize 'big cities' and the spatial-cum-cultural imaginaries of the 'Global North', recent research and policy discourses - especially, in the Australian context - have paid greater attention to 'small cities', rural and remote creativity. This collection will be of interest to scholars, students and practitioners in creative industries, urban and regional studies, sociology, geography and cultural planning.