Asian history Books

Book SynopsisGiving an introduction to the political, social, and cultural development of imperial Chinese civilisation, this work introduces a number of important themes - such as the ethnic diversity of the early empires. It includes a general introduction, chronology, bibliography, illustrations, maps, and an index.Trade ReviewA solid, clearly written and up-to-date account of China's dynastic history, taking note of recent research, and with attention to cultural developments and economic practice. An accessible read, even for first-comers to this highly complex subject; this is an excellent introduction to China that instructors will welcome and students will enjoy. --Michael Loewe, University Lecturer in Chinese Studies, University of Cambridge 1963-1990; Emeritus Fellow of Clare Hall.Tanner has written an excellent text on Chinese history which offers a fine balance between the traditional and the modern. He also charts a good balance between studies of the elite, government, philosophy and diplomacy and, on the other hand, analyses of ordinary people, economic institutions, social patterns, and folk religion. The book provides a comprehensive view of Chinese culture, including developments in literature and the arts. A generous selection of illustrations facilitates comprehension of and pleasure in the visual arts. Finally, Professor Tanner's consideration of Western contact with China and the attendant problems and gains is judicious and informative. --Morris Rossabi, Distinguished Professor of History, City University of New York . . . . Tanner writes attractively . . . . He tells many stories of villains and heroes, of tragedy and comedy, of high culture and coarse humour, of wealth and poverty, of feast and famine, of poignant suffering, all of which keep the reader's interest and indeed fascination. It is a heroic tale that he tells and he does this superbly, rejecting myths and misunderstandings that have beset Western views of a complex country. --G.R. Batho, The Historical Association Reviews

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Book SynopsisCovers topics related to daily life and the social and cultural history of the Mongols. This book introduces students to the importance of primary sources and stresses how these early texts provide the evidence and foundations for the words, ideas, and thoughts which make up traditional history books.Trade Review"[W]ell-written, accurate, and engagingly informative." --Canadian Journal of History

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Book SynopsisA cornerstone of Chinese popular culture, the legend of the White Snake the admirable demon who loves her victim has been continually rewritten, reinterpreted, and readapted for over five hundred years. This title opens a window into the variety of pre-modern Chinese popular literature.Trade ReviewBoth by introducing the legend in such artfully rendered translations and showing its evolution over time, Idema has opened an extraordinary window on traditional Chinese popular culture.In keeping with his record, Idema's scholarship is outstanding. His ability to translate popular texts into comparably idiomatic English is an outstanding achievement. An extremely valuable text for teaching. --Hugh R. Clark, Ursinus CollegeThese are very readable translations . . . [this] book would serve well as a textbook in Chinese folklore or religion classes as well as a sourcebook for the comparativist who knows little or no Chinese. --David Elton Gay, Indiana University, in the Journal of Folklore ResearchThis slim volume actually contains a microcosm of premodern Chinese literature in which we see the growth and transformations of a core theme through several genres. We thereby learn much about the story of White Snake, of course, but this approach also has much to teach us about the nature and dynamics of Chinese popular literature in general--and about the methodology of its study.--Philip Clart, University of Leipzig

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Book SynopsisInterest in Shi'a Islam has increased greatly in recent years, although Shi'ism in the Indian subcontinent has remained largely underexplored. Focusing on the influential Shi'a minority of Lucknow and the United Provinces, a region that was largely under Shi'a rule until 1856, this book traces the history of Indian Shi'ism through the colonial period toward independence in 1947. Drawing on a range of new sources, including religious writing, polemical literature and clerical biography, it assesses seminal developments including the growth of Shi'a religious activism, madrasa education, missionary activity, ritual innovation and the politicization of the Shi'a community. As a consequence of these significant religious and social transformations, a Shi'a sectarian identity developed that existed in separation from rather than in interaction with its Sunni counterparts. In this way the painful birth of modern sectarianism was initiated, the consequences of which are very much alive in SouTable of ContentsIntroduction; 1. Madrasas, mujtahids, and missionaries: Shi'a clerical expansion in colonial India; 2. Mosques, majalis and Muharram: marketplace Shi'ism; 3. Anjumans, endowments and Indian Shi'ism: the making of Shi'a society; 4. Aligarh, jihad, and pan-Islam: the politicisation of the Indian Shi'a; 5. The tabarra agitation and Shi'a-Sunni conflict in late colonial India; Conclusion.

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Book SynopsisWritten by scholars at Peking University, this is a history of Chinese civilisation in its totality, from Neolithic times to the founding of the Chinese Republic in 1911. Each of the four volumes covers political and social institutions, economics, religion, philosophy, science and technology, literature, art and daily life. There is no other work in the English language that covers this range of subjects in a single history. These volumes make accessible a wealth of historical research and sources that have not previously been translated, and provide insights into the views of the foremost Chinese scholars of their generation. These views are placed in context by newly commissioned introductions to each volume, and discussion throughout is supported by illustrations sourced from collections around the world. This ambitious and inspiring work will stimulate fresh debate across the humanities and social sciences, opening new avenues of academic exchange between East and West.

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Book SynopsisThis book examines the first human colonization of Asia and particularly the tropical environments of Southeast Asia during the Upper Pleistocene. In studying the unique character of the Asian archaeological record, it reassesses long-accepted propositions about the development of human ''modernity.'' Ryan J. Rabett reveals an evolutionary relationship between colonization, the challenges encountered during this process especially in relation to climatic and environmental change and the forms of behaviour that emerged. This book argues that human modernity is not something achieved in the remote past in one part of the world, but rather is a diverse, flexible, responsive and ongoing process of adaptation.Trade Review'Good books on the Palaeolithic of Asia are hard to find. Thankfully, Ryan Rabett has produced a quality volume that synthesises important information about human occupation history in a poorly known region of the world … this book is an excellent new contribution on the Late Pleistocene history of Southeast Asia. The book challenges archaeologists to think about how their regional records developed in response to external and internal influences, ultimately leading to, as Rabett aptly puts it, 'a Pleistocene 'explosion' of new life ways'.' Michael Petraglia, AntiquityTable of Contents1. The journey east; 2. The Pleistocene planet; 3. Hominin dispersal beyond Africa during the Lower and Middle Pleistocene; 4. Regional trajectories in modern human behaviour; 5. The initial Upper Pleistocene dispersal of H. sapiens out of Africa; 6. Climate, dispersal and technological change during the Last Termination and Early Holocene in Southeast Asia; 7. Tropical subsistence strategies at the end of the last glacial; 8. Ex levis terra.

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Book SynopsisPlanting Empire, Cultivating Subjects examines the stories of ordinary people to explore the internal workings of colonial rule. Chinese, Indians, and Malays learned about being British through the plantations, towns, schools, and newspapers of a modernizing colony. Yet they got mixed messages from the harsh, racial hierarchies of sugar and rubber estates, and cosmopolitan urban societies. Empire meant mobility, fluidity, and hybridity, as well as the enactment of racial privilege and rigid ethnic differences. Using sources ranging from administrative files, court transcripts and oral interviews to periodicals and material culture, Professor Lees explores the nature and development of colonial governance, and the ways in which Malayan residents experienced British rule in towns and plantations. This is an innovative study demonstrating how empire brought with it both oppression and economic opportunity, shedding new light on the shifting nature of colonial subjecthood and identity, as Trade Review'Originally conceived as two separate manuscripts, Lees' monograph uses Ho Enseng's earlier notion of empires as hybrid spaces as a launching point to compare rural and urban lifeworlds under colonialism. Employing British Malaya as a case study to interrogate the 'internal workings' of colonial power, the author convincingly demonstrates that relationships between rulers and the ruled were as complex as they were conflicted. … The questions she asks will interest social historians working on imperialism, urbanization, migration, labour, and commodity production: questions regarding the extent to which colonialism nurtured social mobility, cross-cultural learning, and new belongings within diasporas.' Geoffrey K. Pakiam, Sojourn: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia'Planting Empire, Cultivating Subjects is a rich and valuable history of colonial Malaya.' Sanjay Krishnan, Victorian Studies'Lees's Planting Empire, Cultivating Subjects is a rich and valuable contribution to the historiography of British colonization in Southeast Asia … This monograph is a must-read for scholars interested in British colonial rule in Southeast Asia and the nature of British subjecthood.' Raymond Hyser, H-EnvironmentTable of ContentsIntroduction; Part I. Nineteenth-Century Foundations: 1. The birth of plantation colonialism; 2. Body politics in a plural society; 3. New towns on the Malayan frontier; 4. Urban civil society; Part II. The Early Twentieth Century: 5. Rubber reconstructs Malaya; 6. Cosmopolitan modernism in Malayan towns; 7. Managing Malayan towns; 8. Multiple allegiances in a cosmopolitan colony; 9. Epilogue: remembering empire; 10. Bibliography.

