Asian history Books

Book SynopsisPeople Called Ladakh is a heart-warming anthology of slice-of-life stories about Ladakh's unique identity, told through the everyday experiences, livelihoods, rituals, practices and belief systems of its people. The writers who have contributed to this anthology come from diverse backgrounds. They include researchers, cultural practitioners, local architects, anthropology students, as well as a Buddhist nun. Through the lens of the people of Ladakh, and more importantly, through the lens of empathy', the thirty-two pieces in this collection paint a rich and intimate picture of today's Ladakh.

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Book SynopsisIn 1954, in the small town of Silvassa, wind blows through desolate streets. Doors are bolted for the first time, windows shuttered. The town is silent, except for the soft, persistent patter of August rain. The only movement is that of a group of outsiders, gathering stealthily around the barricaded Silvassa police post, their faces grim. A man raises his hand to signal the othersit is time.

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Book SynopsisNusantaria often referred to as ''Maritime Southeast Asia'' is the world''s largest archipelago and has, for centuries, been a vital cultural and trading hub. Nusantara, a Sanskrit, then Malay, word referring to an island realm, is here adapted to become Nusantaria - denoting a slightly wider world but one with a single linguistic, cultural and trading base. Nusantaria encompasses the lands and shores created by the melting of the ice following the last Ice Age. These have long been primarily the domain of the Austronesian-speaking peoples and their seafaring traditions. The surrounding waters have always been uniquely important as a corridor connecting East Asia to India, the Middle East, Europe and Africa. In this book, Philip Bowring provides a history of the world''s largest and most important archipelago and its adjacent coasts. He tells the story of the peoples and lands located at this crucial maritime and cultural crossroads, from its birth following the last Ice ATrade Review“Bowring, in a remarkable display of taut writing, whisks us through the archipelago's geological eruption and mythic floods to the rise and fall of multiple port states and emerging regional dynasties and into the modern era of disruption, decay and dismemberment in less than 300 pages. At the same time, he does a wonderful demolition job on Beijing's self-serving take on Asian history.” * South China Morning Post *“[Bowring] writes this rich and rambling history as in fact a narrative of change and renewal … It is not easy to convince policymakers that history might be the place to look for solutions, yet we have nowhere else to turn to imagine what might yet be possible.” * Literary Review *“Beautifully presented with numerous informative maps, excellent illustrations and a very useful glossary, it is both a fascinating read and a very valuable history of one of the world's most important regions.” * Baird Maritime *“Rich in detail, and laced with vivid anecdotes ... Bowring notes that Nusantaria is just as vulnerable to climate change as it was after the Ice Age ... will the book's excellent maps of Nusantaria have to be drawn again?” * The Correspondent *“This hardcover book is handsomely produced with a beautiful dust jacket showing fine Nusantarian galleys in the Moluccas, recorded during the Louis de Freycinet expedition of 1817–20. It's a volume that offers readers a deeper understanding of the vibrant maritime peoples and events that unfolded literally on Australia's tropical northern doorstep, to better appreciate the complex development of the human, political and economic region that we inhabit.” * Jeffrey Mellefont, New Mandela *“This is an important and timely book. Whatever its shortcomings as formal history—and Philip Bowring states clearly that he is no specialist and no academic—for the suitably forewarned general reader at whom it is aimed, who is looking to better understand a complex and pivotal region of the modern world, Empire of the Winds is a must-read.” * Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong *“Bowring has taken on the mission of restoring to its rightful place in world history a region that shaped global trade, and with its unrivalled shipbuilding techniques and navigation skills drew disparate cultures – and their ideas and know-how – together across vast oceans, and whose contribution to humankind’s domi­nion over this planet’s resources has been largely forgotten.” * Post Magazine *Table of ContentsList of Maps and Illustrations Glossary Preface Introduction 1. Child of a Drowned Parent 2. Nusantaria's Defining Features and Early People 3. To Babylon and Back 4. Ghosts of Early Empires 5. Culture from India, Goods from China 6. Srivijaya: Vanished Great Mandala 7. Java Takes Centre Stage 8. Tamil Tigers of Trade 9. Champa: Master of the East Sea 10. Malagasy Genes and African Echoes 11. China Raises its Head 12. The Majapahit Good Life 13. Tremble and Obey: The Zheng He Voyages 14. Nails, Dowels and Improbable Ships 15. Malay Melaka's Lasting Legacy 16. The Northern Outliers 17. Islam's Great Leap East 18. Nusantaria: Holed near the Waterline 19. Barangays and Baybayin 20. Makassar, Bugis and Freedom of the Seas 21. Where Kings Reign but Priests Rule 22. The Sulu Factor: Trading, Raiding, Slaving 23. Nusantaria's Existential Crisis 24. Labour, Capital, Kongsi: The Power of the Chinese 25. High Noon of Occupation 26. Empty Lands No Longer 27. Freedom, Fears and the Future Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisExcellent. The Economist A gripping account. South China Morning PostWell worth reading. The Morning StarA persuasive and readable narrative. History TodayElegantly written. The Tablet An excellent study. The Chartist Engaging. Asia Times The events of 1949 in China reverberated across the world and throughout the rest of the century. That tumultuous year saw the dramatic collapse of Chiang Kai-shek's pro-Western' Nationalist government, overthrown by Mao Zedong and his communist armies, and the foundation of the People's Republic of China.China 1949 follows the huge military forces that tramped across the country, the exile of once-powerful leaders and the alarm of the foreign powers watching on. The well-known figures of the Revolution are all here. But so are lesser known military and political leaders along with a host of ordinary' Chinese citizeTrade ReviewAdds to our understanding of the rise of Chairman Mao. * The Independent *An excellent new book about the founding year of the People’s Republic. * The Economist *China 1949: Year of Revolution is a gripping account... the book answers in meticulous detail the big question: why did the Communists win?... an excellent record of one of the most important historical events of the 20th century. * South China Morning Post Magazine *An excellent book, which confines its focus to the pivotal year which ended 30 years of chaos and civil conflict and opened a new chapter in China’s history — and the world’s. Well worth reading. * Morning Star *A persuasive and readable narrative of that critical year, accurately emphasising the catastrophic shortcomings of the Nationalists and of Chiang Kai-shek that contributed to their defeat… China 1949 brings this critical year to life and is a good starting point for understanding how the People's Republic of China developed. * History Today *Well researched and elegantly written. * The Tablet *Provides an engaging day-by-day account of those momentous events … For those wishing to pursue the subject in greater detail, this volume lays an excellent foundation. * Asia Times *This is an excellent study and highly recommended. * The Chartist *This book offers an accessible, authoritative account that provides orientation on where things were at the very start of the great Communist project, and some way of understanding better where they stand today. * Asian Affairs *‘A wonderful read for students and general readers why 1949 was a fateful and pivotal year that changed the fate of the most populous country in the world. It shows vividly that the Communist Party did not come to power riding on the tide of a great revolution that swept across China but it seized the mandate of Heaven as successive imperial dynasties had done in the past – by military conquest.’ * Steve Tsang, Professor of Chinese Studies and Director of the China Institute, SOAS University of London, UK [and author of A Modern History of Hong Kong] *China 1949 is a compelling achievement. First, Hutchings gives a clear, balanced account of the titanic forces that brought to power one of the most important political movements of the 20th century, the Chinese Communist Party. But then, he gives the book a deeply humane and moving heart with accounts of the emotions and dilemmas felt both by those who supported the revolution and those who opposed it. This is history on the grand scale but with a brilliant, observant eye for the complexities that underpin this pivotal event. * Rana Mitter, Director of the University China Centre, University of Oxford, UK, and author of China's Good War: How World War II is Shaping a New Nationalism *‘The Chinese have recently celebrated the 70th anniversary of a revolution which changed the course of world history. Graham Hutchings reveals the extent of the Communist triumph in that epoch-making year, and the countervailing humiliation of the Nationalists. The book is well researched, tells a fascinating story with pace and elegance, and illuminates what is happening in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong today.’ * Simon Scott Plummer, Feature Writer on East Asia for The Times, Diplomatic Correspondent and Chief Foreign Leader Writer for The Daily Telegraph, and frequent reviewer for Times Literary Supplement and The Tablet *An interesting aspect for today's readers is the book's contribution to understanding current issues surrounding China and its place in the world. * China2025.nl (Bloomsbury Translation) *The victory of Chinese Communist forces over those of China’s Nationalist Government in 1949 is one of the great climacterics of the twentieth century. Not only did it define China’s subsequent political trajectory, but it also shaped the futures of Taiwan and Hong Kong. China 1949 provides a vivid picture of the final act in the long-drawn-out struggle for power in China. Drawing on a wide range of private papers, archival and Chinese-language sources, Graham Hutchings has achieved the difficult feat of producing a scholarly history that is also a real page turner. He has an unerring ear for the arresting phrase, and writes with elegance and élan. His pacy narrative, viewed through multiple prisms of a varied cast of protagonists ranging from political and military leaders to ‘ordinary’ individuals, is peppered with piquant detail that brings the unfolding events of 1949 vividly to life. * Bob Ash, Emeritus Professor, SOAS, University of London, UK *Table of ContentsPreface Introduction 1. Adversaries 2. “The Event on the Horizon” 3. Peace Postures 4. ‘Offshore China’ 5. Crossing the River 6. Taking the Cities 7. Parallel Worlds 8. Mao’s New World 9. Endgames 10. Afterwards

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Book SynopsisWinner of the Ramnath Goenka Award 2020On 26th January 1950 India became a republic, shedding its last links with its colonial past and inaugurating a new era of liberty and freedom. With fundamental rights and civil liberties guaranteed by the state, the new constitution was universally acclaimed as the world's greatest experiment in liberal government'. This idealistic birth of a new republic meant a clean break with a repressive past. And yet, barely twelve months later, the very makers of the constitution were denouncing their own creation. Passed in June 1951, the First Amendment to the Constitution was a pivotal moment in Indian constitutional history. Sixteen Stormy Days explores the contentious legacy of this First Amendment which drastically curbed freedom of speech, restricted freedom against discrimination and circumscribed the right to property. It follows the sixteen days of debate that led up to it, the people that created it, the great battle waged against it andTrade Review‘A page-turner’ * Soutik Biswas, India Correspondent, BBC *‘Exhaustively researched… very readable…’ * Open Magazine *‘A compelling read’ * Firstpost *‘History written as thriller… exceptional’ * LiveMint *‘A scintillating examination of the First Amendment… Brings the legacies of Nehru and Modi uncomfortably close…’ * The Telegraph *‘Extremely well researched, beautifully written and qualitatively brilliant’ * Comparative Constitutional Law and Administrative Law Journal *‘…simply written, yet riveting account will appeal to legal and academic scholars, as well as a wide readership of interested citizens’ * South Asia Research *This riveting book highlights Nehru’s role in post-colonial India’s first constitutional crisis. Singh’s nuanced perspectives comprehensively capture the historical and legal contexts that defined the event. It is masterfully written—a book for anyone who wants to look behind the veil of the world’s largest constitutional democracy. -- Adeel Hussain, Associate Professor of Legal Studies, New York University, USAThis book is dynamite. It will shock those who take a rosy view of the Constitution and the freedoms it grants to Indian citizens. This story, so far untold, should lead to a serious re-examination of the history and contents of the Constitution. -- Lord Meghnad Desai, Emeritus Professor, London School of Economics, UKA long overdue study of the way in which the liberties guaranteed by India’s constitution were sabotaged by the very government that had promulgated it, thus returning the newly independent state to its colonial origins. -- Professor Faisal Devji, University of Oxford, UKThis blow-by-blow account of the first amendment of the Indian Constitution—arguably the most far-reaching—upends many a comforting myth about the Indian republic. Singh’s gripping account of this hitherto understudied and high-stakes political battle is at its provocative best when it challenges efforts at understanding the past through the lens of one-dimensional heroes and villains. -- Mrinalini Sinha, author of Spectres of Mother India: The Global Restructuring of an EmpireTable of ContentsIntroduction 1. The Build Up 2. Will the People Wait 3. The Deepening Crisis 4. The Gathering Storm 5. The Clouds Burst 6. The Battle Rages 7. The Aftermath Notes Index

