|
Showing 1 - 17 of
17 matches in All Departments
Land of Plants in Motion is the first in any language to examine
two companion stories: (1) the rise of an East Asian floristic zone
and how the Japanese islands evolved an astonishing wealth of plant
species, and (2) the growth of Japanese botanical sciences. The
majority of plant species regarded as "Japanese" trace their
origins to western China and the eastern Himalaya but are so
indigenized that they often seem native today. Early modern
scientists in Japan drew on knowledge of Chinese herbal medicine
but achieved distinctive insights into plant life commensurate with
but separate from their European counterparts. Scholars at the
University of Tokyo pioneered Japanese plant biology in the late
nineteenth century. They incorporated Western botanical methods but
sought a degree of difference in taxonomy while also gaining
international legitimacy through publications in English. Japan's
age of empire (1895-1945) was less about plant exploration and more
about plant collection, for both scientific and economic benefits.
Displays of species from throughout the empire made Japan's sphere
of colonization and conquest visible at home. The infrastructure
for research and instruction expanded slowly after World War Two:
new laboratories, botanical gardens, scholarly societies, and
publications eventually allowed for great diversity of specialized
study, especially with the growth of molecular biology in the 1970s
and DNA research in the 1980s. Basic research was harmed by cuts in
government funding during 2012-2017, but Japanese plant biologists
continue to enjoy international esteem in many fields of
scholarship.
Exile was a potent form of punishment and a catalyst for change in
colonial Asia between the seventeenth and early twentieth
centuries. Vast networks of forced migration supplied laborers to
emerging colonial settlements, while European powers banished
rivals to faraway locations. Exile in Colonial Asia explores the
phenomenon of exile in ten case studies by way of three categories:
"kings," royals banished as political exiles; "convicts," the vast
majority of those whose lives are explored in this volume, sent
halfway across the world with often unexpected consequences; and
"commemoration," referring to the myriad ways in which the
experience and its aftermath were remembered by those exiled,
relatives left behind, colonial officials, and subsequent
generations of descendants, devotees, historians, and politicians.
Intended for a broad readership interested in the colonial period
in Asia (South and Southeast Asia in particular), the volume
encompasses a range of disciplinary perspectives: anthropology,
gender studies, literature, history, and Asian, Australian, and
Pacific studies.In addition to presenting fascinating,
little-known, and varied case studies of exile in colonial Asia and
Australia, the chapters collectively offer a sweeping,
contextualized, comparative approach that links the narratives of
diverse peoples and locales. Rather than confining research to the
European colonial archives, whenever possible the authors put
special emphasis on the use of indigenous primary sources hitherto
little explored. Exile in Colonial Asia invites imaginative
methodological innovation in exploring multiple archives and
expands our theoretical frontiers in thinking about the
interconnected histories of penal deportation, labor migration,
political exile, colonial expansion, and individual destinies.
Land of Plants in Motion is the first in any language to examine
two companion stories: (1) the rise of an East Asian floristic zone
and how the Japanese islands evolved an astonishing wealth of plant
species, and (2) the growth of Japanese botanical sciences. The
majority of plant species regarded as ""Japanese"" trace their
origins to western China and the eastern Himalaya but are so
indigenized that they often seem native today. Early modern
scientists in Japan drew on knowledge of Chinese herbal medicine
but achieved distinctive insights into plant life commensurate with
but separate from their European counterparts. Scholars at the
University of Tokyo pioneered Japanese plant biology in the late
nineteenth century. They incorporated Western botanical methods but
sought a degree of difference in taxonomy while also gaining
international legitimacy through publications in English. Japan's
age of empire (1895-1945) was less about plant exploration and more
about plant collection, for both scientific and economic benefits.