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Book SynopsisThis book examines how the idea of Pakistan was articulated and debated in the public sphere and how popular enthusiasm was generated for its successful achievement, especially in the crucial province of UP (now Uttar Pradesh) in the last decade of British colonial rule in India. It argues that Pakistan was not a simply a vague idea that serendipitously emerged as a nation-state, but was popularly imagined as a sovereign Islamic State, a new Medina, as some called it. In this regard, it was envisaged as the harbinger of Islam''s renewal and rise in the twentieth century, the new leader and protector of the global community of Muslims, and a worthy successor to the defunct Turkish Caliphate. The book also specifically foregrounds the critical role played by Deobandi ulama in articulating this imagined national community with an awareness of Pakistan''s global historical significance.Trade Review'Dhulipala's impressively researched, lucidly written, and intelligently argued book comes as a sharp but welcome corrective to the tendency to see Pakistan as a country created accidentally in a fit of popular enthusiasm and elite indirection in the final, confusing years of British rule in India. Dhulipala shows, with particular focus on north India, how rich the 1940s were with public debates in English and Urdu over the meaning of Pakistan. This is an exciting, significant, and challenging contribution to South Asian history.' Dipesh Chakrabarty, University of Chicago'This is a path-breaking book, indispensable to anyone who wishes to understand the emergence of Pakistan. It persuasively challenges dominant understandings of Pakistan as the creation of a 'sole spokesman' or of 'secular elites' and demonstrates a long-standing relationship between the Muslim League leadership and an important set of Deobandi ulama. It shows how preparations for creating an Islamic state in Pakistan began in the early 1940s, and explores the conflation in people's minds between the creation of Pakistan and the fashioning of a 'New Medina'. It thus brings Islam back into the debate on Pakistan's birth and offers a new perspective for its subsequent development. It should be read not just by specialists working on India's Partition and modern Pakistan, but by scholars in Middle Eastern history and politics and those interested in twentieth-century Islamic movements.' Francis Robinson, Royal Holloway, University of London'Dhulipala's monograph breaks new ground in studies of the birth of the Pakistan idea in northern India. In place of the conventional focus on political negotiations and communal violence, he explores its cultural and religious dimensions and traces the roots of the concept in Indian as well as in early Islamic traditions. Based on meticulous research into a massive corpus of Urdu journals and religious treatises, it looks at the role of the Deoband clergy in very new ways. It is a valuable and important addition to the historical field.' Sumit Sarkar, University of Delhi'Dhulipala's magisterial book is one of the first to carefully examine a broad range of debates on the idea of Pakistan both in English and in Urdu that illuminated the public sphere in the decade before Partition, particularly within the context of politics in UP. His book powerfully illustrates that understandings of Pakistan were not so vague or ill-formed as many historians have previously argued. Supporters (and opponents) of Pakistan were deeply engaged both with contemporary ideas about the modern nation-state and with conceptions of the state rooted in Islamic history. This is a significant story for understanding Pakistan's intellectual and political heritage.' David Gilmartin, North Carolina State University'I read Creating a New Medina not as a slice of Indian history but as a brilliant, elegantly written study of some of the crucial subjectivities that led to the partitioning of British India. Refusing to wear glasses well-meaning liberal historians often love to wear, Dhulipala takes a hard look at styles of mobilisation deployed by the Pakistan movement and explores how they radically changed the nature of politics in mid-twentieth-century British India - to ultimately shape the future of public life in postcolonial South Asia.' Ashis Nandy, Centre for Study of Developing Societies, New Delhi'… arguably among the most important studies of the ideological origins of Pakistan published to date … A magnificent book.' Pratap Bhanu Mehta, The Indian Express'Dhulipala has raised a host of uncomfortable issues that politicians and intellectuals on both sides of the Radcliffe Line would prefer to shy away from.' Swapan Dasgupta, The Telegraph (India)'… a marvelous analysis of what Pakistan was meant to be …' Khaled Ahmed, The Indian Express'Venkat Dhulipala's book … is a treasure house of information about debates and discussions relating to the idea of Pakistan.' Ali Usman Qasmi, The News on Sunday (India)'… [an] engaging book … a small treasure of references about how the campaign for Pakistan was being conducted in the areas of North India.' Ajmal Kamal, The News on Sunday (India)'[In] Creating a New Medina, Venkat Dhulipala makes well-researched and insightful comments on the emergence and popularity of the demand for Pakistan in the final decade of colonial rule in India.' The Express Tribune'… an encyclopedic masterpiece … This wonderfully written and painstakingly researched book will be of tremendous interest to students and scholars of Muslim politics, nationalism and religion, and South Asian Islam.' Sherali Tareen, New Books in Islamic Studies (newbooksinislamicstudies.com)'This is an important book … Venkat Dhulipala has provided much food for thought and unearthed a host of sources that demonstrate, without doubt, that Pakistan was not 'insufficiently imagined'. On the contrary, it was abundantly imagined, both vehemently opposed and extravagantly supported, with many shades of opinion in between.' Gail Minault, H-Asia'Dhulipala's work, scholarly but accessible, upends decades of accumulated conventional wisdom in both India and Pakistan. Indians can no longer pretend that Pakistan was a fraud committed by a handful of Muslim grandees. Pakistanis can never again argue that their country was intended to be anything other than an Islamic state. Today's Pakistan, with its ascendant mullahs, is not an aberration from, but the culmination of, its ideological origins. Creating a New Medina is a masterpiece - arguably the most important work of history published in 2015.' Newsweek'By unearthing enormous evidence of overwhelming support for Pakistan especially in the United Provinces of Agra and Audh (U.P.) this book debunks the mainstream historiography of Pakistan as a sudden emotive construct. … Taking the same tradition of iconic writings forward, this encyclopaedic work makes a valuable addition to the ever-expanding literature on Pakistan.' Swaran Singh, The HinduTable of ContentsList of photographs and maps; Acknowledgements; List of abbreviations; Glossary; Introduction; 1. Nationalists, communalists and the 1937 provincial elections; 2. Muslim mass contacts and the rise of the Muslim League; 3. Two constitutional lawyers from Bombay and the debate over Pakistan in the public sphere; 4. Muslim League and the idea of Pakistan in the United Provinces; 5. Ulama at the forefront of politics; 6. Urdu press, public opinion and controversies over Pakistan; 7. Fusing Islam and state power; 8. The referendum on Pakistan; Epilogue; Conclusion; Select bibliography; Index; About the author.

