The term 'transnationalism' has gained considerable academic and popular currency despite a lack of clear definitions, in part because its overall form changes as its influence incorporates additional spheres of daily life on a variety of scales and contexts.

The purpose of this volume is to bring together different perspectives on this phenomenon, using case studies that represent some of the most current thinking on 'transnationalism' in a wide range of disciplines. Central themes which this book explores include legal and economic reactions to transnational migration; the (re)negotiation of identities in the context of changing national, social and cultural identities; and the emergence of new imaginings of home and social space in transnational communities. Approaching Transnationalisms: Studies on Transnational Societies, Multicultural Contacts and Imaginings of Home foregrounds powerful transnational forces crossing the boundaries of nation-states, and at the same time, gives attention to the continued significance of the nation-state and the diversity of localized reactions to transnational challenges.

The contributors to this volume explore the close relationship between education and the molding of modern immigrant societies through case studies of either Asian migrants or Asian immigrant societies. This volume will be especially useful for researchers, educators, and students intent on understanding some of the critical challenges faced by a globalizing world.

Imperial Military Transportation in British Asia sheds light on attempts by royal engineers to introduce innovations devised in the UK to wartime India, Iraq, and Burma, as well as the initial resistance of local groups of colonial railwaymen to such metropolitan innovations. Michael W. Charney looks at the role of the railways in the First Burma Campaign to show how some kinds of military technology - as an example of imperial knowledge - faced resistance due to 1930s-era colonial insularity. The delay this caused significantly compromised the early defense of the colony when the Japanese invaded in 1942. Charney examines the efforts made by one engineer in particular to revive the railways and shows how this effort was responsible for the development of a truly imperial technology that was suitable for extra-European contexts and finally won acceptance in India. Incorporating newly accessible primary source material from the files of the military Director of Transportation during the Campaign, this book highlights a hitherto unfilled gap in the archival record and explores an ignored but crucial aspect of the 1942 Japanese invasion of Burma.

Burma has lived under military rule for nearly half a century. The results of its 1990 elections were never recognized by the ruling junta and Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of Burma's pro-democracy movement, was denied her victory. She has been under house-arrest ever since. Now an economic satellite and political dependent of the People's Republic of China, Burma is at a crossroads. Will it become another North Korea, will it succumb to China's political embrace or will the people prevail? Michael Charney's book- the first general history of modern Burma in over five decades - traces the highs and lows of Burma's history from its colonial past to the devastation of Cyclone Nargis in 2008. By exploring key themes such as the political division between lowland and highland Burma and monastic opposition to state control, the author explains the forces that have made the country what it is today.

The term 'transnationalism' has gained considerable academic and popular currency despite a lack of clear definitions, in part because its overall form changes as its influence incorporates additional spheres of daily life on a variety of scales and contexts. The purpose of this volume is to bring together different perspectives on this phenomenon, using case studies that represent some of the most current thinking on 'transnationalism' in a wide range of disciplines. Central themes which this book explores include legal and economic reactions to transnational migration; the (re)negotiation of identities in the context of changing national, social and cultural identities; and the emergence of new imaginings of home and social space in transnational communities. Approaching Transnationalisms: Studies on Transnational Societies, Multicultural Contacts and Imaginings of Home foregrounds powerful transnational forces crossing the boundaries of nation-states, and at the same time, gives attention to the continued significance of the nation-state and the diversity of localized reactions to transnational challenges.

The contributors to this volume explore the close relationship between education and the molding of modern immigrant societies through case studies of either Asian migrants or Asian immigrant societies. This volume will be especially useful for researchers, educators, and students intent on understanding some of the critical challenges faced by a globalizing world.

Why is it that warfare in Southeast Asian history is depicted so differently in various historical sources and representations? Why have scholars looking at different countries found so many exceptions to regional overviews of warfare? The present volume seeks to present a new approach to the study of warfare in the region by abandoning the generalizations made in the conventional literature. The contributors offer a range of new studies of warfare in local areas within the region, looking at warfare on its own, local terms rather than for what it says about warfare in the region as a whole. This approach for the first time submits Southeast Asia to comparative analysis in a way that avoids artificial and misleading regional attributes. The varied case studies, researched and written by a number of experts of local warfare within the region include naval warfare eighteenth century Vietnam, civil war in South Sulawesi during the Peneki War, the art and texts of war in Burmese warfare, modes of warfare in precolonial Bali, war captive taking in Thailand, and kinship, religion, and war in late eighteenth century Maguindanao, and preparations for war in the Pacific rimlands. The volume makes an important contribution to the new literature emerging on the culture of indigenous warfare in North and South America, Africa, South Asia, the Middle East, and the Pacific Islands, by offering a new and robust Southeast Asian entry on the one hand while adding to a new approach to the growing literature on early modern Southeast Asia warfare.

Burma has lived under military rule for nearly half a century. The results of its 1990 elections were never recognized by the ruling junta and Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of Burma's pro-democracy movement, was denied her victory. She has been under house-arrest ever since. Now an economic satellite and political dependent of the People's Republic of China, Burma is at a crossroads. Will it become another North Korea, will it succumb to China's political embrace or will the people prevail? Michael Charney's book- the first general history of modern Burma in over five decades - traces the highs and lows of Burma's history from its colonial past to the devastation of Cyclone Nargis in 2008. By exploring key themes such as the political division between lowland and highland Burma and monastic opposition to state control, the author explains the forces that have made the country what it is today.

Imperial Military Transportation in British Asia sheds light on attempts by royal engineers to introduce innovations devised in the UK to wartime India, Iraq, and Burma, as well as the initial resistance of local groups of colonial railwaymen to such metropolitan innovations. Michael W. Charney looks at the role of the railways in the First Burma Campaign to show how some kinds of military technology - as an example of imperial knowledge - faced resistance due to 1930s-era colonial insularity. The delay this caused significantly compromised the early defense of the colony when the Japanese invaded in 1942. Charney examines the efforts made by one engineer in particular to revive the railways and shows how this effort was responsible for the development of a truly imperial technology that was suitable for extra-European contexts and finally won acceptance in India. Incorporating newly accessible primary source material from the files of the military Director of Transportation during the Campaign, this book highlights a hitherto unfilled gap in the archival record and explores an ignored but crucial aspect of the 1942 Japanese invasion of Burma.

Fast-paced economic growth in Southeast Asia from the late 1960s until the mid-1990s brought increased attention to the overseas Chinese as an economically successful diaspora and their role in this economic growth. Events that followed, such as the transfer of Hong Kong and Macau to the People's Republic of China, the election of a non-KMT government in Taiwan, the Asian economic crisis and the plight of overseas Chinese in Indonesia as a result, and the durability of the Singapore economy during this same crisis, have helped to sustain this attention.

The study of the overseas Chinese has by now become a global enterprise, raising new theoretical problems and empirical challenges. New case studies of overseas Chinese, such as those on communities in North America, Cuba, India, and South Africa, continually unveil different perspectives. New kinds of transnational connectivities linking Chinese communities are also being identified. It is now possible to make broader generalizations of a Chinese diaspora, on a global basis. Further, the intensifying study of the overseas Chinese has stimulated renewed intellectual vigor in other areas of research. The transnational and transregional activities of overseas Chinese, for example, pose serious challenges to analytical concepts of regional divides such as that between East and Southeast Asia.

Despite the increased attention, new data, and the changing theoretical paradigms, basic questions concerning the overseas Chinese remain. The papers in this volume seek to understand the overseas Chinese migrants not just in terms of the overall Chinese diaspora per se, but also local Chinese migrants adapting to local societies, in differentnational contexts.