Displays of species from throughout the empire made Japan's sphere
of colonization and conquest visible at home. The infrastructure
for research and instruction expanded slowly after World War Two:
new laboratories, botanical gardens, scholarly societies, and
publications eventually allowed for great diversity of specialized
study, especially with the growth of molecular biology in the 1970s
and DNA research in the 1980s. Basic research was harmed by cuts in
government funding during 2012-2017, but Japanese plant biologists
continue to enjoy international esteem in many fields of
scholarship.
In Transcending Patterns: Silk Road Cultural and Artistic
Interactions through Central Asian Textiles, Mariachiara Gasparini
investigates the origin and effects of a textile-mediated visual
culture that developed at the heart of the Silk Road between the
seventh and fourteenth centuries. Through the analysis of the
Turfan Textile Collection in the Museum of Asian Art in Berlin and
more than a thousand textiles held in collections worldwide,
Gasparini discloses and reconstructs the rich cultural
entanglements along the Silk Road, between the coming of Islam and
the rise of the Mongol Empire, from the Tarim to Mediterranean
Basin. Exploring in detail the iconographic transfer between
different agents and different media from Central Asian caves to
South Italian churches, the author depicts and describes the
movement and exchange of portable objects such as sculpture, wall
painting, and silk fragments across the Asian continent and across
the ages. Gasparini's history offers critical perspectives that
extend far beyond an outmoded notion of "Silk Road studies." Her
cross-media work shows readers how certain material cultures are
connected not only by the physical routes they take but also
because of the meanings and interpretations these objects engage in
various places. Transcending Patterns is at once art history,
material and visual cultural history, Asian studies, conservatory
studies, and linguistics.
This book investigates the economic, strategic, and political
importance of forests in early modern and modern Europe and shows
how struggles over this vital natural resource both shaped and
reflected the ideologies and outcomes of France's long
revolutionary period. Until the mid-nineteenth century, wood was
the principal fuel for cooking and heating and the primary material
for manufacturing worldwide and comprised every imaginable element
of industrial, domestic, military, and maritime activity. Forests
also provided essential pasturage. These multifaceted values made
forests the subject of ongoing battles for control between the
crown, landowning elites, and peasantry, for whom liberty meant
preserving their rights to woodland commons. Focusing on
Franche-Comte, France's easternmost province, the book explores the
fiercely contested development of state-centered conservation and
management from 1669 to 1848. In emphasizing the environmental
underpinnings of France's seismic sociopolitical upheavals, it
appeals to readers interested in revolution, rural life, and
common-pool-resource governance.
This book investigates the economic, strategic, and political
importance of forests in early modern and modern Europe and shows
how struggles over this vital natural resource both shaped and
reflected the ideologies and outcomes of France's long
revolutionary period. Until the mid-nineteenth century, wood was
the principal fuel for cooking and heating and the primary material
for manufacturing worldwide and comprised every imaginable element
of industrial, domestic, military, and maritime activity. Forests
also provided essential pasturage. These multifaceted values made
forests the subject of ongoing battles for control between the
crown, landowning elites, and peasantry, for whom liberty meant
preserving their rights to woodland commons. Focusing on
Franche-Comte, France's easternmost province, the book explores the
fiercely contested development of state-centered conservation and
management from 1669 to 1848. In emphasizing the environmental
underpinnings of France's seismic sociopolitical upheavals, it
appeals to readers interested in revolution, rural life, and
common-pool-resource governance.
Migrant Ecologies: Environmental Histories of the Pacific World is
the first volume explicitly dedicated to the environmental history
of Earth’s largest ocean. Covering nearly one-third of the
planet, the Pacific Ocean is remarkable for its diverse human and
non-human inhabitants, their astounding long-distance migrations
over time, and their profound influences on other parts of the
world. This book creates an understanding of the past, present, and
futures of the lands, seas, peoples, practices, microbes, animals,
plants, and other natural forces that shape the Pacific. It
effectively argues for the existence of an interconnected Pacific
World environmental history, as well as for the Pacific Ocean as a
necessary framework for understanding that history. The fifteen
chapters in this comprehensive collection, written by leading
experts from across the globe, span a vast array of topics, from
disease ecology and coffee cultivation to nuclear testing and
whaling practices. They explore regions stretching from the Tuamotu
Archipelago in the south Pacific to the Kamchatka Peninsula in the
far north, resisting the depiction of the Pacific as isolated and
uninhabited. What unites these diverse contributions is a concern
for how the people, places, and non-human beings of the Pacific
World have been shaped by, and have in turn modified, their oceanic
realm. Building on a recent renaissance in Pacific history, these
chapters make a powerful argument for the importance of the Pacific
World as a coherent unit of analysis and a valuable lens through
which to examine past, ongoing, and emerging environmental issues.