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Book SynopsisMapping Bali is the creation of artist Bruce Granquist to record his visual relationship to the island which has been his home for over 30 years. Originally conceived as a straightforward mapping project which produced a detailed large-format topographic of the island, the scope of the project soon dived deep into the essence of the Balinese island soul. This homage to Balinese people and culture encompasses the unique characteristics that makes the island so special; topography, architecture, heritage sites, unusual landscapes, cultural traditions and spirits. Through shared stories with the people he meets in villages throughout the island, this original and intriguing book describes through images and words a personal and deeply felt celebration of the Balinese people.Contents include: Water and Fire Rocks and Water Villages Mapping the Balinese Soul Rituals of Identity North Bali Urban Bali Mapping Today, Mapping Tomorrow

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Book SynopsisA rich, salty, and steaming bowl of noodle soup, ramen Offers an account of geopolitics and industrialization in Japan. It traces the meteoric rise of ramen from humble fuel for the working poor to international icon of Japanese culture.Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction. National Food 1 1. Street Life: Chinese Noodles for Japanese Workers 2. Not an Easy Road: Black Market Ramen and the U.S. Occupation 3. Move On Up: Fuel for Rapid Growth 4. Like It Is, Like It Was: Rebranding Ramen 5. Flavor of the Month: American Ramen and "Cool Japan" Conclusion. Time Will Tell: A Food of Opposition Notes Works Cited Index

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"A reformulation in which ‘Afro’ and ‘Asia’ are loosed to orbit and collide with one another in new ways, presenting nuanced and timely approaches to exchange. . . . Kee’s rich interpretive geometry is a fractal that arcs towards the future." * ArtReview *"Wide-ranging and meticulously compiled, the volume examines artworks from the past century that push our conceptions of Afro Asia beyond the confines of identity and regionalism currently in institutional vogue." * ArtForum *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction 1. Coincident Intensities: Friendship, Comparison, and the Afro Asian Body 2. Angles of Incidence: Interracial Encounters of a Photographic Kind 3. Integral Tangents: Black Arts of Asia 4. Adjacent and Parallel: Planes of Collaboration 5. Circling Afro China: The New Global Majority List of Illustrations Notes Index

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Book SynopsisJianglin Li provides the first clear historical account of the Chinese crackdown in Lhasa in 1959. Sifting facts from the distortions of propaganda and partisan politics, she reconstructs a chronology of events that answers lingering questions and tells a gripping story of a crisis whose aftershocks continue to rattle the region today.Trade ReviewThrough her meticulous research and engaging narrative, Li is the first to convincingly reconstruct the events that forced the Dalai Lama to escape from Tibet. This pathbreaking book helps us understand why the violence of 1959 still resonates to this day. -- Frank Dikötter, author of Mao’s Great FamineA wonderful combination of really good storytelling and meticulous, painstaking research. We are left with a much more thorough understanding of what must have happened in the weeks before and after the Dalai Lama’s escape as well as a new certainty that there is much we will never know—or understand—for sure. -- Anne F. Thurston, coauthor of The Noodle Maker of KalimpongThis remarkable book is told with the narrative force of a compelling novel. Exposing the violence of the ‘peaceful liberation’ and the myth of ‘democratic reform,’ Li’s excavation of Tibet’s agony in the 1950s reveals that Mao hoped for the Tibetans to rise up in order to crush them and bring Tibet under Communist control. This pathbreaking book involved not only painstaking research into sources that have not been made public in English before, but also personal sacrifice by the author, who now lives in exile. -- Kate Saunders, Director of Communications, International Campaign for TibetShould be required reading. -- Jonathan Mirsky * The Spectator *Remarkable…for its meticulously researched and detailed exposé of Chinese duplicity and ruthlessness…What you hear turning every page of this book—the first book written with full access to official Chinese documents and accounts of the events—is the sound of scales falling from the eyes. -- Mick Brown * Literary Review *Li provides a look at March 1959 Lhasa that is by turns poetic and forensic. The book draws from extensive investigation of CCP-published documents, memoirs, and interviews with Tibetan participants, including the Dalai Lama circa 2009. -- Adam Cathcart * Chinese Historical Studies *

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Book SynopsisNeeti Nair explores the trend toward legal protection for the religious “sentiments” of majorities in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Nair offers historical context for contemporary persecution and rising religious fundamentalism, and highlights how growing political solicitation of religious sentiments has fueled a secular resistance.Trade ReviewNeeti Nair’s seminal work is bookended by one of the most significant issues of our times: the contentious and divisive Citizenship Amendments Bill…Its vast sweep of history, dating back to pre-Independence, straddles the space that sits between erudition and expatiation as well as reflection and retelling without descending into pedagogy and pamphleteering. -- Radhika Ramaseshan * The Tribune *This is an important book for all looking at the past to seek answers to what is going on in South Asia at present. -- Paranjoy Guha Thakurta * The Telegraph *Explores how secularism impacted state ideology in the decades after Partition in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh…Brilliant. -- Mani Shankar Aiyar * Frontline *Probably the most important and notable book on South Asian constitutional and political history this year. -- Yasser Latif Hamdani * Friday Times *A timely reminder that ascendant expressions of intolerance in South Asia are not aberrations…By exploring the connected historical causes of its current embattled state in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, Hurt Sentiments stands out as an original work of research that has much to offer to scholars of South Asian history and politics. -- Shreya Das * South Asian Review *Represents a notable addition to the scholarly discourse on the evolving dimensions of secularism. This intellectual history work delves into the foundational and early years of the South Asian states, providing valuable insights into the complex interplay between secularism, identity and belonging. …This is an essential read. -- Ammad Ali * The News *[Nair is] able to simultaneously address those uninitiated in the politics of Hindu majoritarianism and minority communalism with a thought-through and riveting text, as well as provide food for contemplation for those who track the rise of divisive politics in India and its neighbours. -- Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay * Business Standard *A wide-ranging exploration of the many ways in which ‘hurt sentiments’ have been weaponised to disenfranchise and ghettoise religious minorities not just in India but across the subcontinent…Compelling. -- Paromita Chakrabarti * Indian Express *Richly layered and draw[s] upon a wealth of details…The real story—and this is indeed the novelty and strength of Nair’s book—is how Gandhi’s death, and Godse’s defence in court shaped post colonial secularism, and the way in which minority rights were framed. -- Manisha Sethi * Biblio *Provides helpful detail about parliamentary and constitutional debates in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan to show how majoritarian parties and interests mobilized and expanded the scope of ‘hurt sentiments’ to marginalize minorities…A valuable resource for students and scholars of South Asia. -- Humeira Iqtidar * Asian Affairs *An important contribution…Give[s] critical insights into the ideology and practices of South Asian secularists and their role in the weakening of secularism as a political force in the region. -- Sunny Kumar * Indian Economic and Social History Review *If defining concepts is an attempt to make our societies livable, it is a task worth to be taken. Nair does a remarkable job of showing how South Asian lawmakers navigated it. The book provides insights into what happened at the founding moments that influence the trajectory of the political life in the nation and its constituent elements, notably the marginalized. -- Iymon Majid * Doing Sociology *The strength of the book is its historical detail and its comparative work. Nair maps out in great detail how each of these three nations — India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, begin with secularism as an ideology of the state. -- Shefali Jha * Book Review *An engaging, insightful, and deeply researched account of the trajectory of secularism in South Asia. Nair brilliantly juxtaposes debates in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh to reveal how ‘hurt sentiments’ have imperiled secularism in different ways. Her focus on the late 1960s and 1970s as a pivotal moment in the transformation of secularism is entirely original, and powerfully illuminates its contemporary politics. -- Pratap Bhanu Mehta, author of The Burden of DemocracyBreaking important new ground, Nair tracks the convoluted history of secularist practices in the subcontinent, in contrast to the more conventional preoccupation with their conceptual content. In the process, she enriches and complicates theories of Indian secularism. Historians and political sociologists of South Asia, as well as political theorists in general, will find much to appreciate. A truly significant work. -- Tanika Sarkar, author of Hindu Nationalism in IndiaOpening with a brilliant chapter on the political aftermath of Gandhi’s assassination, Nair offers a new, compelling interpretation of the place of religion in the public life of postcolonial India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Hurt Sentiments deftly reconnects the history of ideas with the history of governmental practice. Making extensive and skillful use of constituent assembly and parliamentary debates, Nair provides a rare depth of historical understanding of censorship, civil liberties, blasphemy laws, and the fraught quest for secularism in the subcontinent. -- Sugata Bose, author of His Majesty’s Opponent: Subhas Chandra Bose and India’s Struggle against EmpireIn a wide-ranging intellectual history, Nair deftly explores the interrelated trajectories of freedom of expression to religion and public life in India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. Hurt Sentiments offers a thoughtful history that is urgently relevant to questions of the present day. -- Alyssa Ayres, author of Our Time Has Come: How India Is Making Its Place in the WorldThis timely book speaks to the embattled state of secularism and minorities in South Asia over the last few years, keeping in view the legacies of colonialism and partition. Crossing national boundaries, it offers an insightful history of how majoritarian politics has mobilized the idea of ‘hurt sentiments’ to marginalize minority communities and redefine state ideologies in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Nair makes clear that the fate of secularism is not about an abstract ideology but concerns the polities where minorities enjoy equality. -- Gyan Prakash, author of Emergency Chronicles: Indira Gandhi and Democracy’s Turning PointA sensitive, historically textured, and wide-ranging assessment of the way in which hate speech and the weaponizing of ‘hurt sentiments’ efface the political agency of religious minorities across India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Nair assesses key conjunctures in colonial and postcolonial South Asia that led to either creative debate about constitutional guarantees for minorities or violent populist sentiment winning the day. Essential reading for our troubled times. -- Radhika Singha, author of The Coolie's Great War: Indian Labour in a Global Conflict, 1914–1921

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Book SynopsisThe first intellectual history of Song, Yuan, and Ming China written from a local perspective, Localizing Learning traces how debates over the relative value of cultural accomplishment and political service unfolded locally. Close readings and quantitative analysis of social networks consider why and how the local literati enterprise was built.