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Book SynopsisHow India Became Democraticexplores the greatest experiment in democratic human history. It tells the untold story of the preparation of the electoral roll on the basis of universal adult franchise in the world''s largest democracy. Ornit Shani offers a new view of the institutionalisation of democracy in India, and of the way democracy captured the political imagination of its diverse peoples. Turning all adult Indians into voters against the backdrop of the partition of India and Pakistan, and in anticipation of the drawing up of a constitution, was a staggering task. Indians became voters before they were citizens - by the time the constitution came into force in 1950, the abstract notion of universal franchise and electoral democracy were already grounded. Drawing on rich archival materials, Shani shows how the Indian people were a driving force in the making of democratic citizenship as they struggled for their voting rights.Trade Review'This is a subtle and impressive work of scholarship, which breaks new ground in the history of modern India. Using the rich, previously neglected, archive of the Election Commission, Ornit Shani documents how multi-party democracy based on adult franchise was established in a large, diverse, divided, and desperately poor country. The research is deep and thorough, the analysis robust and thought-provoking, the writing clear and often vivid. All those interested in modern India, as well as in the history of democratic practice more generally, would profit from a close reading of this book.' Ramachandra Guha, author of India after Gandhi'Through a deep archival excavation of how the first electoral roll of independent India was prepared, Ornit Shani gives us an extraordinary account of the formation of the democratic imagination – of both citizens and state personnel. This is a fascinating, hitherto untold story of the building blocks of democratic citizenship at the founding moment of the republic.' Niraja Gopal Jayal, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi'Ornit Shani's terrific new history shows how Indians made their new democracy after 1947, from the national debates on which men and women should vote, to solving the many practical challenges on the ground. A landmark study.' Steven Wilkinson, Yale University, Connecticut'This important book goes further than any other in explaining the origin of Indian democracy, how and why it works. Based on wide reading in history and political science, and firmly grounded in hitherto unexplored archival material, Ornit Shani shows that the high idealism about citizenship and democracy in independent India was made real by careful consultation and planning, from 1946 onwards, of a small group of administrative officers, constitutional lawyers and politicians. These framers of the new Indian constitution and the creation of the Indian Electoral Commission surely stand alongside the Founding Fathers of the United States of America in their brilliant practicality establishing a vibrant democratic system for the post-imperial era. Ornit Shani's book, therefore, is of interest not just to those who want to know about the Indian experience but for anyone seeking to understand the many and varied forms democracy takes in our contemporary world.' Gordon Johnson, University of Cambridge'Few people get to tell a fundamentally important new story. This is what Ornit Shani does in her second book, How India Became Democratic, in which she reveals the extraordinary tale of a handful of Indian bureaucrats who drew up India's first electoral rolls, before India had adopted a Constitution and therefore a definition of who was a citizen … How India Became Democratic makes a number of significant contributions.' Gilles Verniers, The Indian Express'In Ornit Shani's excellent new book How India Became Democratic, about the creation of the electoral roll and how it enabled universal franchise, she quotes from the letters of advice and appeal that Indians sent the Constituent Assembly secretariat, which was broadly in charge.' Vikram Doctor, The Economic Times'… a major contribution to the study of Indian democracy, modern Indian history, and the study of democratization more broadly. It should be required reading for students of Indian democracy. Future scholars can profitably expand on Shani's work, which is the first foray into the study of ordinary Indians and their contributions to a democracy that has now withstood the test of seven decades.' India Ink (www.guindiaink.squarespace.com)'How India Became Democratic argues persuasively that in transforming voting from a privilege that was accorded to a select few to a right that could be enforced by all, independent India transformed the status of its people from subjects to citizens, in important and far-reaching ways.' Gautam Bhatia, The Hindu'This book is remarkable not because it uncovers something deep and concealed from the ordinary eye, but because it reveals the extraordinariness of things that had all along been in obvious sight, perhaps so close that we just did not see it. Ornit Shani's book breaks new ground because she relates the enduring character of Indian democracy to something so humdrum, so routinised that it has remained unaccounted for in the story of Indian democracy - the conduct of universal adult franchise.' Rajshree Chandra, Open'… the result of extensive research into the archival material of the Election Commission, National Archives of India and the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library.' Aprameya Rao, First Post (www.firstpost.com)'Ornit Shani's How India Became Democratic: Citizenship and the Making of the Universal Franchise is a one-of-its-kind study, focusing on the preparation of India's first electoral roll in 1949.' Nidheesh M. K., Live Mint (www.livemint.com)'Shani's is a valuable addition to the scarce literature on the study of the democratic enigma that is India. Any person wanting to understand the process of India's democratic transition must read this book.' Y. S. Quraishi, Outlook'A stunning study of the process that turned Indians into voters even as the founding fathers were writing the constitution. … Now, in a book that cannot be recommended enough, Ornit Shani deepens the scholarship of that vitally Indian connect between exercising one's franchise and being a citizen.' Mini Kapoor, The Hindu'How India Became Democratic, by Israeli scholar Ornit Shani, is the meticulously researched and rivetingly told story of how this was achieved and of the unsung heroes who did it.' Aditya Nath Jha, Swarajya'… a clear glimpse into the integrity, passion and commitment with which the republic's first generation went about creating its institutions.' Mihir Sharma, Business StandardTable of ContentsIntroduction; 1. Designing for democracy: rewriting the bureaucratic colonial imagination; 2. The pursuit of citizenship in the making of the electoral roll: registering partition refugees; 3. The roll as 'serialised epic' and the personalisation of the universal franchise; 4. Disciplining the federal structure; 5. Shaping the constitution from below and the role of the Secretariat; 6. The limits of inclusion; Conclusion: a 17 crore and 220 yard democracy.

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Book SynopsisIn this innovative and engaging study, Mire Koikari recasts the US occupation of Okinawa as a startling example of Cold War cultural interaction in which women's grassroots activities involving homes and homemaking played a pivotal role in reshaping the contours of US and Japanese imperialisms. Drawing on insights from studies of gender, Asia, America and postcolonialism, Koikari analyzes how the occupation sparked domestic education movements in Okinawa, mobilizing an assortment of women - home economists, military wives, club women, university students and homemakers - from the US, Okinawa and mainland Japan. These women went on to pursue a series of activities to promote 'modern domesticity' and build 'multicultural friendship' amidst intense militarization on the islands. As these women took their commitment to domesticity and multiculturalism onto the larger terrain of the Pacific, they came to articulate the complex intertwinement of gender, race, domesticity, empire and transnatTrade Review'Cold War Encounters is a closely argued study that explores the intersections of rhetoric, policy, and the ambitions of individual actors by analyzing a rich variety of cases.' Jan Bardsley, Japanese Studies'[Koikari's] book constitutes an important corrective to the existing literature on occupation-era Japan and Okinawa, and will hopefully usher in additional studies that follow its lead …' Ryan Masaaki Yokota, Social Science Japan JournalTable of Contents1. Rethinking gender and militarism in Cold War Okinawa; 2. Cultivating feminine affinity and affiliation with Americans: Cold War people-to-people encounters and women's club activities; 3. 'The world is our campus': domestic science and Cold War transnationalism between Michigan and Okinawa; 4. Building a bridge across the Pacific: domestic training and Cold War technical interchange between Okinawa and Hawaii; 5. Mobilizing homes, empowering women: Okinawan home economists and Cold War domestic education; 6. Cultivating feminine affinity and affiliation with the homeland: grassroots women's exchange between mainland Japan and Okinawa; Epilogue; Bibliography; Index.

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Book SynopsisThe Thar Desert, which is today divided by an international boundary, has historically been a frontier region connecting Punjab, Multan, Sindh, Gujarat and Rajasthan. This book looks at the Desert as an historical region shaped through the mobility of its inhabitants - warriors, pastoralists, traders, ascetics and bards, often in overlapping capacities. It challenges the frames of Mughal-Rajput relationships generally employed to explore the histories of the Thar, arguing that Rajputana remains an inadequate category to explore polities located in this frontier region, where along with Rajputs, a range of groups, such as Charans, Bhils, Meenas, Soomras and Pathans controlled circulation, and with whom the Rajput states had to constantly negotiate. Sifting through a wide range of Rajasthani written and oral narratives, travelogues of British administrators, and vernacular as well as English records, the book explores long-term relationships between mobility, martiality, memory and identity in the desert expanses of the Thar.Table of ContentsList of tables; List of abbreviations; Preface; Acknowledgements; Glossary; Note on transliteration, translation and dates; Contemporary place names and their nineteenth-century spellings; Introduction; 1. Geographical imagination and narratives of a region; 2. Mobility, polity, territory; 3. Itinerants of the Thar: mobility and circulation; 4. Expanding state contracting space: the Thar in the nineteenth century; 5. Narratives of mobility and mobility of narratives; Conclusions: nomadic narratives in the frontiers; Bibliography; Appendix 1. Jodhpur King list; Appendix 2. Bikaner King list; Appendix 3. Jaisalmer King list; Index.

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Book SynopsisThe Forty-Seven Ronin vendetta is one of the most famous incidents in Japanese history, but it is also one of the most misunderstood. John A. Tucker seeks to provide a credible account of the vendetta and its afterlife in history. He suggests that, when considered historically and holistically, the vendetta appears as a site of contested cultural ground, with conflicts, disagreements, and debates characterizing its three-century history far more than cultural unanimity about its values, virtues, and icons. Tucker narrates the incident as the historical event that it was, within the context of Tokugawa social, political, cultural, and spiritual history, before exploring the vendetta as conflicted cultural ground, generating a steady flow of essays, novels, plays, and ideologically driven expressions intrinsic to the course of Japanese history. This engaging, accessible study provides insights into ways in which events and debates from early modern history have continued to inform develoTrade Review'The definitive book-length study by a uniquely qualified scholar of one of Japanese history's most contested events, the Akō rōnin vendetta. Using primary sources, John A. Tucker details the complexity of the event itself, which pitted private morality against the feudal social order, and then traces its three centuries of enduring fascination in the popular imagination.' Peter Nosco, University of British Columbia, Vancouver'Few stories from Japan are more powerful, more provocative, or more elastic than that of the heroic (or villainous) Forty-Seven Rōnin. Tucker's exegesis is a masterful engagement with this classic tale, its myriad interpretations, and its various forms of social and cultural impact. With characteristic sensitivity and impressive scholarship, Tucker develops the central concept of vendetta into a force of historical richness and importance.' Chris Goto-Jones, University of Victoria, British ColumbiaTable of ContentsIntroduction: vendetta overview; 1. Time and place; 2. Eyewitnesses to bloodshed; 3. Rōnin schisms; 4. Laying souls to rest; 5. Confucian versus Confucian debates; 6. Confucian versus Confucian, round two; 7. History on stage; 8. Domestic, foreign, and anti-foreign reflections; 9. Modern revivals; 10. The vendetta through 1945; 11. Domesticating the vendetta.