By showcasing surprising and innovative perspectives on the
environmental histories of the peoples and ecosystems in and around
the Pacific Ocean, this work adds to current conversations and
debates about the Pacific World and offers myriad opportunities for
further discussions, both inside and outside of the classroom.
Migrant Ecologies: Environmental Histories of the Pacific World is
the first volume explicitly dedicated to the environmental history
of Earth’s largest ocean. Covering nearly one-third of the
planet, the Pacific Ocean is remarkable for its diverse human and
non-human inhabitants, their astounding long-distance migrations
over time, and their profound influences on other parts of the
world. This book creates an understanding of the past, present, and
futures of the lands, seas, peoples, practices, microbes, animals,
plants, and other natural forces that shape the Pacific. It
effectively argues for the existence of an interconnected Pacific
World environmental history, as well as for the Pacific Ocean as a
necessary framework for understanding that history. The fifteen
chapters in this comprehensive collection, written by leading
experts from across the globe, span a vast array of topics, from
disease ecology and coffee cultivation to nuclear testing and
whaling practices. They explore regions stretching from the Tuamotu
Archipelago in the south Pacific to the Kamchatka Peninsula in the
far north, resisting the depiction of the Pacific as isolated and
uninhabited. What unites these diverse contributions is a concern
for how the people, places, and non-human beings of the Pacific
World have been shaped by, and have in turn modified, their oceanic
realm. Building on a recent renaissance in Pacific history, these
chapters make a powerful argument for the importance of the Pacific
World as a coherent unit of analysis and a valuable lens through
which to examine past, ongoing, and emerging environmental issues.
By showcasing surprising and innovative perspectives on the
environmental histories of the peoples and ecosystems in and around
the Pacific Ocean, this work adds to current conversations and
debates about the Pacific World and offers myriad opportunities for
further discussions, both inside and outside of the classroom.
An era rich in artistic creations and political transformations,
the Mongol period across Eurasia brought forth a new historical
consciousness visible in the artistic legacy of the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries. Historicity of the present, cultivation of
the secular within received cosmologies, human agency in history,
and naturalism in the representation of social and organic
environments all appear with consistency across diverse venues.
Common themes, styles, motifs, and pigments circulated to an
unprecedented extent during this era creating an equally
unprecedented field of artistic exchange. Exploring art’s
relationship to the unique commercial and political circumstances
of Mongol Eurasia, Sudden Appearances rethinks many art historical
puzzles including the mystery of the Siyah Kalem paintings, the
female cup-bearer in the Royal Drinking Scene at Alchi, and the
Mongol figures who appear in a Sienese mural. Drawing on primary
sources both visual and literary as well as scholarship that has
only recently achieved critical mass in the areas of Mongolian
studies and Eurasian histories, Roxann Prazniak orchestrates an
inquiry into a critical passage in world history, a prelude to the
spin-off to modernity. Sudden Appearances highlights the visual and
emotional prompts that motivated innovative repurposing of existing
cultural perspectives and their adjustment to expanding geographic
and social worlds. While early twentieth-century scholarship
searched for a catholic universalism in shared European and Chinese
art motifs, this inquiry looks to the relationships among societies
of central, western, and eastern Asia during the Mongol era as a
core site of social and political discourse that defined a
globalizing era in Eurasian artistic exchange. The materiality of
artistic creativity, primarily access to pigments, techniques, and
textiles, provides a path through the interconnected commercial and
intellectual byways of the long thirteenth century. Tabriz of the
Ilkhanate with its proximity to the Mediterranean and al-Hind seas
and relations to the Yuan imperial center establishes the
geographic and organizational hub for this study of eight
interconnected cities nested in their regional domains. Avoiding
the use of modern geographic markers such as China, Europe, Middle
East, India, Sudden Appearances shifts analysis away from the
limits of nation-state claims toward a borderless world of creative
commerce.