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Book SynopsisJuliane Noth shows how art and discussions about the future of ink painting were linked to the reshaping of the country, leading to the creation of a uniquely modern Chinese landscape imagery. Noth offers a new understanding of these experiments by studying them as transmedial practice, at once shaped by and integral to the modern global art world.Trade Review[An] important new volume…It will be necessary reading for all scholars of Republican China’s cultural politics. -- Craig Clunas * Journal of Chinese History *A comprehensive and insightful series of analyses on the problems of landscape painting and its practitioners at the junction of intermediation via photography, and on the need to proclaim and reinforce the continuity of ‘Chinese landscape painting’. Because of its detail and precise analysis this text will be an important reference for some time. -- John Clark * 21: Inquiries into Art, History, and the Visual *

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Book SynopsisZongyuan Zoe Liu provides the first in-depth examination of sovereign funds in China. Under President Xi, the state has become an aggressive financier, using sovereign funds at home and abroad to secure allies and influence, boost strategic industries like semiconductors and fintech, and pick winners among domestic businesses and multinationals.Trade Review[Sovereign Funds] takes up a particular aspect of China’s economic statecraft, showing how it employs its financial resources to promote its interests abroad…Give[s] us a much better understanding of what needs to be done to restrain China abroad. -- Edward Chancellor * Wall Street Journal *Revealing…It describes the personalities, facts and figures that undergird the labyrinthine and often secret world of Chinese state money and the strategies that Beijing deploys to secure strategic assets around the world. -- James Kynge * Financial Times *Liu, an expert on international political economy at the Council on Foreign Relations, shows how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) uses ‘sovereign leverage funds’ to promote fiscal security at home and geopolitical influence abroad. -- Francis P. Sempa * New York Journal of Books *Sovereign Funds raises broader questions about the presence of such funds in the financial system and the role that can be played by state finance in the global marketplace…It offers an insightful look into the permutations of the Chinese state in response to privatisation. -- Seth O'Farrell * fDi Intelligence *A fascinating insight into the evolution of China’s financial policy and its strategic investments using leveraged foreign exchange reserves. -- Diane Coyle * Enlightened Economist *[Liu] shows that Chinese sovereign funds are so different from better-known sovereign wealth funds, such as those of the governments of Abu Dhabi and Norway, that she prefers to call them ‘sovereign leveraged funds’…These various exotic workarounds, which Liu skillfully traces, produce ‘shadow reserves.’ -- Andrew J. Nathan * Foreign Affairs *Follow the money, find the politics…Liu shows how China pioneered a whole new class of sovereign wealth funds. * Times of India *A novel and fascinating history of China’s rich and powerful sovereign wealth funds, which play an outsize role in the country’s strategy for both international development and external influence. -- Kenneth Rogoff, Maurits C. Boas Chair of International Economics at Harvard University and former Chief Economist of the IMFZoe Liu’s pathbreaking book uncovers how and why the Chinese Communist Party employs sovereign leveraged funds to further state interests at home and abroad. This is a must-read for anyone interested in the causes and consequences of China’s rise. -- Thomas J. Christensen, author of The China Challenge: Shaping the Choices of a Rising PowerSovereign wealth funds were once considered anomalies but are now becoming the trend. China’s sovereign wealth funds have grown rapidly and become increasingly important in the face of deglobalization; their unique model and widespread impact are worth exploring and assessing. Liu’s book is a fascinating account of and reflection on what she calls ‘sovereign leveraged funds.’ Whether you agree with its conclusions or not, you should read it. -- Jin Xu, author of Empire of Silver: A New Monetary History of ChinaSovereign Funds is a revealing account of the origins and evolution of China’s sovereign leveraged funds. This book is a must-read for any serious observer of China’s global economic and financial strategy. -- Edwin M. Truman, Senior Fellow, Harvard Kennedy School, and former Assistant Secretary of the US TreasuryZoe Liu provides deep insight into China's sovereign leveraged funds, fascinating institutions that play a crucial role in the often fraught relationship between state and market, with implications and lessons for many other countries. This is essential reading for those interested in China's development and its economic engagement with the world. -- Martin Chorzempa, author of The Cashless RevolutionLiu provides the definitive account of how wide and how deep China’s sovereign wealth funds have penetrated global capital markets. Her identification of ‘sovereign leveraged funds’ amounts to a major conceptual breakthrough in the study of global financial flows, bringing to light how any state with the political will and financial engineering prowess can launch a fund to further its strategic interests. In a moment of fraught financial tensions between the United States and China, Sovereign Funds will prove an indispensable book for policymakers and academics alike. -- John Yasuda, author of On Feeding the Masses: An Anatomy of Regulatory Failure in China

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Book SynopsisThe Mongols are universally known as conquerors, but they were more than that: influential thinkers, politicians, engineers, and merchants. Challenging the view that nomads are peripheral to history, The Horde reveals the complex empire the Mongols built and traces its enduring imprint on politics and society in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.Trade ReviewOutstanding, original, and revolutionary. Favereau subjects the Mongols to a much-needed re-evaluation, showing how they were able not only to conquer but to control a vast empire. A remarkable book. -- Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk RoadsThe Mongols have been ill-served by history, the victims of an unfortunate mixture of prejudice and perplexity…The Horde flourished, in Favereau’s fresh, persuasive telling, precisely because it was not the one-trick homicidal rabble of legend. * Wall Street Journal *In medieval European times, the Mongols ruled a vast area of the Eurasian landmass stretching as far to the west as modern Ukraine. Favereau, a French specialist on nomadic empires, achieves the exceptional feat of writing about this era in a way that is accessible to general readers as well as scholarly. -- Tony Barber * Financial Times *Fascinating…The Mongols were a sophisticated people with an impressive talent for government and a sensitive relationship with the natural world…An impressively researched and intelligently reasoned book that will be welcomed by historians of the Mongol Empire. -- Gerard DeGroot * The Times *A major achievement: it is thorough, accurate and complex, yet also accessible to a broad readership. Her blow-by-blow account of Mongol life and politics as one ruler falls and another rises is the most complete we have. Even better, the book is not solely focused on the Mongols. Favereau is an integrative historian committed to showing how the Horde influenced other peoples and shaped world history…Readers will enjoy the richness and clarity of The Horde. -- Timothy Brook * Literary Review *The first book to be devoted exclusively to the Golden Horde. It is at once a microhistory, dense with regional politics and war, and a survey of the Horde’s wider influence. -- Colin Thubron * New York Review of Books *A wonderful book…Suffice to say that in their politics, administration, family lives and, yes, their warfare, the Mongols were far more complicated than we think. -- Stephen L. Carter * Bloomberg Opinion *Favereau’s narrative is extremely rich in ethnographic detail and descriptions of succession battles, military campaigns, and internecine warfare. Favereau seeks to exonerate the Horde, which in her view is too often portrayed as merely a plundering force. -- Maria Lipman * Foreign Affairs *Eye-opening…A meaningful corrective to popular misconceptions about Mongols’ role in world history. * Publishers Weekly *Rather than being the murderous mob depicted in film and popular history, the Mongol horde, this book reveals, was a complex Euro-Asian culture…[Favereau] dispels the myth that it was just a rampaging mass of warriors; it possessed great governing skills, was adept at social relationships, and remained a major force on the Eurasian landmass until it began to withdraw eastward after the Black Death. * Kirkus Reviews *Although it had no permanent settlements and farmlands, the Horde was an advanced civilization as well as a formidable military power. Its leaders, all literate, ran a well-organized communications network that kept its far-flung population in constant touch…Reading The Horde is like immersing oneself in a sprawling epic. -- Christopher Moore * Literary Review of Canada *In The Horde, an ambitiously revisionist account of the Mongol Empire, Favereau presents the thirteenth- and fourteenth-century conquerors of the steppe as sophisticated stewards of globalism, rulers who practiced remarkable tolerance, and stimulated far-reaching economic growth. -- Dinyar Patel * Scroll *It is far too often forgotten that Asia’s nomadic empires, from the Sogdians and Huns through the Parthians and Seljuks, were key drivers of greater Asia’s rich cultural diversity. This extraordinary book vividly details how the nomadic Mongols operated the largest empire of the premodern world, through practices that continue to shape today’s world. -- Parag Khanna, author of The Future Is AsianTerrific—a really important reassessment of the origins of one of the great empires in history. -- Peter Frankopan * The Spectator *[An] ambitious book with a huge range. It presents this world in its full complexity. It’s an incredibly compelling read and it changes the way you see the world. -- Paul Lay * Five Books *A deeply compelling, sympathetic, and highly engaging account of how the Horde was created and of its lasting impact on the evolution of what we now call ‘globalization.’ Favereau’s book will transform our understanding of world history. -- Anthony Pagden, author of Worlds at WarFavereau’s detailed and objective account of the Mongol conquest and rule of Russia rescues the era from dark neglect and prejudice to reveal its powerful positive and negative influences in shaping modern Eurasia. This highly readable and deeply informed work fills in one of history’s important missing chapters. -- Jack Weatherford, author of Genghis Khan and the Quest for GodCombining material and textual sources, Favereau has written the best book on the Jochid Khanate: the first to see events resolutely from a Jochid perspective, without foreclosing on the vast contexts that bind the history of the Horde to that of Eurasia and the world. -- Felipe Fernández-Armesto, author of PathfindersIn this riveting book, Favereau shows how the most enduring descendants of Chinggis Khan’s Mongol imperium—the Western or ‘Golden’ Horde—fashioned an exceptionally resilient imperial system with far-reaching influence in western Eurasia. She has challenged us to think afresh about how mobility and empire can be fused into dynamic political and cultural forms. -- John Darwin, author of After TamerlaneThe Horde is not the first history to challenge the depiction of the Mongol Empire as governed solely by ruthless conquerors and plunderers, but it is the most nuanced and comprehensive history. -- Francis P. Sempa * New York Journal of Books *An exciting new addition to a rich pool of contemporary scholarship in the field. -- Madhumita Mazumdar * The Telegraph (India) *A book that has profound ramifications for our understanding of European and Eurasian history…Irrefutably enthrones the Mongol Empire as one of the great drivers of global history. -- Emily Couch * Moscow Times *

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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Book SynopsisPresents an English translation of the famous Chinese handbook, the "Chieh Tzu Yuan Hua Chuan" (original, 1679-1701). This title includes annotations of the texts of instructions, discussions of the fundamentals of painting, notes on the preparation of colors, and chief editorial prefaces.Trade Review"The Mustard Seed Garden will always be one of the greatest manuals of the most marvellous painting the world has ever known, and one cannot be too grateful for having it, with its commentary, available in English."--Journal of the Royal Central Asian SocietyTable of Contents*Frontmatter, pg. i*Publisher's Note, pg. v*Contents, pg. vii*Traditional Chronology, pg. viii*Introduction, pg. ix*Preface to the Shanghai (1887-88) Edition, pg. 1*Preface to the First (1679) Edition, pg. 11*The Fundamentals of Painting, pg. 15*Book of Trees, pg. 51*Book of Rocks, pg. 127*Book of Jen-wu, pg. 219*Preface to Parts II and III of the First Complete Edition (1701), pg. 317*Book of the Orchid, pg. 321*Book of the Bamboo, pg. 359*Book of the Plum, pg. 397*Book of the Chrysanthemum, pg. 433*Book of Grasses, Insects, and Flowering Plants, pg. 465*Book of Feathers-and-Fur and Flowering Plants, pg. 523*Concluding Notes on the Preparation of Colors, pg. 579*Summary of the Chieh TAUzu Yuan Hua Chuan, pg. 589*Appendix: Analysis of Basic Terms, pg. 609*Index, pg. 623