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Book SynopsisVietnam''s Lost Revolution employs newly-released archival material from Vietnam to examine the rise and fall of the Special Commissariat for Civic Action in the First Republic of Vietnam, and in so doing reassesses the origins of the Vietnam War. A cornerstone of Ngô Ðình Di?m''s presidency, Civic Action was intended to transform Vietnam into a thriving, modern, independent, noncommunist Southeast Asian nation. Geoffrey Stewart juxtaposes Diem''s revolutionary plan with the conflicting and competing visions of Vietnam''s postcolonial future held by other indigenous groups. He shows how the government failed to gain legitimacy within the peasantry, ceding the advantage to the communist-led opposition and paving the way for the American military intervention in the mid-1960s. This book provides a richer and more nuanced analysis of the origins of the Vietnam War in which internal struggles over national identity, self-determination, and even modernity itself are central.Trade Review'Based upon exhaustive research in American, Canadian, and especially Vietnamese archival sources, this superb book provides one of the best scholarly analyses available of the Republic of Vietnam's concept of nation building. It articulates the positive and negative features of Ngô Đình Diệm's vision for his country drawn from his administration's own records.' David L. Anderson, California State University, Monterey Bay'In this meticulously researched book, Geoffrey Stewart details the rise and fall of Diệm's national revolution in South Vietnam. Making extensive use of South Vietnamese archives, Stewart offers an intimate look at how and why the Diệm government failed to create a viable South Vietnamese nation state. Placing South Vietnamese officials front and center in his narrative, Stewart gives agency back to the actors who had the most to win, or lose, as they struggled to maintain their footing in the cross currents of a Cold War and decolonizing world.' Kathryn C. Statler, University of San Diego'Vietnam's Lost Revolution: Ngô Đình Diệm's Failure to Build an Independent Nation, [1955]–1963, is the first - and a very good - study of the Civic Action Programs developed in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN) by the government of Ngô Đình Diệm, president from 1955 to his assassination in 1963. … The author makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of Saigon's efforts in the late 1950s to develop a non-communist revolutionary program to modernize rural society in South Vietnam, and Geoffrey Stewart should be much congratulated on this accomplishment.' Olga Dror, The American Historical Review'Vietnam's Lost Revolution is certainly one of the greatest scholarly works on the Diem period to date. Its academic merits are substantial.' Mark Schell, H-Net: Humanities and Social Science Reviews OnlineTable of Contents1. A temporary expedient: the origins of civic action in Vietnam; 2. Nationalism and welfare improvement in the Republic of Vietnam; 3. Revolution, community development, and the construction of Diệm's Vietnam; 4. 'Bettering the people's conditions of existence': civic action and community development, 1957–9; 5. Civic action and insurgency; 6. The strategic Hamlet program and civic action in retreat; Conclusion: Vietnam's lost revolution.

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Book SynopsisIn the 1920s and 1930s, the port-cities of Southeast Asia were staging grounds for diverse groups of ordinary citizens to experiment with modernity, as a rising Japan and American capitalism challenged the predominance of European empires after the First World War. Both migrants and locals played a pivotal role in shaping civic culture. Moving away from a nationalist reading of the period, Su Lin Lewis explores layers of cross-cultural interaction in various spheres: the urban built environment, civic associations, print media, education, popular culture and the emergence of the modern woman. While the book focuses on Penang, Rangoon and Bangkok - three cities born amidst British expansion to the region - it explores connected experiences across Asia and in Asian intellectual enclaves in Europe. Cosmopolitan sensibilities were severely tested in the era of post-colonial nationalism, but are undergoing a resurgence in Southeast Asia''s civil society and creative class today.Trade Review'There are few recent books as deeply anchored in both global and urban history as Su Lin Lewis's exploration of urban life in early-twentieth-century Southeast Asian port cities. … While Lewis speaks to recent debates in global history, she successfully eschews the now familiar charge that the field's practitioners have veered too far from concrete, empirical studies of the local. The elegantly presented results of her research therefore should be read by a wide range of historians.' Michael Goebel, Global Urban History (www.globalurbanhistory.com)Table of ContentsIntroduction: seeing through the city; 1. Maritime commerce, old rivalries, and the birth of three cities; 2. Asian port cities in a turbulent age; 3. Cosmopolitan publics in divided societies; 4. Newsprint, wires, and the reading public; 5. Playgrounds, classrooms, and politics; 6. Gramophones, cinema halls, and bobbed hair; Epilogue: cosmopolitan legacies; Bibliography; Index.

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Book SynopsisThis fascinating new study traces traditions and memories relating to the twelfth-century Indian ruler Prithviraj Chauhan; a Hindu king who was defeated and overthrown during the conquest of Northern India by Muslim armies from Afghanistan. Surveying a wealth of narratives that span more than 800 years, Cynthia Talbot explores the reasons why he is remembered, and by whom. In modern times, the Chauhan king has been referred to as ''the last Hindu emperor'', because Muslim rule prevailed for centuries following his defeat. Despite being overthrown, however, his name and story have evolved over time into a historical symbol of India''s martial valor. The Last Hindu Emperor sheds new light on the enduring importance of heroic histories in Indian culture and the extraordinary ability of historical memory to transform the hero of a clan into the hero of a community, and finally a nation.Trade Review'While Talbot's archive is almost entirely restricted to the written word, she executes a sensitive reading that allows her to furnish a nuanced picture of the communities that wrote and read such works. Especially rich is Talbot's description of the Rajput elites for whom the Raso was a central text beginning in the late sixteenth century.' Audrey Truschke, H-Asia'… Cynthia Talbot seeks to excavate the layers of memory sedimented around the celebrated Indian king Prithviraj Chauhan (1166–1192). … Talbot's book … highlights the continued relevance of medieval history in the politics of the past.' Daud Ali, American Historical Review'This lucidly written and clearly argued monograph traces the narrative career of Prithviraj Chauhan, the ruler of Ajmer (southwest of Delhi) in the twelfth century, who was defeated by the Turkic ruler from Ghur, Shihab al-Din, in 1192 CE. … this monograph would be a wonderful resource in courses on historical method - on reading of different genres of historical evidence - as well as in comparative courses on history and memory, and in courses on history and memory in colonial and postcolonial worlds.' Ramya Sreenivasan, The Journal of Asian StudiesTable of Contents1. Introduction: layers of memory; 2. Literary trajectories of the historic king; 3. Delhi in the making of the last Hindu emperor; 4. The heroic vision of a regional elite; 5. Imagining the Rajput past in Mughal-era Mewar; 6. Validating Prithviraj Rāso in colonial India, 1820s–70s; 7. Contested meanings in a nationalist age, 1880s–1940s; 8. Epilogue: the postcolonial Prithviraj; Bibliography; Index.

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Book SynopsisBased on the chance survival of a remarkable cache of documents, India and the Islamic Heartlands recaptures a vanished and forgotten world from the eighteenth century spanning much of today''s Middle East and South Asia. Gagan D. S. Sood focuses on ordinary people - traders, pilgrims, bankers, clerics, brokers, and scribes, among others - who were engaged in activities marked by large distances and long silences. By elucidating their everyday lives in a range of settings, from the family household to the polity at large, Sood pieces together the connective tissue of a world that lay beyond the sovereign purview. Recapturing this obscured and neglected world helps us better understand the region during a pivotal moment in its history, and offers new answers to old questions concerning early modern Eurasia and its transition to colonialism.Trade Review'Sood successfully weaves a narrative on the basis of these exchanges to point out the obvious lacuna in existing scholarship on the region … this book opens up a fresh line of enquiry about the ways in which people of the region engaged with their polities and networks of circulation, and how these shaped their world and worldviews … What distinguishes the book from other similar kinds of writings is its dealings with its sources - letters that are far from adequate, often patchy, incomplete and certainly inarticulate. Typically ideas and views are expressed in the simplest and most localised idioms, and thus Sood must be credited for building a narrative on the basis of such materials and for further drawing scholarly attention to this neglected arena for further exploration.' Mithilesh Kumar Jha, LSE Review of BooksTable of ContentsPrologue; Introduction; 1. Cognitive patterns: approaching the world; 2. A cosmic order: the meaning and end of life; 3. A familial order: ties of blood, duty and affect; 4. A relational order: intimates, strangers and plurality; 5. A communications order: language, writing and couriers; 6. A political order: temporal authority and governance; 7. Everyday practices: indispensable skills and techniques; 8. Flows and interactions: the arena's connective tissue; Conclusion; Glossary; Bibliography; Index.

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Book SynopsisIn this book, Xiaolong Wu offers a comprehensive and in-depth study of the Zhongshan state during China''s Warring States Period (476221 BCE). Analyzing artefacts, inscriptions, and grandiose funerary structures within a broad archaeological context, he illuminates the connections between power and identity, and the role of material culture in asserting and communicating both. The author brings an interdisciplinary approach to this study. He combines and cross-examines all available categories of evidence, including archaeological, textual, art historical, and epigraphical, enabling innovative interpretations and conclusions that challenge conventional views regarding Zhongshan and ethnicity in ancient China. Wu reveals the complex relationship between material culture, cultural identity, and statecraft intended by the royal patrons. He demonstrates that the Zhongshan king Cuo constructed a hybrid cultural identity, consolidated his power, and aimed to maintain political order at courtTable of ContentsList of figures; List of maps; List of tables; Acknowledgements; Introduction; 1. Historical setting and approaches to the study of an ancient state in Warring States China; 2. Life, death, and identity in Zhongshan: sorting out the archaeological evidence; 3. Royal mortuary practice and artifacts: hybridity, identity, and power; 4. Inter-state politics and artistic innovation during the reign of King Cuo; 5. Statecraft and Zhongshan bronze inscriptions; 6. Funerary architecture, kingly power, and court politics; Conclusion; Appendixes; Bibliography; Index.