In the early decades of the eighteenth century, Yemen hosted a
bustling community of merchants who sailed to the southern Arabian
Peninsula from the east and the west, seeking and offering a range
of commodities, both luxury and mundane. In Shipped but Not Sold,
Nancy Um opens the chests these merchants transported to and from
Yemen and examines the cargo holds of their boats to reveal the
goods held within. They included eastern spices and aromatics,
porcelain cups and saucers with decorations in gold from Asia,
bales of coffee grown in the mountains of Yemen, Arabian horses,
and a wide variety of cotton, silk, velvet, and woolen cloth from
India, China, Persia, and Europe; in addition to ordinary
provisions, such as food, beer, medicine, furniture, pens, paper,
and wax candles. As featured in the copious records of the Dutch
and English East India Companies, as well as in travel accounts and
local records in Arabic, these varied goods were not just
commodities intended for sale in the marketplace. Horses and
textile banners were mobilized and displayed in the highly visible
ceremonies staged at the Red Sea port of Mocha when new arrivals
appeared from overseas at the beginning of each trade season.
Coffee and aromatics were served and offered in imported porcelain
and silver wares during negotiations that took place in the houses
of merchants and officials. Major traders bestowed sacks of spices
and lavish imported textiles as gifts to provincial governors and
Yemen’s imam in order to sustain their considerable trading
privileges. European merchants who longed for the distant comforts
of home carried tables and chairs, along with abundant supplies of
wine and spirits for their own use and, in some cases, further
distribution in Yemen’s ports and emporia. These diverse items
were offered, displayed, exchanged, consumed, or utilized by major
international merchants and local trade officials in a number of
socially exclusive practices that affirmed their identity, status,
and commercial obligations, but also sustained the livelihood of
their business ventures. Shipped but Not Sold posits a key role for
these socially significant material objects (many of which were
dispatched across oceans but not intended only for sale on the open
market) as important signs, tools, and attributes in the vibrant
world of a rapidly transforming Indian Ocean trading society.
Debates over the remote and beguiling Southern Kuril Islands have
revealed a kaleidoscope of divergent and contradictory ideas,
convictions, and beliefs on what constitutes the "national"
identity of post-Soviet Russia. Forming part of an archipelago
stretching from Kamchatka to Hokkaido, administered by Russia but
claimed by Japan, these disputed islands offer new perspectives on
the ways in which territorial visions of the nation are refracted,
inverted, and remade in a myriad of different ways. At the Edge of
the Nation provides a unique account of how the Southern Kurils
have shaped the parameters of the Russian state and framed debates
on the politics of identity in the post-Soviet era. By shifting the
debate beyond a proliferation of Eurocentric and Moscow-focused
writings, Paul B. Richardson reveals broad alternatives and
possibilities for Russian identity in Asia. After the dissolution
of the Soviet Union in 1991, when Russia was suffering the
fragmentation of empire and a sudden decline in its international
standing, these disputed islands became symbolic of a much larger
debate on self-image, nationalism, national space, and Russia's
place in world politics. When viewed through the prism of the
Southern Kurils, ideas associated with the "border", "state", and
"nation" become destabilized, uncovering new insights into
state-society relations in modern Russia. At the Edge of the Nation
explores how disparate groups of political elites have attempted to
use these islands to negotiate enduring tensions within Russia's
identity, and traces how the destiny of these isolated yet
evocative islands became irrecoverably bound to the destiny of
Russia itself.