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Winner of the George McT. Kahin Prize, Association for Asian Studies""Winner of the Distinguished Book Award in Non-U.S. History, Society for Military History""Winner of the Raphael Lemkin Book Award, Institute for the Study of Genocide""Longlisted for the 2019 ICAS Book Prize in Humanities, International Convention of Asia Scholars""One of the Financial Times' Best Books of 2018: History""One of Foreign Affairs' Picks for Best of Books 2018"

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Recommended and long overdue."---Tyler Cowen, Marginal Revolution"One of the most comprehensive accounts of opposition politics as carried by key individuals and organisations, their initiatives, and its impact. . . . Within economics, economic history and history of economic thought are two separate disciplines. [Toward a Free Economy] traverses both and goes beyond in its effort to tell the story of India’s opposition in its early days. The book lays down a fertile ground for future researchers to further explore."---Kumar Anand, The Hindu"Exhaustively researched."---Archis Mohan, Business Standard"An instant classic."---Sanjeet Kashyap, Australian Outlook

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Winner of the Bentley Book Prize, World History Association""[A] deeply researched study. . . . Distant Shores succeeds in its objective to further nuance the conventional narrative of China’s decline throughout the long 19th century by shifting the gaze to the southeastern littoral."---Yorim Spoelder, Asian Review of Books"[An] excellent study. . . . This compelling work not only provides a fresh look at the rationale behind the first Opium War, but also importantly deconstructs the rhetoric of the widely accepted fundamental divergence of Europe and China supposed to have developed starting in the eighteenth century."---Bart Dessein, Journal of the European Association for Chinese Studies

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"The Price of Collapse is a little gem."---Rana Mitter, Literary Review

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Book SynopsisIn 1644, the Manchus, a relatively unknown people inhabiting China's northeastern frontier, overthrew the Ming, Asia's mightiest rulers, and established the Qing dynasty, This book supplies a radically new perspective on the formative period of the modern Chinese nation.Trade Review"This book is the most interesting history ever written of the Manchus in Chinese life, and one of the most important contributions to Qing studies in the last decade. . . . It is engagingly, even elegantly written, with enviable clarity and nice touches of ironic humor."—Timothy Brook, University of Toronto"[The Manchu Way] will be important reading not only for all historians of China but for all students of the history of the early modern world. Formidable in its learning, it is very lucidly written, makes its arguments clearly, and is full of vivid descriptions and quotations."—American Historical Review"By examining the details of garrison life, using extensive archival materials written only in Manchu, Elliot draws an insiders' picture of their world. . . . Elliot offers a rich fund of material and a new and powerful argument that is vital reading for anyone interested in the transition from empire to nation around the world."—The Journal of Interdisciplinary History"This is a wide-ranging and innovative book. Furthermore, it is written in a lively, accessible style . . . .It will also be stimulating for readers interested in ethnicity, identity, and the creation of empires. Overall, it is undoubtedly a scholarly achievement of the highest order."—History Today"The current volume, an expansion and recasting of the dissertation, contributes to the ongoing shift in our understanding of the Qing period by providing much-needed empirical grounding as well as valuable new insights. [Mark Elliot's] book serves simultaneously as historical ethnography, institutional history, and an essay on the role of ethnicity in Qing history."—Harvard Review of Asiatic Studies

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Surak's Making Tea, Making Japan is one of the most astute studies of the ceremony to appear in decades. Beyond tea aficionados, Surak's book should be read by scholars and students of culture and nationalism because Surak's main contribution is showing how these two fields of embodied culture and nationalism are so deeply intermeshed in the practice of tea."—Eric C. Rath, Journal of Japanese Studies"The author gives a wealth of detail on the tea ceremony itself . . . Tea captures the essence of Japanese-ness as well as the virtue of the East Asian mentality. Surak writes in a compelling way about how Japanese intellectuals used tea to emblemize Japan's role as the last repository of East Asian culture, which was at risk of falling prey to the 'White Disaster' . . . [Making Tea, Making the State] offers a useful account of how tea culture permeates Japanese history and contemporary society."—Danielle Kane, American Journal of Sociology"Kristin Surak's elegantly written analysis of the tea ceremony is an excellent addition to the literature on cultural nationalism . . . [T]his book is a meticulous study of tea. Surak resists the temptation of falling into clichés and offers a vibrant analysis of the practice through historical reconstruction, institutional analysis, ethnographic inquiry, and phenomenological description . . . Surak's study is theoretically innovative and essential for sociologists and anthropologists."—Stephanie Assmann, Social History"A regrettable schizophrenia characterizes the study of nationalism, with macro and micro analysts rarely engaging rival views. Hence, Kristin Surak's book is a theoretical breakthrough, showing the changing functions and social bearers of a single ritual over a long and troubled historical record. Elegantly written and extraordinarily argued."—John A. Hall, James McGill Professor of Comparative Historical Sociology, McGill University"Kristin Surak's fine study unpacks the social and historical context of tea and its ceremonial preparation as a highly illustrative case in point of nationalized cultural production and representation. Deftly crossing disciplinary boundaries between anthropology, sociology, and history, Making Tea, Making Japan is a well-crafted and interpretively provocative book that anyone with an interest in Japanese society and the theoretical dynamics of nationalism will find fascinating . . . [B]eautifully written and lucidly argued, the book offers much of value for scholars and students of modern Japan and the cultural manifestations of national identity there and in other parts of the world."—Erik Esselstrom, Histoire sociale / Social History"If you were ever curious about just what makes the tea ceremony such a Japanese thing, then Kristin Surak's book, Making Tea, Making Japan, should answer your questions from all possible angles. . . Surak's passion and love for the topic emanate from the pages. . . This is not a simple guidebook to enchant novices and teach them the basic steps to get started in the Japanese ritual of 'tea'. Surak's comprehensive research will take those interested deep into the practice's background and allow them to see the tea ceremony as a window into the soul of Japanese national identity. "—Metropolis"The book uses historical analysis to show how tea became an important measure of national competence, and ethnographic analysis to show how the processes of differentiation occur. All this is achieved in elegant prose that is a joy to read."—Chris Perkins, H-Net"Surak's greatest strength is her awareness of the factors that inform the tea ceremony's central place in Japanese society, from commercial structures allowing the seamless delivery of the objects and architecture of tea anywhere on the globe, to the casual use of history—not always accurate—deployed in a Sunday lesson. . . Surak's book offers a scholarly story of choreography and commercialization and will find its way into future dissertations and onto the shelves of school libraries."—Dana Buntrock, Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Cultural Review"Making tea for a guest in Japan is a highly encultured act, demanding much more than a pour of hot water over powdered tea. Kristin Surak has plumbed the depths of the practice and demonstrated the enduring meanings of tea for Japanese performers of the craft."—Merry White, Boston University"Kristin Surak's richly contextualized study shows in vivid detail how and why tea came to be, and remains, such a strong carrier of nation in Japan, at once performance and product. Sociologists in particular will not want to miss the fine ethnographic investigation of the tea ceremony in contemporary Japan."—Priscilla Ferguson, Columbia University"Surak's careful ethnography and clear theoretical analysis demonstrate the historical role of the tea ceremony in constructing and defining the nation, but she also shows how it is an important part of the slightly different work of maintaining and explicating Japanese-ness. Through careful ethnographic details she shows how the tea ceremony is embodied in ways both gendered and historically contingent; how it is used to distinguish Japanese from other Asians, Asia from the West, 'good' Japanese from others who are less good; and how it is carried not only in performative bodies but in places/spaces. This often fascinating and lively study of chanoyu draws the reader through these various, and intertwined, processes over Japan's recent historical past, unpacking a rich trove of material artefacts, rituals, and texts."—Sarah Corse, University of Virginia"Kristin Surak's excellent work, Making Tea, Making Japan, provides an eye-opening survey of the history and practice of chanoyu that reveals the tea world's institutional frameworks and patterns of authority, physical and material aspects of its training and practice, and its representation to general audiences."— Nancy Stalker, Monumenta Nipponica

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Book SynopsisTrade Review“Despite the depressing story that it has to tell, Land’s End is a real pleasure to read, a tour de force without a trace of bombast, a model of ethnographic writing for new generations of students and agrarian researchers to follow.” -- Ben White * Development and Change *“Every so often we have the privilege of reading a book that, like Tania Li’s Land’s End, radically realigns our thinking on pressing problems. Li combines a nuanced analysis of long-term ethnographic data and a straightforward, yet sophisticated, theoretical framework to prod us to reexamine an issue that is hardly unique to Indonesia: how have landless rural people been left behind in the march toward capitalist agricultural production and market expansion?" -- Sarah Lyon * Anthropological Quarterly *“This text adds deep and valuable ethnographic insight to existing narratives of the emergence of capitalist relations in indigenous societies. It rightfully challenges structuralist accounts of primitive accumulation using detailed ethnographic data. As such, it should be read, and likely will be, beyond the borders of development studies and anthropology." -- Christopher Webb * Canadian Journal of Development Studies *"Land’s End is book of delicate power, almost a laboratory account of how capital seizes hold and transforms the latticework of social relations through an almost banal process of ‘erosion’, where the bearers of capital, unrecognized, participate in the re-invention of their own ‘subject’ position. … Aided by artful ethnography, Land’s End crafts a strange yet deeply familiar world. Many sedimentary views are felled along the way, gently but firmly. Notions of indigeneity, frontier, custom, moral economy, primitive accumulation, transition, development, and citizenship, all come in for scrutiny and are left rattled.” -- Vinay Gidwani * Antipode *"The combination of the ethnographic longevity of her work with the theoretical sophistication of her analysis results in a provocative account of growing inequality and dynamic capitalist relations. The case studies and stories Li relates bring these elements to life, but the implications stretch far beyond the Lauje highlands." -- Susan M. Darlington * American Ethnologist *"Land’s End is a very fine book indeed. Tania Murray Li has written one of those studies—all too few in number—which, while empirically focused, builds an argument that will resonate with scholars working across widely differing contexts." -- Jonathan Rigg * Pacific Affairs *"Land’s End operates at a compelling theoretical interspace very much needed in contemporary accounts of globalization. . . . In short, it’s really good anthropology." -- Shane Greene * American Anthropologist *“Land’s End is a thorough and compelling piece of ethnographic scholarship. Written in very accessible narrative style, but appropriately grounded in social theory, it is a great read for social scientists, graduate and undergraduate students, rural development practitioners, and inquisitive nonacademics.” -- Ramzi Tubbeh * Rural Sociology *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction 1. Positions 2. Work and Care 3. Enclosure 4. Capitalist Relations 5. Politics, Revisited Conclusion Appendix: Dramatis Personae Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisTextures of the Ordinary shows how life is marked not only by catastrophic events but also by the soft knife of economic deprivation and the repetitive corrosions and routine violence within everyday life itself. As an alternative to normative ethics, this book develops ordinary ethics as attentiveness to the other and as the ability of small acts of care to stand up to horrific violence.Table of ContentsPreface | xi Introduction | 1 1 Wittgenstein and Anthropology: Anticipations | 29 2 A Politics of the Ordinary: Action, Expression, and Everyday Life | 58 3 Ordinary Ethics: Take One | 96 4 Ethics, Self-Knowledge, and Words Not at Home: The Ephemeral and the Durable | 120 5 Disorders of Desire or Moral Striving? Engaging the Life of the Other | 148 6 Psychiatric Power, Mental Illness, and the Claim to the Real: Foucault in the Slums of Delhi | 173 7 The Boundaries of the “We”: Cruelty, Responsibility, and Forms of Life | 198 8 A Child Disappears: Law in the Courts, Law in the Interstices of Everyday Life | 216 9 Of Mistakes, Errors, and Superstition: Reading Wittgenstein’s Remarks on Frazer | 246 10 Concepts Crisscrossing: Anthropology and Knowledge-Making | 275 11 The Life of Concepts: In the Vicinity of Dying | 307 Acknowledgments | 333 Notes | 337 References | 373 Index | 403

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Book SynopsisUntil its recent political thaw, Burma was closed to most foreign researchers, and fieldwork-based research was rare. In The Traffic in Hierarchy, one of the few such works to appear in recent years, author Ward Keeler combines close ethnographic attention to life in a Buddhist monastery with a broad analysis of Burman gender ideology.