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Book SynopsisIn Praise of Kings is a ground breaking study of the long-neglected fifteenth century in South Asian history. Contrary to the conventional focus on the Delhi-centred empires which consider this period as an age of decline, this book illuminates the cultural and political dynamism of the era. It reconstructs the fascinating world of the royal courts of Gujarat, including those of the Rajput chieftains and the regional sultans, through close readings of rarely used literary works in Sanskrit and Gujarati. The book also complicates another popularly held perception: that of Gujarat as the land of traders and merchants. Instead, it shows how Gujarat's warrior past was also integral to this region's identity and history.Table of ContentsAcknowledgements; A note on transliteration and usage; Introduction; 1. Setting the stage: contextualising fifteenth-century Gujarat; 2. Raṇmallachanda: a warrior imagined; 3. Gangadhara's oeuvre: cosmopolitan poetry for local kings; 4. Rājavinoda: the sultan as Indic king; 5. Rās Mālā: re-discovering a warrior past; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.

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Book SynopsisManchuria entered the twentieth century as a neglected backwater of the dying Qing dynasty, and within a few short years became the focus of intense international rivalry to control its resources and shape its people. This book examines the place of religion in the development of Manchuria from the late nineteenth century to the collapse of the Japanese Empire in 1945. Religion was at the forefront in this period of intense competition, not just between armies but also among different models of legal, commercial, social and spiritual development, each of which imagining a very specific role for religion in the new society. Debates over religion in Manchuria extended far beyond the region, and shaped the personality of religion that we see today. This book is an ambitious contribution to the field of Asian history and to the understanding of the global meaning and practice of the role of religion.Trade Review'Few scholars in the world can match DuBois' knowledge of the modern religious and political histories of China and Japan. In this book he applies that knowledge to Manchuria, a state whose history has already revolutionized global historical thinking about relations between tradition and modernity, the national and the cosmopolitan. An impressive new contribution to scholarship on the politics of religion.' Kiri Paramore, Leiden University, author of Japanese Confucianism: A Cultural History'In this exhilarating and original study of early twentieth-century Manchuria in global context, Thomas DuBois paints a lively picture of the politics and history of spiritual governance in a time and place that seems far removed from our own - but isn't as far as you might think. From an original and provocative account of the Boxer Uprising, to the politics of knowledge generation in Japanese and East Asian social science circles, to the designation of certain groups as 'religious bandits' in the Japanese owned Shengjing Times, to the politics of religious freedom and Protestant and Catholic mission in Japanese colonial Manchukuo, to the emergence of philanthropy as a civic sphere distinct from religion by groups such as the Daoyuan and the World Red Swastika Society, this book never quits. A fascinating, fun and indispensable read for anyone interested in the shifting and entangled fields of spirituality, sovereignty, empire, nationalism, and law.' Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, Northwestern UniversityTable of ContentsIntroduction; 1. Foundations of religion in society in Manchuria; 2. From the blood of the martyrs; 3. The mind of empire; 4. Piety in print; 5. The laws of men; 6. A charitable view; 7. Manchukuo's filial sons; 8. May God bless Manchukuo; Conclusion; Appendices; Bibliography.

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Book SynopsisOn the seventieth anniversary of Indian independence, Partition, and the creation of Pakistan, this ground breaking collection brings together fourteen cutting-edge scholarly essays on multiple aspects of both the region and the issue of Kashmir. While keeping the political dimensions of the dispute over the territory in focus, these innovative essays branch out from the high politics of the conflict to consider less well-known aspects and areas of Kashmir. They examine the continuities and ruptures between Kashmir''s past and its present situation; reevaluate the contemporary political scenario from the perspective of gender, economic and political marginality, everyday experiences, and governance; and analyze the ways in which the region of Kashmir and its people are represented and (re)present themselves in films and literature through their regional and religious identities, and commodities. This volume aims to understand the limitations of postcolonial nationalism and citizenship as exemplified by the situation in contemporary Kashmir.Table of ContentsAcknowledgements; Map 1. Pre-partition Jammu and Kashmir; Map 2. Contemporary Kashmir; Introduction: new directions in the study of Kashmir Chitralekha Zutshi; Part I. History: 1. To 'tear the mask off the face of the past': archaeology and politics in Jammu and Kashmir Mridu Rai; 2. Contesting urban space: shrine culture and the discourse on Kashmiri Muslim identities and protest in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Chitralekha Zutshi; 3. The rise and fall of new Kashmir Andrew Whitehead; 4. Kashmiri visions of freedom: the past and the present Shahla Hussain; Part II. Politics: 5. Azad Kashmir: integral to India, integrated into Pakistan, lacking integrity as an autonomous entity Christopher Snedden; 6. 'Not part of Kashmir, but of the Kashmir dispute': the political predicaments of Gilgit-Baltistan Martin Sökefeld; 7. Law, gender and governance in Kashmir Seema Kazi; 8. 'Survival is now our politics': Kashmiri Pandit community identity and the politics of homeland Haley Duschinski; 9. Beyond the 'Kashmir' meta-narrative: caste, identities and the politics of conflict in Jammu and Kashmir Mohita Bhatia; 10. Contested governance, competing nationalisms and disenchanted publics: Kashmir beyond intractability? Reeta Chowdhari Tremblay; Part III. Representation: 11. Embedded mystics: writing Lal Ded and Nund Rishi into the Kashmiri landscape Dean Accardi; 12. Producing paradise: Kashmir's shawl economy, the quest for authenticity and the politics of representation in Europe, c.1770–1870 Vanessa Chishti; 13. The Kashmiri as Muslim in Bollywood's 'new Kashmir films' Ananya Jahanara Kabir; 14. The witness of poetry: political feeling in Kashmiri poems Suvir Kaul; Notes on contributors; Index.

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Book SynopsisThis is a major new study of the successor states that emerged in the wake of the collapse of the great Russian, Habsburg, Iranian, Ottoman and Qing Empires and of the expansionist powers who renewed their struggle over the Eurasian borderlands through to the end of the Second World War. Surveying the great power rivalry between the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan for control over the Western and Far Eastern boundaries of Eurasia, Alfred J. Rieber provides a new framework for understanding the evolution of Soviet policy from the Revolution through to the beginning of the Cold War. Paying particular attention to the Soviet Union, the book charts how these powers adopted similar methods to the old ruling elites to expand and consolidate their conquests, ranging from colonisation and deportation to forced assimilation, but applied them with a force that far surpassed the practices of their imperial predecessors.Trade Review'In this thorough study, Rieber analyzes the struggle for control of Eurasia's borderlands from the collapse of the Romanov, Habsburg, Ottoman, Qing, and Persian empires through the end of WWII. He focuses on Stalin, emphasizing the ways in which the Soviet leader's foreign policy echoed approaches of his imperial predecessors. Stalin was a 'man of the borderlands', shaped by his experiences growing up in Transcaucasia and building a revolutionary state on the ruins of a multiethnic empire … 'Stalin's pragmatism', writes Rieber, 'was the pragmatism of a Marxist-Leninist tempered by his grasp of the historical foundations of Russia's status as a great power'. Summing up: highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.' M. A. Soderstrom, Choice'Beautifully written and richly documented … based on many archival materials made available in the post-Soviet era … Those with some knowledge of Soviet domestic and foreign policies will benefit the most from this book, but even those lacking a background in Soviet affairs would still benefit from reading it. It is an extremely timely work providing an understanding of the turbulent relations of Russia and the USSR with its neighbors, including Ukraine and, in that regard, provides an important tool for helping us understand Russian-Ukrainian relations today.' Nathaniel Richmond, The Russian Review'This is an ambitious and overarching reinterpretation of Stalin's domestic and foreign policies - or actually the connections between the two - from the revolution and civil war periods through World War II and the dawn of the Cold War … Rieber's book provides some insights and historical background to the current Kremlin's profound and clearly long-standing fear of hostile states on its periphery, and the belief that a ring of friendly buffer states around Russia are vital to the security of the state.' Paul Stronski, Slavic Review'Rieber's elaboration of the borderlands thesis in Stalin and the Struggle for Supremacy in Eurasia is a tour de force. The problem is that its brilliance dazzles as well as illuminates.' Geoffrey Roberts, H-Diplo'Stalin and the Struggle for Supremacy in Eurasia is a very rich text and readers from many fields and area studies will find useful information to mine.' David Wolff, H-DiploTable of ContentsIntroduction; 1. Stalin: man of the borderlands; 2. Borderlands in Civil War and intervention; 3. The borderland thesis: the West; 4. The borderland thesis: the East; 5. Stalin in command; 6. Borderlands on the eve; 7. Civil wars in the borderlands; 8. War aims: the outer perimeter; 9. War aims: the inner perimeter; 10. Friendly governments in the outer perimeter; Conclusion: a transient hegemony; Index.