An era rich in artistic creations and political transformations,
the Mongol period across Eurasia brought forth a new historical
consciousness visible in the artistic legacy of the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries. Historicity of the present, cultivation of
the secular within received cosmologies, human agency in history,
and naturalism in the representation of social and organic
environments all appear with consistency across diverse venues.
Common themes, styles, motifs, and pigments circulated to an
unprecedented extent during this era creating an equally
unprecedented field of artistic exchange. Exploring art's
relationship to the unique commercial and political circumstances
of Mongol Eurasia, Sudden Appearances rethinks many art historical
puzzles including the mystery of the Siyah Kalem paintings, the
female cup-bearer in the Royal Drinking Scene at Alchi, and the
Mongol figures who appear in a Sienese mural. Drawing on primary
sources both visual and literary as well as scholarship that has
only recently achieved critical mass in the areas of Mongolian
studies and Eurasian histories, Roxann Prazniak orchestrates an
inquiry into a critical passage in world history, a prelude to the
spin-off to modernity. Sudden Appearances highlights the visual and
emotional prompts that motivated innovative repurposing of existing
cultural perspectives and their adjustment to expanding geographic
and social worlds. While early twentieth-century scholarship
searched for a catholic universalism in shared European and Chinese
art motifs, this inquiry looks to the relationships among societies
of central, western, and eastern Asia during the Mongol era as a
core site of social and political discourse that defined a
globalizing era in Eurasian artistic exchange. The materiality of
artistic creativity, primarily access to pigments, techniques, and
textiles, provides a path through the interconnected commercial and
intellectual byways of the long thirteenth century. Tabriz of the
Ilkhanate with its proximity to the Mediterranean and al-Hind seas
and relations to the Yuan imperial center establishes the
geographic and organizational hub for this study of eight
interconnected cities nested in their regional domains. Avoiding
the use of modern geographic markers such as China, Europe, Middle
East, India, Sudden Appearances shifts analysis away from the
limits of nation-state claims toward a borderless world of creative
commerce.
Few people today know that in the nineteenth century, Hawai'i was
not only an internationally-recognised independent nation but
played a crucial role in the entire Pacific region and left an
important legacy throughout Oceania. As the first non-Western state
to gain full recognition as a coequal of the Western powers, yet at
the same time grounded in indigenous tradition and identity, the
Hawaiian Kingdom occupied a unique position in the late
nineteenth-century world order. From this position, Hawai'i's
leaders were able to promote the building of independent states
based on their country's model throughout the Pacific, envisioning
the region to become politically unified. Such a pan-Oceanian
polity would be able to withstand foreign colonialism and become,
in the words of one of the idea's pioneers, "a Power in the World".
After being developed over three decades among both native and
non-native intellectuals close to the Hawaiian court, King
Kalakaua's government started implementing this vision in 1887 by
concluding a treaty of confederation with Samoa, a first step
toward a larger Hawaiian-led pan-Oceanian federation. Political
unrest and Western imperialist interference in both Hawai'i and
Samoa prevented the project from advancing further at the time, and
a long interlude of colonialism and occupation has obscured its
legacy for over a century. Nonetheless it remains an inspiring
historical precedent for movements toward greater political and
economic integration in the Pacific Islands region today. Lorenz
Gonschor examines two intertwined historical processes: The
development of a Hawai'i-based pan-Oceanian policy and underlying
ideology, which in turn provided the rationale for the second
process, the spread of the Hawaiian Kingdom's constitutional model
to other Pacific archipelagos. He argues that the legacy of this
visionary policy is today re-emerging in the form of two
interconnected movements - namely a growing movement in Hawai'i to
reclaim its legacy as Oceania's historically leading nation-state
on one hand, and an increasingly assertive Oceanian regionalism
emanating mainly from Fiji and other postcolonial states in the
Southwestern Pacific on the other. As a historical reference for
both, nineteenth-century Hawaiian policy serves as an inspiration
and guideline for envisioning de-colonial futures for the Pacific
region.