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Book SynopsisReassesses conventional understanding of Japan’s Asia-Pacific War by defamiliarizing and expanding the rhetorical narrative. The nine chapters, diverse in theme and method, are united in their goal to recover a measured historicity about the conflict by either introducing new areas of knowledge or reinterpreting existing ones.

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Book SynopsisA groundbreaking study of a little-known and virtually undocumented area of the Chinese decorative arts from 1850 to 1930.Trade Review''Ultimately, Herridge … expertly begins to unwind the complicated histories of the collection. * National Jeweler *Commendable and useful ... the story of jewellery is never just about personal adornment." * Jewelley History Today *A beautifully designed book with a wealth of material … enjoyable strictly for the beautiful photography, but also for anyone with a serious interest in Chinese jewellery. * Textile Research Centre *

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Book SynopsisIn the Event of Women outlines the stakes of what Tani Barlow calls “the event of women.” Focusing on the era of the late nineteenth century through the mid-twentieth century''s Cultural Revolution, Barlow shows that an event is a politically inspired action to install a newly discovered truth, in this case the mammal origins of human social evolution. Highbrow and lowbrow social theory circulating in Chinese urban print media placed humanity''s origin story in relation to commercial capital''s modern advertising industry and the conclusion that women''s liberation involved selling, buying, and advertising industrial commodities. The political struggle over how the truth of women in China would be performed and understood, Barlow shows, means in part that an event of women was likely global because its truth is vested in biology and physiology. In so doing, she reveals the ways in which historical universals are effected in places where truth claims are not usually sTrade Review“This book presents a glorious rethinking of the historical and theoretical relation established between ‘women’ and social ‘truth’ as a universal but also specifically Chinese ‘event’ of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Tani Barlow dissects complexity with forensic precision. In exceptionally clear exposition, she invites us to account for our present through a rigorous analysis of concepts, histories, and the theories of human and female life spun therefrom. Illuminating and essential.” -- Rebecca E. Karl, Professor of History, New York University“Shifting critical focus from area studies and nation, this alluringly erudite book theorizes capital and intellectual history to recenter modern China on the event of women. Tani Barlow positions her delightful reading of hundreds of gendered advertising images as harbingers of Chinese twentieth-century cultural life while reviving exciting Chinese traditions of feminist sociology and political thought. A provocative and creative study, In the Event of Women brings previous approaches to sinology into destabilizing dialogue with broader debates in intellectual history, visual studies, and feminism.” -- Timothy Murray, Professor of Comparative Literature and Literatures in English, Cornell UniversityTable of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction to the Event 1 1. Conditions of Thinking 19 2. Foundational Chinese Sociology 71 3. Vernacular Sociology 100 4. The Social Life of Commercial Ephemera 123 5. Nakedness and Interiority 162 6. Wang Guangmei's Qipao 191 Conclusion 220 Notes 231 Bibliography 259 Index 283

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Book SynopsisIn Queer Companions Omar Kasmani theorizes saintly intimacy and the construction of queer social relations at Pakistan’s most important site of Sufi pilgrimage. Conjoining queer theory and the anthropology of Islam, Kasmani outlines the felt and enfleshed ways in which saintly affections bind individuals, society, and the state in Pakistan through a public architecture of intimacy. Islamic saints become lovers and queer companions just as a religious universe is made valuable to critical and queer forms of thinking. Focusing on the lives of ascetics known as fakirs in Pakistan, Kasmani shows how the affective bonds with the place’s patron saint, a thirteenth-century antinomian mystic, foster unstraight modes of living in the present. In a national context where religious shrines are entangled in the state’s infrastructures of governance, coming close to saints further entails a drawing near to more-than-official histories and public forms of affect. Through varTrade Review“A lyrical and moving meditation on Islamic saints, Sufi intimacies, and affective histories of contemporary Pakistan. Through encounters with fakir life stories, Omar Kasmani offers us an exquisitely written ethnography on the queerness of religion, region, and belonging. Queer Companions pulls us in, moving us toward more radical modes of the social life of the intimate.” -- Anjali Arondekar, author of * For the Record: On Sexuality and the Colonial Archive in India *“Queer Companions presents the reader with perceptive observations that illustrate how desire not only works, but worlds. How striving for saintly companionship puts certain futures within your reach, while this orientation alienates you from other normative ways of life.” -- Max Schnepf * Hypotheses *“By engaging with the ways in which fakirs in Sehwan encounter and experience affective bonds with the more-than-human and more-than-living, Kasmani ingeniously illustrates a form of queer world-making in unexpected places. For those who ruminate on questions pertaining to queerness, Islam, affective encounters with more-than-human entities, and/or religion-state relations, Queer Companions is an essential book and it will truly bloom as a companion in the time to come.” -- Febi R. Ramadhan * Reading Religion *Table of ContentsNote on Orthography ix Acknowledgments xi Introduction. On Coming Close 1 1. Infrastructures of the Imaginal 36 2. Her Stories in His Durbar 60 3. In Other Guises, Other Futures 84 4. Love in a Time of Celibacy 107 5. Worlding Fakirs, Fairies and the Dead 130 Coda. Queer Forward Slash Religion 152 Notes 165 Glossary 181 References 185 Index 201

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Book SynopsisIn Probing Arts and Emergent Forms of Life Michael M. J. Fischer calls for a new anthropology of the arts that attends to the materialities and technologies of the world as it exists today. Fischer examines the work of key Southeast and East Asian artists within the crucibles of unequal access, geopolitics, reverberating past traumas, and emergent socialities. He outlines the work of artist-theorists---including Entang Wiharso, Sally Smart, Charles Lim, Zai Kuning, and Kiran Kumar---who speculate about changing the world in ways that are attuned to its cultivation, repair, and rethinking in the Anthropocene. Their artistic vocabulary not only undoes Western art models and categories; it probes the unfolding future, addresses past trauma, and creates contested, vibrant, and flourishing spaces. Throughout Indonesia, Korea, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam---and from Kumar’s experimental dance to Kuning’s rattan and beeswax ghost ships to Lim’s videography of SingTrade Review"[A] dynamic ethnography of prominent works by contemporary artists in Asia ... Probing Arts and Emergent Forms of Life goes far beyond introducing innovative artists and describing their artworks. It situates contemporary Asian art within ethnographic and geo-political contexts." -- Robin Visser * Journal of Contemporary Asia *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction 1 1. Challenging Art as Cultural Systems 12 2. Synthetic Realism: Postcinema in the Anthropocene 31 3. Feminage, Warang, and the Nervous System (Hauntology and Curation) 71 4. Nomadic Video in Turbulent Sea States: How Art Becomes Critique 100 5. Water Notes on Rattan Strings 132 6. Raw Moves and Layered Communication across the Archipelago Seas 165 Epilogue. Probing Art and Emerging Forms of Life 197 Appendix. The Year 2020 and the Camouflage Painting Series: Conversations with Entang Wiharso 215 Notes 221 References 253 Index 281

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Book SynopsisFar from always having been an isolated nation and a pariah state in the international community, North Korea exercised significant influence among Third World nations during the Cold War era. With one foot in the socialist Second World and the other in the anticolonial Third World, North Korea occupied a unique position as both a postcolonial nation and a Soviet client state, and sent advisors to assist African liberation movements, trained anti-imperialist guerilla fighters, and completed building projects in developing countries. State-run media coverage of events in the Third World shaped the worldview of many North Koreans and helped them imagine a unified anti-imperialist front that stretched from the boulevards of Pyongyang to the streets of the Gaza Strip and the beaches of Cuba. This book tells the story of North Korea's transformation in the Third World from model developmental state to reckless terrorist nation, and how Pyongyang's actions, both in the Third World and on the Korean peninsula, ultimately backfired against the Kim family regime's foreign policy goals. Based on multinational and multi-archival research, this book examines the intersection of North Korea's domestic and foreign policies and the ways in which North Korea's developmental model appealed to the decolonizing world.Trade Review"By calling attention to relations with the Third World as a critical component of North Korea's developing national identity, Guns, Guerillas, and the Great Leader offers a significant and refreshing contribution to understanding the historical development of North Korea that moves beyond the familiar narrative of an emerging state situated amongst China and the Soviet Union in the Cold War context." —Hanmee Kim, Wheaton College"Benjamin R. Young's book is beautifully written, thoroughly researched, and absolutely eye-opening. Guns, Guerillas, and the Great Leader provides an unprecedented look into the causes and consequences of North Korea's struggle for international influence." —Mitchell Lerner, Ohio State University"North Korea has been an isolated nation since the 1990s, but interestingly Young points out odd relics of a time the so-called Hermit Kingdom reached out to the world, such as Kim Il Sung Avenue in Mozambique's capital Maputo. For the casual Korea watcher this book is a surprise: it shows the country's story hasn't been all bad."—Frank Beyer, Asian Review of Books"This is a serious work of history, not a light read, but it's really well researched. More importantly, it manages to say something new and interesting about North Korea, which frankly is rare. Young shows how North Korea was once extremely active in the Third World, building movements against western imperialism that today look militantly quixotic but at the time had revolutionary potential. The dense networks of exchange and patronage that North Korea forged, across the Third World but in Africa especially, added to its own sense of purpose and informed its vision of unification of the Korean Peninsula."—Van Jackson, The Duck of Minerva"Today, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), or North Korea, is widely viewed as a dangerous rogue state that is irrationally pursuing nuclear weapons despite international condemnation and the crushing poverty of its own people... Benjamin Young's Guns, Guerillas, and the Great Leader turns this picture on its head by taking the reader back to a time when North Korea was competing with the world's superpowers by presenting itself as an alternative model of development for Third World audiences."—Daniel Connolly, The Middle Ground Journal"Guns, Guerrillas and the Great Leader rightly underlines the North as the Cold War success story. In the long post war liberation struggles and the aftermath with the sweet success of victory there were appreciations for solidarity and quests for new maps. The North had provided the first home and away."—Glyn Ford, Asian Affairs"[Young's] monograph is a valuable contribution to North Korean, Cold War, and Third World studies, as it provides detailed factual information on Pyongyang's interactions with over twenty Third World states. Its colourful description of the heavy-handed methods of North Korean diplomacy makes it easier to understand why many non-aligned countries, having initially embraced the DPRK, soon became disillusioned with its behaviour. At the same time, the author also demonstrates that North Korea did manage to retain a foothold in certain developing countries even after a series of regime changes, precisely because of the same opportunistic pragmatism that repulsed some other Third World leaders."—Balázs Szalontai, Pacific Affairs"Guns, Guerillas, and the Great Leader is a gem among several new books on North Korean diplomacy and leadership. The book is also very accessible to a wider general audience. Despite the book's weighty subject matter, its title alludes to some of the fascinating anecdotes that fill its pages, thus making Young's first monograph a thoroughly enjoyable read."—Andrew Yeo, H-Diplo"The book is fascinating as it sets out in readable form that inter-Korean legitimacy battle in the early decades of the two states, an era when literally any sovereign territorywith a vote in the UNbecame a sought-after target for both North and South, all the way down to small island chains in the waters of the Caribbean and Pacific."—Christopher Green, H-Diplo"Young has written a compelling and thoughtful book on a subject that has received little attention until now. Given readers' seemingly inexhaustible curiosity about all things North Korea, this is no small feat for a first book. I look forward to reading what comes next."—Bridget Coggins, H-DiploTable of ContentsIntroduction 1. Building a Reputation, 1956–1967 2. Kimilsungism beyond North Korean Borders, 1968–1971 3. Kim Il Sung's "Korea First" Policy, 1972–1979 4. Kim Jong Il's World and Revolutionary Violence, 1980–1983 5. Survival by Any Means Necessary, 1984–1989 Conclusion