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Book SynopsisExploring a wealth of images ranging from woodblock prints to oil paintings, this beautifully illustrated full-color study takes up key elements of the visual culture produced in the People''s Republic of China from its founding in 1949 to the present day. In a challenge to prevailing perceptions, Xiaobing Tang argues that contemporary Chinese visual culture is too complex to be understood in terms of a simple binary of government propaganda and dissident art, and that new ways must be sought to explain as well as appreciate its multiple sources and enduring visions. Drawing on rich artistic, literary, and sociopolitical backgrounds, Tang presents a series of insightful readings of paradigmatic works in contemporary Chinese visual arts and cinema. Lucidly written and organized to address provocative questions, this compelling study underscores the global and historical context of Chinese visual culture and offers a timely new perspective on our understanding of China today.Trade Review'This is a must-read for anyone interested in China's post-socialist and socialist eras and the continuing, lively interaction between the two. In putting visual culture at the centre of contemporary Chinese historical developments, Tang challenges our assumptions about what China is and is not.' Paul A. Clark, University of Auckland'A thought-provoking and outstanding contribution to the field. Xiaobing Tang urges Western viewers and reviewers to set aside constrictive paradigms and consider China's socialist and contemporary culture in its complexity and uniqueness.' Richard King, University of Victoria'This is an indispensable volume for understanding the development of Chinese modernity.' Chang Tsong-Zung, curator and co-founder of the Asia Art Archive in Hong Kong, co-founder of the Hong Kong chapter of AICA, and guest professor, China Art Academy'In this gorgeously illustrated, richly produced book, Xiaobing Tang introduces visual culture studies to several cultural sectors in the People's Republic of China … Tang's book is a timely and forcefully argued study that points the way for future research of visual culture in China.' Sean Macdonald, Frontiers of Literary Studies in China'… in this very readable history of the development of visual culture in contemporary China, Tang has succeeded in bringing together a number of vastly different topics and artistic styles and developments.' Stefan Landsberger, Pacific AffairsTable of ContentsAcknowledgements; A brief timeline of relevant events; Introduction: toward a short history of visual culture in contemporary China; 1. How was socialist visual culture created? Part I. Revelations of an Art Form: 2. How was socialist visual culture created? Part II. Revelations of a History Painting: 3. What do we see in New China cinema?; 4. What does socialist visual experience mean to contemporary art?; 5. How (not) to watch a Chinese blockbuster; 6. Where to look for art in contemporary China?; Conclusion: seeing China from afar; Glossary; Filmography; Select bibliography; Index.

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Book SynopsisThe Forty-Seven Ronin vendetta is one of the most famous incidents in Japanese history, but it is also one of the most misunderstood. John A. Tucker seeks to provide a credible account of the vendetta and its afterlife in history. He suggests that, when considered historically and holistically, the vendetta appears as a site of contested cultural ground, with conflicts, disagreements, and debates characterizing its three-century history far more than cultural unanimity about its values, virtues, and icons. Tucker narrates the incident as the historical event that it was, within the context of Tokugawa social, political, cultural, and spiritual history, before exploring the vendetta as conflicted cultural ground, generating a steady flow of essays, novels, plays, and ideologically driven expressions intrinsic to the course of Japanese history. This engaging, accessible study provides insights into ways in which events and debates from early modern history have continued to inform develoTrade Review'The definitive book-length study by a uniquely qualified scholar of one of Japanese history's most contested events, the Akō rōnin vendetta. Using primary sources, John A. Tucker details the complexity of the event itself, which pitted private morality against the feudal social order, and then traces its three centuries of enduring fascination in the popular imagination.' Peter Nosco, University of British Columbia, Vancouver'Few stories from Japan are more powerful, more provocative, or more elastic than that of the heroic (or villainous) Forty-Seven Rōnin. Tucker's exegesis is a masterful engagement with this classic tale, its myriad interpretations, and its various forms of social and cultural impact. With characteristic sensitivity and impressive scholarship, Tucker develops the central concept of vendetta into a force of historical richness and importance.' Chris Goto-Jones, University of Victoria, British ColumbiaTable of ContentsIntroduction: vendetta overview; 1. Time and place; 2. Eyewitnesses to bloodshed; 3. Rōnin schisms; 4. Laying souls to rest; 5. Confucian versus Confucian debates; 6. Confucian versus Confucian, round two; 7. History on stage; 8. Domestic, foreign, and anti-foreign reflections; 9. Modern revivals; 10. The vendetta through 1945; 11. Domesticating the vendetta.

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Book SynopsisChiara Formichi explores the ways in which Islam and Asia have shaped each other''s histories, societies and cultures from the seventh century to today. Challenging the assumed dominance of the Middle East in the development of Islam, Formichi argues for Asia''s centrality in the development of global Islam as a religious, social and political reality. Readers learn how and why Asia is central to the history of Islam, and vice versa, considering the impact of Asia''s Muslims on Islam; and how Islam became an integral part of Asia, and its influence on local conceptions of power, the sciences, arts, and bureaucracy. Grounding her argument in specific case studies, Formichi ultimately concludes that the existence of Islamized interactions across Asia have allowed for multi-directional influences on Islamic practices and interpretations throughout the Muslim world.Trade Review'Islam and Asia: A History integrates the expansion of Islam into the millennial trajectory of Asia and its multiple histories. Islamicate cultures of Central, South, South-east, and East Asia are traced with documentary care, abetted by narrative skill, to produce the newest, best introduction to a global civilization rooted and nurtured in Asia.' Bruce B. Lawrence, Professor of Islamic Studies Emeritus, Duke University, North Carolina'Accessible and original, Chiara Formichi's Islam and Asia puts the history of Muslims and Islam exactly where it belongs - in the vast area where most of the world's Muslims live. Muslims transformed Asia; and Islam here, as everywhere, was enriched and transformed as well. Enlivened by illustrations, maps, insets, and primary sources, the book is not only a delight for specialists, but an excellent if unexpected entrée for beginners curious about Islamic history.' Barbara D. Metcalf, Professor of History Emerita, University of California, Davis'This is a necessary and accessible volume. Formichi offers a bird's eye view of Islam in Asia, but does not skimp on rich examples. Readers are left with an understanding of Islam in Asia, Asian Islams, and how Asia is, in fact, central to the story of Islamic histories as well as specific, concrete examples of that history and its plurality.' Ilyse R. Morgenstein Fuerst, University of Vermont'Formichi here provides a wonderfully dynamic book. It is an innovative, pioneering historical survey; a well-designed, excellent textbook; and it is certainly adequate to serve as a concise reference book … It is a foundational work that points the way toward what could become a new generation of creative and urgently needed studies. Boxed key points, lists for further reading by chapter, a glossary, extensive citations and notes, and an analytic index round out this noteworthy volume.' G. R. Thursby, ChoiceTable of ContentsIntroduction; 1. Islam across the Oxus (7th–17th centuries); 2. Becoming Muslim (7th–18th centuries; 3. Networks and renewal (18th–19th centuries);4. Pan-Islamism and nationalism (19th–20th centuries);5. Muslims in the nation-state (1940s–1960s); 6. New imaginations of piety (1960s–1990s);7. Islam as resistance; 8. De-centering Islamic authority; 9. Studying Asia and Islam.

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Book SynopsisIndonesia is often viewed as a country with substantial natural resources which has achieved solid economic growth since the 1960s, but which still faces serious economic challenges. In 2010, its per capita GDP was only nineteen per cent of that of the Netherlands, and twenty-two per cent of that of Japan. In recent decades, per capita GDP has fallen behind that of neighbouring countries such as Malaysia and Thailand, and behind China. In this accessible but thorough new study, Anne Booth explains the long-term factors which have influenced Indonesian economic performance, taking into account the Dutch colonial legacy and the reaction to it after the transfer of power in 1949. The first part of the book offers a chronological study of economic development from the late nineteenth to the early twenty-first century, while the second part explores topics including the persistence of economic nationalism and the ongoing tensions between Indonesia''s diverse regions.Trade Review'Booth deploys her deep and sustained knowledge to trace Indonesia's seventy year transition, from colonization and conflict to middle-income and membership in the G-20 group of leading world economies. She combines narrative economic history with rigorous yet accessible analysis of major economic and development challenges, including nation-building, poverty alleviation, democratization, and interactions with volatile world markets. This masterful account should become the go-to source on the development of the modern Indonesian economy.' Ian Coxhead, University of Wisconsin, Madison'Anne Booth is an eminent economic historian with a profound understanding of the complexity of economic and social challenges in Indonesia. This book contains her carefully professional assessment of Indonesia's economic progress over more than a century. The book offers valuable lessons from history for anyone who is interested in learning about key development challenges and the changing role of government in Indonesia.' Siwage Dharma Negara, Indonesian Institute of Sciences'Anne Booth has written an authoritative and penetrating account of how Indonesia's economy has undergone dramatic change in recent decades. With her superior knowledge of Indonesian economic history both in colonial times and since independence, she provides a compelling and insightful analysis of Indonesia's great economic potentials and its long-term resilience to short-run economic failure. Compulsory reading for students of Indonesian economic history and the Indonesian economy today.' Thomas Lindblad, Leiden University'Anne Booth writes with great authority across a broad canvas in this magisterial work on Indonesian economic history. The volume will certainly come to be regarded as the seminal work on the subject, combining rigorous analysis, careful empirics and insightful 'big picture' judgements.' Hal Hill, Australian National University, Canberra'Anne Booth has once again written an authoritative, comprehensive economic history of Indonesia. … there is much to recommend here. Scholars of Indonesia will greatly appreciate Booth's balanced and commanding evaluation of key economic debates in Indonesia to which the book's second half is devoted. For those with less prior knowledge of the country and who are looking for an incisive introduction, a careful reading of Economic Change in Modern Indonesia will be richly rewarding.' James S. Davidson, Journal of Southeast Asian EconomiesTable of Contents1. Introduction: Indonesia's three watersheds; 2. The colonial legacy; 3. Occupation, liberation and the challenges facing the new republic, 1942–66; 4. Suharto's economic record: successes and failures; 5. The 1997/98 crisis and its legacy: dropping out again?; 6. The SBY years: building a new Indonesia?; 7. Economic nationalism, economic rationalism and the development of private business after 1950; 8. Trends in poverty and income distribution: the Suharto era and beyond; 9. The changing role of government from the colonial era to the post-Suharto years; 10. Conclusions; Bibliography; Index.