Okinawa, one of the smallest prefectures of Japan, has drawn much
international attention because of the long-standing presence of US
bases and the people's resistance against them. In recent years,
alternative discourses on Okinawa have emerged due to the
territorial disputes over the Senkaku Islands, and the media often
characterizes Okinawa as the borderland demarcating Japan, China
(PRC), and Taiwan (ROC). While many politicians and opinion makers
discuss Okinawa's national and security interests, little attention
is paid to the local perspective toward the national border and
local residents' historical experiences of border crossings.
Through archival research and first-hand oral histories, Hiroko
Matsuda uncovers the stories of common people's move from Okinawa
to colonial Taiwan and describes experiences of Okinawans who had
made their careers in colonial Taiwan. Formerly the Ryukyu Kingdom
and a tributary country of China, Okinawa became the southern
national borderland after forceful Japanese annexation in 1879.
Following Japanese victory in the First Sino-Japanese War and the
cession of Taiwan in 1895, Okinawa became the borderland
demarcating the Inner Territory from the Outer Territory. The
borderland paradoxically created distinction between the two sides,
while simultaneously generating interactions across them. Matsuda's
analysis of the liminal experiences of Okinawan migrants to
colonial Taiwan elucidates both Okinawans' subordinate status in
the colonial empire and their use of the border between the nation
and the colony. Drawing on the oral histories of former immigrants
in Taiwan currently living in Okinawa and the Japanese main
islands, Matsuda debunks the conventional view that Okinawa's local
history and Japanese imperial history are two separate fields by
demonstrating the entanglement of Okinawa's modernity with Japanese
colonialism. The first English-language book to use the oral
historical materials of former migrants and settlers-most of whom
did not experience the Battle of Okinawa. Liminality of the
Japanese Empire presents not only the alternative war experiences
of Okinawans but also the way in which these colonial memories are
narrated in the politics of war memory within the public space of
contemporary Okinawa.
Few people today know that in the nineteenth century, Hawai`i was
not only an internationally recognized independent nation but
played a crucial role in the entire Pacific region and left an
important legacy throughout Oceania. As the first non-Western state
to gain full recognition as a coequal of the Western powers, yet at
the same time grounded in indigenous tradition and identity, the
Hawaiian Kingdom occupied a unique position in the late
nineteenth-century world order. From this position, Hawai`i's
leaders were able to promote the building of independent states
based on their country's model throughout the Pacific, envisioning
the region to become politically unified. Such a pan-Oceanian
polity would be able to withstand foreign colonialism and become,
in the words of one of the idea's pioneers, "a Power in the World."
After being developed over three decades among both native and
non-native intellectuals close to the Hawaiian court, King
Kal?kaua's government started implementing this vision in 1887 by
concluding a treaty of confederation with S?moa, a first step
toward a larger Hawaiian-led pan-Oceanian federation. Political
unrest and Western imperialist interference in both Hawai`i and
S?moa prevented the project from advancing further at the time, and
a long interlude of colonialism and occupation has obscured its
legacy for over a century. Nonetheless it remains an inspiring
historical precedent for movements toward greater political and
economic integration in the Pacific Islands region today. Lorenz
Gonschor examines two intertwined historical processes: The
development of a Hawai`i-based pan-Oceanian policy and underlying
ideology, which in turn provided the rationale for the second
process, the spread of the Hawaiian Kingdom's constitutional model
to other Pacific archipelagos. He argues that the legacy of this
visionary policy is today re-emerging in the form of two
interconnected movements?namely a growing movement in Hawai`i to
reclaim its legacy as Oceania's historically leading nation-state
on one hand, and an increasingly assertive Oceanian regionalism
emanating mainly from Fiji and other postcolonial states in the
Southwestern Pacific on the other. As a historical reference for
both, nineteenth-century Hawaiian policy serves as an inspiration
and guideline for envisioning de-colonial futures for the Pacific
region.