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Book SynopsisGuangxi, a region on China's southern border with Vietnam, has a large population of ethnic minorities and a history of rebellion and intergroup conflict. In the summer of 1968, during the high tide of the Cultural Revolution, it became notorious as the site of the most severe and extensive violence observed anywhere in China during that period of upheaval. Several cities saw urban combat resembling civil war, while waves of mass killings in rural communities generated enormous death tolls. More than one hundred thousand died in a few short months. These events have been chronicled in sensational accounts that include horrific descriptions of gruesome murders, sexual violence, and even cannibalism. Only recently have scholars tried to explain why Guangxi was so much more violent than other regions. With evidence from a vast collection of classified materials compiled during an investigation by the Chinese government in the 1980s, this book reconsiders explanations that draw parallels with ethnic cleansing in Rwanda, Bosnia, and other settings. It reveals mass killings as the byproduct of an intense top-down mobilization of rural militia against a stubborn factional insurgency, resembling brutal counterinsurgency campaigns in a variety of settings. Moving methodically through the evidence, Andrew Walder provides a groundbreaking new analysis of one the most shocking chapters of the Cultural Revolution.Trade Review"The world's leading expert on China's Cultural Revolution has written another breathtaking book. By examining one of the darkest episodes of human history, Andrew Walder not only provides a new explanation for conflict in China but also advances general theories on violence during civil war."—Yuhua Wang, author of The Rise and Fall of Imperial China"This important and unsettling study of the Cultural Revolution in Guangxi lays bare the dark side of China's authoritarian political system. Through careful analysis of newly available primary sources, Walder convincingly connects the horrific violence of that time and place not to ideological or ethnic differences, but to military-civilian factionalism that permeated all levels of government. A party-state known for exerting control, when pressed, could spawn untold conflict and cruelty."—Elizabeth J. Perry, Harvard University"Andrew Walder is one of the world's most distinguished analysts of the Chinese Cultural Revolution and his new book breaks apart numerous myths. Drawing on extraordinarily rich sources from Guangxi province, Walder shows that violence tore apart the countryside as well as the city, and that factionalism could give way to deeper splits within the party. Above all, he adds analysis of ethnic division to our knowledge of this period. This is disturbing, field-making reading."—Rana Mitter, Oxford University"This work is yet another vital contribution to the study of the Cultural Revolution by the sociologist Andrew Walder.... It will be essential reading for scholars of the People's Republic and an accessible source, for informed lay readers and students, on the horrors of the Cultural Revolution."—Donald S. Sutton, China Quarterly"What is unique about Civil War in Guangxi... is its refreshing emphasis on the geopolitical dimension of the Cultural Revolution's complex twists and turns, concretely tying the tragic unfolding of political processes in China to the war operation in Vietnam. As such, this book is not only of pivotal interest to scholars of collective mobilization, political violence, and Chinese communism, but also firmly places itself in conversation with global and transnational sociology and scholarship on the US empire in the post-war era."—Yueran Zhang, Social ForcesTable of ContentsPrologue 1. Puzzles 2. Origins 3. Spread 4. Stalemate 5. Escalation 6. Suppression 7. Narratives 8. Analysis Epilogue: Epilogue Appendix: The Sources and Dataset

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Book SynopsisOnce the capital of the five-hundred-year Chosŏn dynasty (1392–1897) and the Taehan Empire (1897–1910), the city of Seoul posed unique challenges to urban reform and modernization under Japanese colonial rule in the early twentieth century, constrained by the labyrinthian built environment of the old Korean capital. Colonial authorities attempted to employ a strategy of "erasure"—monumental Japanese architecture was, for instance, superimposed upon existing palace structures—to articulate to colonized Korean subjects the transition from the pre-modern to the modern, and the naturalization of colonial rule as inevitable historical change. Drawing from and analyzing a wide range of materials, from architecture and photography to print media and sound recordings, City of Sediments shows how Seoul became a site to articulate a new mode of time—modernity—that defined the place of the colonized in accordance with the progression of history, and how the underbelly of the city, latent places of darkness filled with chatters of the alleyway, challenged this visual language of power. To do so, Se-Mi Oh builds an inventive new model of history where discrete events do not unfold one after the other, but rather one in which histories layer atop each other like sediment, allowing a new map of colonial Seoul to emerge, a map where the material traces of the city are overlapping, with vibrant residues of earlier times defiantly visible among the superimposed signs of modernity and colonial domination.Trade Review"City of Sediments assembles its kaleidoscope of colonial Seoul from ever-more-surprising shards: from renovations and ruins, cacophonous sign boards and comedians' banter, a streetcar's blurring speed and the metronome sound of a night patrol's wooden batons. Oh conjures the lost city while dissolving every prior notion of how history should be written and read, and leaves us with a revivified way of not only meeting the past, but our own place and time."—Susan Choi, author of Trust Exercise and Winner of the 2019 National Book Award"Bold and ambitious, beautifully written and rigorously argued, City of Sediments is a pathbreaking book that provides a new framework to explore the history of Seoul. Crisscrossing the vast range of fields—cultural history, visual arts, architecture, film, and media—it also builds an archive of extraordinarily rich and diverse materials, that include those that experiment with new forms of writing, those that capture the fleeting moments of new experiences, and those that have usually been considered inconsequential and insignificant."—Namhee Lee, author of Memory Construction and the Politics of Time in Neoliberal South Korea"City of Sediments is one of the most sophisticated pieces of scholarship on the colonial period in Korea that has been written in the past two decades. It eloquently captures the nuances and dynamics of the history of colonial life in Seoul through the lens of sedimentary history, paving the way for rethinking how history should be represented and studied."—Albert L. Park, author of Building a Heaven on Earth: Religion, Activism and Protest in Japanese Occupied Korea"City of Sediments does an eloquent job of situating colonial Seoul in various theoretical contexts to scrutinize the uneven textures of urban landscape and the emotional commodification of everyday objects. Se-Mi Oh's voluminous reflections of the past, and her creative analysis of photography, signages, and aural sensibilities, set the gold standard for future historians."—Suk-Young Kim, author of K-pop Live: Fans, Idols, and Multimedia PerformanceTable of ContentsIntroduction: Introduction 1. Figuring History through Architecture: An Urban Synesthesia 2. Ritual, History, Memory: Photographing Kojong's Funeral of 1919 3. Signage and Language: Reading Hanja/Kanji 4. Oral/Aural Community: Sin Pul-ch'ul's Language Play and Deception 5. The City on the Move: The Ordinary and the Infraordinary 6. Nightly Reports: Playing under Surveillance Epilogue: A Time of Rehearsal

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Book SynopsisAtmospheric Violence grapples with the afterlife of environmental disasters and armed conflict and examines how people attempt to flourish despite and alongside continuing violence. Departing from conventional approaches to the study of disaster and conflict that have dominated academic studies of Kashmir, Omer Aijazi's ethnography of life in the borderlands instead explores possibilities for imagining life otherwise, in an environment where violence is everywhere, or atmospheric.Drawing on extensive fieldwork in the portion of Kashmir under Pakistan's control and its surrounding mountainscapes, the book takes us to two remote mountainous valleys that have been shaped by recurring environmental disasters, as well as by the landscape of no-go zones, army barracks, and security checkpoints of the contested India/Pakistan border. Through a series of interconnected scenes from the lives of five protagonists, all of whom are precariously situated within their families