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Book SynopsisThis revisionist history of caste politics in twentieth-century Bengal argues that the decline of this form of political mobilization in the region was as much the result of coercion as of consent. It traces this process through the political career of Jogendranath Mandal, the leader of the Dalit movement in eastern India and a prominent figure in the history of India and Pakistan, over the transition of Partition and Independence. Utilising Mandal''s private papers, this study reveals both the strength and achievements of his movement for Dalit recognition, as well as the major challenges and constraints he encountered. Departing from analyses that have stressed the role of integration, Dwaipayan Sen demonstrates how a wide range of coercions shaped the eventual defeat of Dalit politics in Bengal. The region''s acclaimed ''castelessness'' was born of the historical refusal of Mandal''s struggle to pose the caste question.Trade Review'This pioneering and probing study of Jogendranath Mandal and his political predicament adds a completely new dimension to the history of Bengal. It brings out in detail some enduring caste-conflicts that marked the politics of the partition of the province and that have so far gone unacknowledged in mainstream histories of the subcontinent. An original and lasting contribution to modern South Asian history.' Dipesh Chakrabarty, University of Chicago'With lucidity and passion, Sen recovers a profoundly important history of Bengal Dalit self-assertion between 1930s and 1960s. Focussing on a remarkable leader, it grows into the biography of a 'general category': provocatively arguing that Dalit politics was crushed by, and not integrated into, mainstream nationalism.' Tanika Sarkar, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi'This is a crucially important book that will help solve the mystery of the disappearance of the caste question from West Bengal's politics. Focusing on the career of Jogendranath Mandal, the foremost political leader of the Namasudra caste in the 1940s, Sen has brought to our attention much new archival material and raised some provocative questions.' Partha Chatterjee, Columbia University, New York, and Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, CalcuttaTable of ContentsList of figures; Acknowledgments; Introduction: rethinking castelessness in mid-20th-century Bengal; 1. Jogendranath Mandal, the politics of caste, and provincial autonomy, 1932–37; 2. Representation, education and agrarian reform: Jogendranath Mandal and the demands of Dalit politics, 1937–43; 3. A separate political existence: the making of the Bengal Scheduled Castes Federation, 1943–45; 4. 'No matter how, Jogendranath had to be defeated': the Scheduled Castes Federation and the partition of Bengal, 1945–47; 5. Betrayed expectations: East Pakistan and West Bengal, 1947–50; 6. 'A Caste Hindu State': Jogendranath Mandal and the forced removal of Dalit refugees, 1950–64; 7. The decline of the caste question: the defeat of Dalit politics in Bengal, 1952–68; Conclusion: '… the most casteist society in India'; Bibliography; Index.

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Book SynopsisIn this book Michele L. Louro compiles the debates, introduces the personalities, and reveals the ideas that seeded Jawaharlal Nehru''s political vision for India and the wider world. Set between the world wars, this book argues that Nehru''s politics reached beyond India in order to fulfill a greater vision of internationalism that was rooted in his experiences with anti-imperialist and anti-fascist mobilizations in the 1920s and 1930s. Using archival sources from India, the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany, and Russia, the author offers a compelling study of Nehru''s internationalism as well as contributes a necessary interwar history of institutions and networks that were confronting imperialist, capitalist, and fascist hegemony in the twentieth-century world. Louro provides readers with a global intellectual history of anti-imperialism and Nehru''s appropriation of it, while also establishing a history of a typically overlooked period.Trade Review'Comrades against Imperialism takes the well-known figure of Jawaharlal Nehru and re-interprets his central role in Indian nationalist history by demonstrating the dramatic ways internationalism shaped his world view, vision, and endeavors. Through Nehru, the book convincingly shows that nationalism and internationalism were not necessarily oppositional forces in the interwar period, and that the struggle against imperialism allowed space for ideological flexibility between communism, socialism, and nationalism. Comrades against Imperialism provides an invaluable contribution to South Asian, international, interwar, and world history.' Heather Streets-Salter, Northeastern University, Massachusetts'Comrades against Imperialism rescues the history of interwar internationalism from retrospective appropriation by party-line communists and from retrospective denunciation by anti-communists and Cold Warriors. It is a timely reminder both of the centrality of internationalism to those times and of the deep connections that once existed among protagonists of civil, political and economic liberties worldwide.' Benjamin Zachariah, University of Trier, Germany'Michele L. Louro's Comrades against Imperialism: Nehru, India, and Interwar Internationalism is an exceptionally well-researched, well-written and well-argued attempt to tell the history of Nehru's experience of the interwar world 'on its own terms'.' Alexander E. Davis, Asian Studies ReviewTable of ContentsPart I. Mobilizing against Empire, 1927–1930: 1. A 'real' league of nations: the Brussels Congress, 1927; 2. The making of the league against imperialism, 1927; 3. Internationalizing nationalism in India, 1928–1929; 4. Anti-imperialism in crisis, 1929–1930; Part II. Afterlives of Anti-Imperialism: 5. Nehru's anti-imperialism after 1930; 6. Peace and war, 1936–1939; 7. The war and the fate of anti-imperialism.

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Book SynopsisThe first comprehensive synthesis of Chinese economic history, past and present, in English. Volume II covers the period from 1800 to the present in twenty-one thematically and chronologically organized chapters, charting the development of the institutions, ideas, technologies, and social and political forces that shaped China's modern economy.Trade Review'I greatly enjoyed this work, as much as the first volume. The research is incisive, clearly presented, and the volume is very cogently organized.' Jamin Andreas Hübner, EH.net (Economic History Association)Table of ContentsIntroduction to Volume II Debin Ma and Richard von Glahn; Part I. 1800–1950: 1. Ideology and the contours of economic change Debin Ma; 2. Economic transition in the nineteenth century William Rowe; 3. Agriculture Debin Ma and Kaixiang Peng; 4. Handicraft and modern industries Linda Grove and Toru Kubo; 5. The state and enterprises in late Qing China Chi-kong Lai; 6. State enterprises during the first half of the twentieth century Morris L. Bian; 7. Money and macro-economy Dan Li, Hongzhong Yan; 8. Public finance Elisabeth Kaske and May-li Lin; 9. Financial institutions and financial markets Bret Sheehan and Yingui Zhu; 10. Chinese business organization Madeleine Zelin; 11. The economic impact of the West: A reappraisal James Kung; 12. Foreign trade and investment Carol Shiue and Wolfgang Keller; 13. Transport and communication infrastructure Elisabeth Köll; 14. Education and human capital Pei Gao, Bas van Leeuwen, Meimei Wang; Part II. 1950–Present: 15. The origin of China's communist institutions Chenggang Xu; 16. China under the command economy in 1950–1977 Dwight H. Perkins; 17. Living standards in Maoist China Chris Bramall; 18. The political economy of China's Great Leap Famine James Kung; 19. China's external economic relations during the Mao era Amy King; 20. Chinese economy in the reform era Barry Naughton; 21. China's great boom as a historical process Loren Brandt and Thomas G. Rawski.

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Book SynopsisUditi Sen explores how partition refugees were used as agents of nation-building in post-colonial India. Utilising archival records and oral histories, Sen analyses official policies towards Hindu refugees, and their own perspectives 'from below'. This book expands our understanding of popular politics and citizenship in post-partition India.Table of ContentsIntroduction; Part I. Framing Policy: 1. Unwanted citizens in a saturated state: towards a governmentality of rehabilitation; 2. Harnessed to national development: settlers, producers and agents of Hinduisation; Part II. Rebuilding Lives: 3: Exiles or settlers? Caste, governance and identity in the Andaman Islands; 4. Unruly citizens: memory, identity and the anatomy of squatting in Calcutta; 5. Gendered belongings: state, social workers and the 'unattached' refugee woman; Conclusion.