Sea Rovers, Silver, and Samurai traces the roots of modern global
East Asia by focusing on the fascinating history of its seaways.
The East Asian maritime realm, from the Straits of Malacca to the
Sea of Japan, has been a core region of international trade for
millennia, but during the long seventeenth century (1550 to 1700),
the velocity and scale of commerce increased dramatically. Chinese,
Japanese, and Vietnamese smugglers and pirates forged autonomous
networks and maritime polities; they competed and cooperated with
one another and with powerful political and economic units, such as
the Manchu Qing, Tokugawa Japan, the Portuguese and Spanish crowns,
and the Dutch East India Company. Maritime East Asia was a
contested and contradictory place, subject to multiple legal,
political, and religious jurisdictions, and a dizzying diversity of
cultures and ethnicities, with dozens of major languages and
countless dialects. Informal networks based on kinship ties or
patron-client relations coexisted uneasily with formal governmental
structures and bureaucratized merchant organizations.
Subsistence-based trade and plunder by destitute fishermen
complemented the grand dreams of sea-lords, profit-maximizing
entrepreneurs, and imperial contenders. Despite their shifting
identities, East Asia's mariners sought to anchor their activities
to stable legitimacies and diplomatic traditions found outside the
system, but outsiders, even those armed with the latest military
technology, could never fully impose their values or plans on these
often mercurial agents. With its multilateral perspective of a
world in flux, this volume offers fresh, wide-ranging narratives of
the "rise of the West" or "the Great Divergence." European
mariners, who have often been considered catalysts of
globalization, were certainly not the most important actors in East
and Southeast Asia. China's maritime traders carried more in volume
and value than any other nation, and the China Seas were key to
forging the connections of early globalization-as significant as
the Atlantic World and the Indian Ocean basin. Today, as a
resurgent China begins to assert its status as a maritime power, it
is important to understand the deep history of maritime East Asia.
Debates over the remote and beguiling Southern Kuril Islands have
revealed a kaleidoscope of divergent and contradictory ideas,
convictions, and beliefs on what constitutes the "national"
identity of post-Soviet Russia. Forming part of an archipelago
stretching from Kamchatka to Hokkaido, administered by Russia but
claimed by Japan, these disputed islands offer new perspectives on
the ways in which territorial visions of the nation are refracted,
inverted, and remade in a myriad of different ways. At the Edge of
the Nation provides a unique account of how the Southern Kurils
have shaped the parameters of the Russian state and framed debates
on the politics of identity in the post-Soviet era. By shifting the
debate beyond a proliferation of Eurocentric and Moscow-focused
writings, Paul B. Richardson reveals broad alternatives and
possibilities for Russian identity in Asia. After the dissolution
of the Soviet Union in 1991, when Russia was suffering the
fragmentation of empire and a sudden decline in its international
standing, these disputed islands became symbolic of a much larger
debate on self image, nationalism, national space, and Russia's
place in world politics. When viewed through the prism of the
Southern Kurils, ideas associated with the "border," "state," and
"nation" become destabilized, uncovering new insights into
state-society relations in modern Russia. At the Edge of the Nation
explores how disparate groups of political elites have attempted to
use these islands to negotiate enduring tensions within Russia's
identity, and traces how the destiny of these isolated yet
evocative islands became irrecoverably bound to the destiny of
Russia itself.
|
You may like...
LSD
Labrinth, Sia, …
CD
R213
R71
Discovery Miles 710
Loot
Nadine Gordimer
Paperback
(2)
R398
R330
Discovery Miles 3 300
Loot
Nadine Gordimer
Paperback
(2)
R398
R330
Discovery Miles 3 300
Loot
Nadine Gordimer
Paperback
(2)
R398
R330
Discovery Miles 3 300
|