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Book SynopsisJapan’s postwar urban imagination through the Metabolism architecture movement and visionary science fiction authors The devastation of the Second World War gave rise to imaginations both utopian and apocalyptic. In Japan, a fascinating confluence of architects and science fiction writers took advantage of this space to begin remaking urban design. In The Metabolist Imagination, William O. Gardner explores the unique Metabolism movement, which allied with science fiction authors to foresee the global cities that would emerge in the postwar era.This first comparative study of postwar Japanese architecture and science fiction builds on the resurgence of interest in Metabolist architecture while establishing new directions for exploration. Gardner focuses on how these innovators created unique versions of shared concepts—including futurity, megastructures, capsules, and cybercities—making lasting contributions that resonate with contemporary conversations around cyberpunk, climate change, anime, and more.The Metabolist Imagination features original documentation of collaborations between giants of postwar Japanese art and architecture, such as the landmark 1970 Osaka Expo. It also provides the most sustained English-language discussion to date of the work of Komatsu Sakyō, considered one of the “big three” authors of postwar Japanese science fiction. These studies are underscored by Gardner’s insightful approach—treating architecture as a form of speculative fiction while positioning science fiction as an intervention into urban design—making it a necessary read for today’s visionaries.Trade Review"A compelling and visionary analysis. William O. Gardner traces shared imaginations of the future city in postwar Japanese fiction, film, and architecture, brilliantly demonstrating the originality of Japanese visions of cities and societies to come. At the same time, he shows how even the most innovative urban visions of recent novels and anime are anchored in ancient Japanese aesthetic and building traditions. A must-read for anyone interested in urban studies, architecture, and science fiction—or, quite simply, the future."—Ursula K. Heise, author of Imagining Extinction: The Cultural Meanings of Endangered Species"The Metabolist Imagination is an ambitious and meticulously researched study of the intersections of science fiction and architectural discourse in postwar through contemporary Japan, an innovative pairing that leads to numerous insights across disciplines."—Seiji Lippit, author of Topographies of Japanese Modernism"William O. Gardner is a splendid scholar-critic of Japanese cityscape. The Metabolist Imagination brilliantly foregrounds the postmodern transactions between cutting edge architecture and emergent Japanese science fiction. No one has ever succeeded in exploring so provocatively the singular point between Metabolist works exhibited at EXPO70 and hardcore science fiction novels as represented by Sakyo Komatsu, one of the producers of the very exposition."—Takayuki Tatsumi, Keio University"The Metabolist Imagination—dense and scholarly but highly enjoyable and revealing, especially for someone who likes Japanese architecture and the occasional anime."—Daily Dose of Architecture"Eye-opening in more ways than one."—ArchiECHO"The Metabolist Imagination is a thrilling new contribution that disentangles Japan’s complex 1960s and 1970s from the vantage of interdisciplinary insight."—Journal of Asian Studies "The significant contribution of this book is to invite us to consider our relationship to the ever-changing natural/cultural environment by exploring the interrelationship between future-oriented architecture (and the city) and science fiction."—Journal of Japanese Studies "The Metabolist Imagination is an important contribution to Japanese urban studies and to the burgeoning scholarly discussion of Japan’s 1960s and 1970s. In its attention to architecture, popular literature, film, anime, collage, performance, and the ferment among those, it admirably demonstrates the rewards of an intermedial approach."—Monumenta NipponicaTable of ContentsContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. City Visions: Metabolism and Science Fiction2. Ruined Cities: Isozaki Arata and Komatsu Sakyô3. Planetary Cities: Komatsu Sakyô’s Disaster Fiction4. Future City: The 1970 Osaka Expo5. Liquid Cities: The Technopolis from Expo to Cyberpunk6. Metabolist Echoes: Akira, Patlabor, and Yanobe KenjiNotesSelected FilmographyBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisXuanhe Catalogue of Paintings is the first complete translation of the well-known document produced at the court of Emperor Huizong (r. 1100–1125). Dated to 1120, the Catalogue is divided into ten categories of subject matter. Under Daoist and Buddhist Subjects, Figural Subjects, Architecture, Barbarian Tribes, Dragons and Fish, Landscape, Domestic and Wild Animals, Flowers and Birds, Ink Bamboo, and Vegetables and Fruit are biographies of 231 painters, ranging from famous early masters, such as Wu Daozi (ca. 685-758) and Li Cheng (919-967), to otherwise unknown artists of the Song-dynasty court, including fourteen eunuch officials and sixteen male and female members of the royal family. Titles of their pictures held in the palace collection are listed for each artist. These 6,396 paintings testify to the visual culture experienced by viewers of the twelfth century. The author's Introduction analyzes the Catalogue as a source of evidence about the formation of the Song-dynasty palace collection and argues that the majority of its pictures were already in the collection before Huizong's reign, as a result of conquest, confiscation, tribute, gift culture, collecting by earlier emperors, and the production of academy artists and regular officials at the Song court. Under Huizong's reign, around a thousand other pictures were added to the Catalogue through acquisition and reattribution. Open access edition funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

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Book SynopsisCreated specifically for fans of Japanese cool culture, A Geek in Japan is one of the most iconic, hip, and concise cultural guides available. Reinvented for the internet age, it is packed with personal essays and hundreds of photographs and presents all the touchstones of traditional and contemporary culture in an entirely new way. A Geek in Japan decodes the mysteries of the Japanese language, Japanese social values and daily habits, business and technology, the arts, and symbols and practices that are peculiarly Japanese. This revised and expanded edition contains many new pages of materials on all sorts of topics including Kyoto, Japanese architecture, and Japanese video games. It also features a guide to author Hector Garcia's favourite Tokyo hangouts and tips on visiting many secret places around Japan. Highlighting the originality and creativity of the Japanese, debunking myths, and answering nagging questions such as why the Japanese are so fond of wearing face masks, Garcia has written an irreverent, insightful, and highly informative guide for the growing ranks of Japanophiles around the world.Trade Review"Everyone who is interested in Japan will find this book fascinating." --Larry Ellison, cofounder and CEO, Oracle Corporation"One of the funniest and yet most accurate descriptions of modern Japanese culture that I've ever seen. Highly recommended!" --Joichi Ito, director, MIT Media Lab"Hector and I share a deep interest and affection for all things Japanese. But in my case, I only get to enjoy Japan on my business trips. Back in Spain, I like to keep in touch. And that I do reading kirainet, 'A geek in Japan.' Now you can do the same. And in book format. Enjoy!" --Martin Varsavsky, entrepreneur, founder of Fon and Safe Democracy Foundation

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Book SynopsisAn introduction to Pakistan's ISI, which has been both an essential ally and problematic partner of the United StatesForged during the tumultuous aftermath of Partition in 1947, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) has grown to become the preeminent intelligence service in Pakistan. Its capabilities are comprehensive, its remit covers both foreign and domestic intelligence, and it is one of the most feared and respected agencies of the Global South. Pakistan's ISI provides an up-to-date and detailed introduction to the ISI and its historical evolution. The narrative is rooted in a deep and wide-ranging contextualization of the state of Pakistan and its security environment. The story is one of an agency that grew from humble beginnings into an extremely capable and robust force at the heart of power in the state. The ISI utilizes broad human intelligence networks and employs covert action and support for militants, particularly in its rivalry with India. As a crucial intelligence partner for the West during the Cold War and into the contemporary era, the ISI has been both an essential ally and problematic partner. The shadow of this agency continues to loom over Pakistan's democratic institutions. This book will appeal to students, scholars, and general readers interested in intelligence and the politics and history of South Asia.

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"A highly readable and enjoyable book that will serve as an excellent way in to Korean history for anyone with an interest in the country." --Daniel Tudor, Author of Korea: The Impossible Country and North Korea Confidential"Michael Seth has written a compact and concise but informative and invigorating book on Korean history. A Brief History of Korea is a welcome and welcoming port of entry." --John Lie, C.K. Cho Professor, University of California, Berkeley"If you need get caught up on Korean history in a hurry Michael J. Seth's A Brief History of Korea is the book that you should read. It is an informative, accessible, and gracefully written account of Korea's past from its mythical origins to the present. No other book on Korea covers so much ground so succinctly and with such erudition." --Gregg Andrew Brazinsky, Professor of History and International Affairs & ESIA Asian Studies Program Director, The George Washington University

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Book SynopsisBring the glory of the outdoors into your home with colorful, stylish, frame-worthy paintings!In this lushly illustrated book, master painter and art teacher Hidenari Kobayashi provides step-by-step instructions to show you how to create attractive drawings and paintings in the popular French botanical style. He details all the tools and materials needed, describes the techniques you'll use, and walks you through the creative process of drawing and painting 18 different botanical subjects. A Step-by-Step Guide to Botanical Drawing & Painting provides everything you need to learn this charming style of artistic expressionfrom first sketch to final brushstroke!Detailed step-by-step lessons show you how to draw and paint a wide variety of subjects, including:Lovely flowers, such as velvety roses, satiny tulips, frilly hydrangeas, exotic lilies and festive wildflowersFamiliar vegetables, fruits and nuts such as red onions, green peppers, lemons, kumquats and walnutsVarious other interest

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Book SynopsisA three-thousand-year history of the Yellow River and the legacy of interactions between humans and the natural landscapeTrade Review“A survey of three millennia, based on an innovative historical geographic-information system.”—Andrew Robinson, Nature, “Best Science Pick of the Week”“The author achieves the notable feat of telling this vast, complex history in a single readable volume.”—Christopher Ruane, Asian Affairs“The Yellow River is a thought-provoking contribution to environment history and, more specifically, Chinese river history.”—Pichamon Yeophantong, European Journal of East Asian StudiesWinner of the Joseph Levenson Prize (China, Pre-1900), sponsored by the Association for Asian Studies“No other scholar has produced such a systematic, comprehensive account of the long-term changes in the river’s function and structure. I consider it to be the definitive work on the topic of the Yellow River to date.”—Peter C. Perdue, author of China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia“Ruth Mostern masterfully explores the ‘natural and unnatural’ impacts of the Yellow River. Her approach, emphasizing continuity and change over the longue durée, reveals a complex river that connects, dissects, transports, and displaces.”—David A. Pietz, author of The Yellow River: The Problem of Water in Modern China“This unique book is testimony to the great value of spatial analysis and digital approaches. Read it for methodological innovation and let that change how you study history, humanities, and beyond!”—Ling Zhang, author of The River, the Plain, and the State: An Environmental Drama in Northern Song China, 1048–1128“In her three-thousand-year history of the Yellow River, Ruth Mostern provides a genuinely new take, full of surprising insights, that makes compelling reading. A pioneering example of quantitatively informed environmental history.”—Valerie Hansen, author of The Year 1000: When Explorers Connected the World—and Globalization Began“An outstanding merger of science and history, giving us a deeper understanding of the long, often tragic history of efforts to manage the Yellow River and the land it flows through.”—Kenneth Pomeranz, author of The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewChina's transformation cannot be attributed to a single cause; rather, it arose from a contingent, interactive process—Ang calls it 'directed improvisation.' She formalizes this insight which has the potential to influence future studies of institutional and economic change beyond China. * Foreign Affairs *While adaptive approaches to development have become new buzzwords, Yuen Yuen's work brings rigor to this conversation.... This analytical lens has enormous potential for thinking through the adaptive challenge, whether at the national level, subnational level or sectoral level. * The World Bank *The book combines methodological rigour, employing a complexity perspective hitherto unknown in standard political economy analyses... with rich original empirical data drawn from more than 400 interviews.... This is an important book with a bold thesis that, at its most ambitious, demands a rethinking of the history and evolution of capitalism.... In terms of policy implications, Ang's thesis has the potential to upend much that the global development establishment holds dear. * The Straits Times *How China Escaped the Poverty Trap... is an original and insightful take on what is perhaps the biggest development puzzle of my lifetime. * Building State Capability Blog *This book is a triumph, opening a window onto the political economy of China’s astonishing rise that takes as its starting point systems and complexity. Its lessons apply far beyond China’s borders. * Oxfam Blog *Ang provides specialists and nonspecialists alike with a fresh inside-the-black-box account of how the Chinese state... has actually practiced (not merely preached) innovation, problem solving, and effective implementation.... Future studies of bureaucratic life in China and elsewhere must reckon seriously with Ang's account. * Governance *As if explaining modern Chinese economic development was not enough of a challenge, Ang has two even loftier goals. The first is methodological. She expresses a frustration with political science's causality obsession and modeling approaches that deliver isolated snapshots of complex processes.... Ang's second ambition is to apply this coevolutionary schema to how we understand economic development generally. * Perspectives on Politics *This book is an invaluable addition to the scholarship on the political economy of development. * Pacific Affairs *How China Escaped the Poverty Trap is an innovative account to explain why China has economically developed in spite – or because – of its low-quality institutions. It is both a theoretically original and empirically rich study of Chinese economic development and required reading for those who want to understand China's and our own future. * VoegelinView *The author has certainly filled the gaps in the literature on the political-economic analysis of China's historic transformation from a low-income to a middle-income country through adoption of a co-evolutionary approach to development. Overall, this interesting book goes deeper beneath the broad political-economic surface of Chinese society. It should appeal not only to researchers on Chinese society, but also to practising political economists. * Ecoomic Record *Table of ContentsIntroduction: How Did Development Actually Happen? Part 1 FRAMEWORK AND BUILDING BLOCKS 1. Mapping Coevolution 2. Directed Improvisation Part 2 DIRECTION 3. Balancing Variety and Uniformity 4. Franchising the Bureaucracy Part 3 IMPROVISATION 5. From Building to Preserving Markets 6. Connecting First Movers and Laggards Conclusion: How Development Actually Happened Beyond China Appendix A: Steps for Mapping Coevolution Appendix B: Interviews