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Book SynopsisThrough an examination of the creation of the first linguistically organized province in India, Odisha, Pritipuspa Mishra explores the ways regional languages came to serve as the most acceptable registers of difference in post-colonial India. She argues that rather than disrupting the rise and spread of All-India nationalism, regional linguistic nationalism enabled and deepened the reach of nationalism in provincial India. Yet this positive narrative of the resolution of Indian multilingualism ignores the cost of linguistic division. Examining the case of the Adivasis of Odisha, Mishra shows how regional languages in India have come to occupy a curiously hegemonic position. Her study pushes us to rethink our understanding of the vernacular in India as a powerless medium and acknowledges the institutional power of language, contributing to global debates about linguistic justice and the governance of multilingualism. This title is also available as Open Access.Trade Review'This sweeping study clarifies our understanding of the role of language and authority in the Indian nation through Odia speakers' use of literature, education, politics, and identity. Anyone interested in the intersection of language politics and culture, along with its ties to nation and territory, should read Mishra's book.' Rosina Lozano, Princeton University, New Jersey'Intensely engaging, lucidly written and carefully drawn upon rich archival, historical and literary sources, Mishra presents a set of compelling arguments and theoretical insights while analysing the six decades of Odisha as a linguistic state formation. Language and the Making of Modern India shows how regional and national formations are not opposed but reproduce each other in multiple ways.' Asha Sarangi, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India'Language and the Making of Modern India will be valuable to scholars of Indian vernacular politics, regionalism, nationalism, and citizenship. Mishra's is a pioneering study that shows how regional linguistic politics are crucial to understanding the history of citizenship in modern India, and how language became the crucial grounds for the constitution of the Indian national subject.' Farina Mir, University of MichiganTable of ContentsIntroduction: nation in the vernacular; 1. How the vernacular became regional; 2. Vernacular publics: a modern Odia readership imagined; 3. The Odia political subject and the rise of the Odia movement; 4. Odisha as vernacular homeland; 5. The invisible minority: history and the problem of the Adivasi; 6. The genius of India: linguistic difference, regionalism and the Indian nation; Postscript.

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Book SynopsisIn this innovative reading, the development of the Malayan Communist Party (MCP) is explored in the context of an emerging nationalism in Southeast Asia, the interplay of overseas Chinese networks and the Comintern. Based on extensive new archival material, Anna Belogurova shows how the MCP was shaped by the historical contingencies of anti-imperialism in Southeast Asia, long-term Chinese migration trends, networks, identity, and the organizational practices of the Comintern.This is the story of how a group of left-leaning Chinese migrant intellectuals engaged with global forces to create a relevant and lasting Malayan national identity, providing fresh international perspectives on the history of Malaysia, Chinese communism, the Cold War, and decolonization.Trade Review'Bringing to light previously untapped sources, The Nanyang Revolution breaks new ground in analyzing the history of the Malayan Communist Party and its vision of a Malayan nation. Belogurova's exploration of the internationalism-nationalism relationship and of Comintern attitudes towards overseas Chinese represents a major contribution to our understanding of communism as a global movement.' Barbara Watson Andaya, University of Hawai'i'This innovative and deeply researched study of the Malayan Communist Party offers a fresh and imaginative exploration of the interplay of nationalism and internationalism, indigenization and internationalization across a space that stretches from Southeast Asia to Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines.' S. A. Smith, All Souls College, Oxford'This book tells a compelling story of diaspora politics of displacement, bringing into focus the significance of the maritime networks in the making of China's modern revolutions, nationalist as well as communist. It's an achievement that remaps the spatial dynamics of the transformation of modern China.' Wen-hsin Yeh, University of California, at Berkeley''Nanyang' was the savage front of the international revolutionary movement. Anna Eduardovna Belogurova provides a clear, overarching view of the relationship between ideas of the Chinese-oriented 'Minzu' and the reality of internationalism proposed by the Comintern.' Ishikawa Yoshihiro, Kyoto University'… this volume makes a valuable contribution to the fields of the modern histories of China and Southeast Asia, the history of world communism, of state building and modernization, and studies of anti-colonialism and nationalism. It will be a useful source for scholars and students of Chinese history, social and political history, the Chinese diaspora, and of studies of the Comintern, internationalism, migration, and the communist revolution in Southeast Asia.' Qian Zhu, China and AsiaTable of ContentsPart I. Revolution in the Nanyang: 1. Prologue: a Durian for Sun Yatsen; 2. The global world of Chinese networks in the 1920s: The Chinese Revolution and the liberation of the oppressed Minzu; 3. The Nanyang Revolution and the Malayan nation, 1929–1930: nations, migrants, words; Part II. The Comintern, the MCP, and Chinese Networks, 1930–1935: 4. The MCP as a hybrid communist party: structure, discourse, and activity, 1930–1934; 5. The Comintern, Malaya, and Chinese networks, 1930–1936; Part III. The GMD, the MCP, and the Nation: Minzu Cultivated, Minzu Lost: 6. Minzu cultivated, 1928–1940; 7. Language, power, and the MCP's lost nation, 1939–1940; 8. Epilogue.

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Book SynopsisThis book examines how education contributed to the creation of US empire in the Philippines by focusing on American teachers and the Filipinos with whom they lived and worked. While education was located at the heart of the imperial project, used to justify empire, the implementation of schooling in the islands deviated from the expectations of the colonial state. American teachers at times upheld, adapted, circumvented, or entirely disregarded colonial policy. Despite the language of white masculinity that imbued imperial discourse, the appointment of white women and black men as teachers allowed them to claim roles and identities that transformed understandings of gender and race. Filipinos also used the American educational system to articulate their own understandings of empire. In this context, schools were a microcosm for the colonial state, with contestations over education often standing in for the colonial relationship itself.Trade Review'In Educating the Empire, Steinbock-Pratt carefully details the collaborations, conflicts, and dashed expectations that shaped the US colonial state's public education program in the Philippines. Rich in original research, Educating the Empire is an important contribution to histories of US colonialism in the Philippines.' Colleen Woods, University of Maryland'In this definitive and unique book, Steinbock-Pratt illuminates the experiences of the American men and women, both African-American and white, who traveled to the Philippines to educate, endure, and endorse the empire. In so doing, she tells a gripping tale about gender, race and power in the everyday institutions of imperialism; and the hopes, complexities, and limits of American empire.' Julian Go, Boston University'An impressively researched account of US teachers in the Philippines from the turn of the twentieth century to the 1930s.' Kristin Lee Hoganson, University of Illinois'Educating the Empire should be standard reading for anybody seeking to understand the cultural history of US colonialism in the Philippines.' Oliver Charbonneau, American Historical ReviewTable of ContentsIntroduction; 1. Creating a catalog of colonial knowledge; 2. A civil empire: determining fitness for colonial education; 3. Professionals and pioneers: teachers' self-depiction in empire; 4. Recreating race: evolving notions of whiteness and blackness in empire; 5. A political education: Americans, Filipinos, and the meanings of instruction; 6. All politics is local: American teachers and their communities; 7. Speaking for ourselves: dignity and the politics of student protest; Epilogue.

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Book SynopsisIn this examination of the early globalization of the pharmaceutical industry, Laurence Monnais argues that colonialism played a crucial part in the worldwide diffusion of modern medicines, speaking to contemporary concerns regarding over-reliance on pharmaceuticals, self-medication, and the accessibility of effective drug treatments.Trade Review'Historians of colonial medicine and anthropologists who study the social life of pharmaceuticals have been eagerly awaiting this book. With exceptional panache, Monnais shows us how taking the material turn can transform the history of global health into a genealogy of our pharmaceutical present. An anthropological sensibility reveals the everyday practice of state medicine, the fostering of markets for medical commodities, and the creation of modern, drug-dependent consumers. Just like mosquitoes, it seems, drugs have lifecycles and ecological niches, and they can serve too as vectors - not of disease, but rather, of European medicine and modernity.' Warwick Anderson, University of Sydney'From colonial indifference and toxic fears to avid consumerism and hybrid therapeutics, Monnais reveals the dynamic history behind Vietnam's pharmaceutical pasts. Her meticulous research highlights Vietnamese agency in the making of a modern medical culture and provides an exemplary study of the origins of medicalization in the global south.' David Arnold, University of Warwick'Brilliantly crafted and ingeniously researched, this is an absorbing exploration of medicalization and modernization under colonial rule that underscores the foundational agency of the colonized and the persistence of therapeutic pluralism. A richly textured study of Vietnam, it also offers a compelling model for understanding the vital role of medicines as vectors of social change across the Global South.' John Harley Warner, Yale University, ConnecticutTable of Contents1. Making medicines modern, making medicines colonial; 2. Medicines in colonial (public) health; 3. The mirage of mass distribution: state Quinine and essential medicines; 4. The many lives of medicines in the private market; 5. Crimes and misdemeanors: transactions and transgressions in the therapeutic market; 6. Learning effects: lived experiences, pharmaceutical publicity and the roots of selective demand; 7. Medicines as vectors of modernization and medicalization; 8. Therapeutic pluralism under colonial rule; Conclusion: from colonial medicines to post-colonial health.

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