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Book Synopsisa simple blueprint for Utopia - the best travel book on Burma since World War II - despite travelling at a time of massive internal insecurity, Norman Lewis still found the eternal Burma, where pagodas are the only punctuation on the horizon and strangers are treated with an overwhelming friendliness - an overnight best-seller when first published - revisits the tragic Burma road, treked by so many refugees fleeing Burma before the Japanese advance in 1942Trade Review"A wonderfully vivid book" Daily Telegraph

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Book SynopsisA History of Southeast Asia: Critical Crossroads presents a comprehensive history of Southeast Asia from our earliest knowledge of its civilizations and religious patterns up to the present day.Trade Review"Among the book’s many virtues is Reid’s ability to break down the two thousand years he had to cover in order to guide the reader through space and time. ...Written in a straightforward, no-nonsense style, the book will be accessible to many, with judiciously chosen quotations to enliven the story." (Australian Institute of International Affairs, 1 November 2015) “Understanding the region is therefore not just a matter of intellectual curiosity but also of considerable topical importance. Despite its textbook-like appearance, History is eminently readable. It succeeds at both providing a broad-brush overview of this complex region, presenting it from within, identifying and tracing major themes, while at the same time delivering a wealth of fascinating and intriguing detail.” (Asian Review of Books, 25 November 2015) “Reid’s comprehensive survey covers all of the major societies and many of the minor ones from Burma to the Philippines throughout the centuries. The thematic approach, interpretative insights, useful bibliography, and almost encyclopaedic wealth of information will make Reid’s History of Southeast Asia an exceptionally valuable, even indispensable, resource and reference book for other scholars… this book is a splendid contribution that can and should be read and discussed with interest by scholars and teachers of Southeast Asian studies as well as world and Eurasian history.” (Asian Studies Review)"A splendid contribution that can and should be read and discussed with interest by scholars and teachers of Southeast Asian studies as well as world and Eurasian history." - Craig A. Lockard, Asian History Review no. 41 (Nov. 2016, pp.167-8)Table of ContentsList of Tables xi List of Maps xii List of Illustrations xiii Series Editor’s Preface xiv Preface xvii Glossary xxii Abbreviations xxv 1 People in the Humid Tropics 1 Benign Climate, Dangerous Environment 1 Forests, Water, and People 4 Why a Low but Diverse Population? 6 Agriculture and Modern Language Families 10 The Rice Revolution and Population Concentration 13 The Agricultural Basis of State and Society 16 Food and Clothes 18 Women and Men 21 Not China, not India 26 2 Buddha and Shiva Below the Winds 30 Debates about Indic States 30 Bronze, Iron, and Earthenware in the Archaeological Record 32 The Buddhist Ecumene and Sanskritization 34 Shiva and Nagara in the “Charter Era,” 900–1300 39 Austronesian Gateway Ports – the Negeri 45 Dai Viet and the Border with China 47 The Stateless Majority in the Charter Era 49 Thirteenth/Fourteenth‐Century Crisis 53 3 Trade and Its Networks 57 Land and Sea Routes 57 Specialized Production 59 Integration of the Asian Maritime Markets 62 Austronesian and Indian Pioneers 63 The East Asian Trading System of 1280–1500 65 The Islamic Network 69 The Europeans 71 4 Cities and Production for the World, 1490–1640 74 Southeast Asia’s “Age of Commerce” 74 Crops for the World Market 76 Ships and Traders 80 Cities as Centers of Innovation 81 Trade, Guns, and New State Forms 85 Asian Commercial Organization 91 5 Religious Revolution and Early Modernity, 1350–1630 96 Southeast Asian Religion 97 Theravada Cosmopolis and the Mainland States 98 Islamic Beginnings: Traders and Mystics 101 Polarizations of the First Global War, 1530–1610 106 Rival Universalisms 111 Pluralities, Religious Boundaries, and the “Highland Savage” 114 6 Asian European Encounters, 1509–1688 120 The Euro‐Chinese Cities 120 Women as Cultural Mediators 125 Cultural Hybridities 130 Islam’s “Age of Discovery” 133 Southeast Asian Enlightenments – Makassar and Ayutthaya 135 Gunpowder Kings as an Early Modern Form 139 7 The Crisis of the Seventeenth Century 142 The Great Divergence Debate 142 Southeast Asians Lose the Profits of Long‐Distance Trade 144 Global Climate and Local Crises 149 Political Consequences of the Crisis 152 8 Vernacular Identities, 1660–1820 157 Eighteenth‐Century Consolidation 157 Religious Syncretism and Localization 158 Performance in Palace, Pagoda, and Village 167 History, Myth, and Identity 172 Consolidation and its Limitations 175 9 Expansion of the Sinicized World 177 Fifteenth‐Century Revolution in Dai Viet 177 Viet Expansion, Nam Tien 179 Cochin‐China’s Plural Southern Frontier 183 The Greater Viet Nam of the Nguyen 185 The Commercial Expansion of a “Chinese Century,” 1740–1840 188 Chinese on Southern Economic Frontiers 191 10 Becoming a Tropical Plantation, 1780–1900 196 Pepper and Coffee 197 Commercialization of Staple Crops 198 The New Monopolies: Opium and Tobacco 200 Java’s Coerced Colonial Agriculture 204 Plantations and Haciendas 207 Mono‐crop Rice Economies of the Mainland Deltas 209 Pre‐colonial and Colonial Growth Compared 211 11 The Last Stand of Asian Autonomies, 1820–1910 213 Siam as “Civilized” Survivor 214 Konbaung Burma – a Doomed Modernization 219 High Confucian Fundamentalism – Nguyen Viet Nam 224 “Protected” Negeri 227 Muslim Alternatives in Sumatra 230 Bali Apocalypse 233 Mobile “Big Men” in the Eastern Islands 235 The Last State Evaders 237 12 Making States, 1824–1940 240 European Nationalisms and Demarcations 240 From Many to Two Polities in Nusantara 241 Maximal Burma, Viable Siam 246 Westphalia and the Middle Kingdom 250 Building State Infrastructures 251 How Many States in Indochina? 255 Ethnic Construction in the New Sovereign Spaces 256 States, not Nations 260 13 Population, Peasantization, and Poverty, 1830–1940 261 More People 261 Involution and Peasantization 263 Dual Economy and the Absent Bourgeoisie 266 Subordinating Women 268 Shared Poverty and Health Crises 272 14 Consuming Modernity, 1850–2000 276 Housing for a Fragile Environment 276 The Evolution of Foods 278 Fish, Salt, and Meat 279 Stimulants and Drinks 281 Cloth and Clothing 284 Modern Dress and Identity 286 Performance, from Festival to Film 289 15 Progress and Modernity, 1900–1940 295 From Despair to Hope 296 Education and a New Elite 302 Victory of the National Idea in the 1930s 306 Negotiating the Maleness of Modernity 314 16 Mid‐Twentieth‐Century Crisis, 1930–1954 319 Economic Crisis 319 Japanese Occupation 323 1945 – the Revolutionary Moment 331 Independence – Revolutionary or Negotiated? 341 17 The Military, Monarchy, and Marx: The Authoritarian Turn, 1950–1998 347 Democracy’s Brief Springtime 347 Guns Inherit the Revolutions 350 Dictatorship Philippine Style 358 Remaking “Protected” Monarchies 359 Twilight of the Indochina Kings 364 Reinventing a Thai Dhammaraja 367 Communist Authoritarianism 370 18 The Commercial Turnaround, 1965– 373 Economic Growth at Last 373 More Rice, Fewer Babies 376 Opening the Command Economies 378 Gains and Losses 380 Darker Costs – Environmental Degradation and Corruption 384 19 Making Nations, Making Minorities, 1945– 390 The High Modernist Moment, 1945–1980 390 Education and National Identity 394 Puritan Globalism 400 Joining an Integrated but Plural World 405 20 The Southeast Asian Region in the World 413 The Regional Idea 414 Global Comparisons 419 References 423 Further Reading 431 Index 436

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Book SynopsisNo Birds of Passage explores the remarkable business success of three Gujarati Muslim commercial castes: the Bohras, Khojas, and Memons. Often stereotyped as “Westernized” and as Hindus in all but name, these groups are better seen as having developed a distinctive Muslim capitalism, in which religious and commercial prerogatives are inseparable.Trade ReviewThis is an audacious scholarly conversation between received categories of classical political economy and South Asian Islam that is likely to provoke debate among specialists in the field. For the general student of history however, it is a book that demands close attention for its outstanding contributions to the craft, both in its expansive approach toward the archive as in its deft interweaving of religion, culture and politics within the complex terrain of capitalist enterprise and law. The structure, prose and narrative richness of the book are likely to ensure a life for it outside the scholarly niche of economic history. -- Madhumita Mazumdar * Telegraph India *No Birds of Passage is a brilliant and strikingly innovative contribution to the history of trade and diaspora in the Indian Ocean. Based on an impressive array of sources, it tells a compelling story about the emergence of a distinctive form of Muslim capitalism that continues to shape the region today. -- Sunil Amrith, author of Unruly WatersThe intersection of community, caste, and capitalism is a matter of abiding interest for South Asian historians of both the early modern and modern periods. Michael O’Sullivan’s well-documented and closely argued work on Gujarati Muslim entrepreneurs over two centuries is a significant intervention in this field. It merits a wide readership, and is also certain to provoke debates well beyond the confines of South Asian studies. -- Sanjay Subrahmanyam, author of Europe’s IndiaThis sophisticated and fine-grained case study is a model of how to write revisionist economic histories that resonate with the experiences of people in most of the world. No Birds of Passage succeeds precisely because its conceptual apparatus is built on giving endogenous institutions their due, bringing together a range of sources in multiple languages, and openly embracing paradoxes without which this story of Muslim capitalism would have remained illegible. This is an exciting contribution to the burgeoning global histories of capitalism. -- Mrinalini Sinha, author of Specters of Mother IndiaA major contribution to South Asian history. O’Sullivan’s sweeping account of Gujarati Muslim business communities is more than a business history. It is an impressive examination of how the Khojas, Bohras, and Memons reshaped community corporate identities through their interactions with the colonial state, Indian nationalism, Muslim politics, and postcolonial regimes. -- Douglas E. Haynes, author of Small Town Capitalism in Western IndiaThis is a landmark work of scholarship, meticulously recovering the transimperial worldviews of Gujarati Muslim business communities both before and after the age of imperial capitalism. Attentive to historical asymmetries of race and sovereignty, O’Sullivan’s dynamic and capacious study will inform future work on imperial and postcolonial economic history as well as on the social-religious logics of capital accumulation. -- Manu Goswami, author of Producing India

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Book SynopsisA visual journey through the state of Rajasthan in India to explore and awaken your creativity in the arts and crafts

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