Regional / International studies Books

First published in 2001. The North East of Brazil is renowned for its rich and vibrant popular culture. The region's festivals, music, poetry and popular religious rituals have attracted increasing interest from around he world in recent decades, and the...

In the World Library of Educationalists series, international experts compile career-long collections of what they judge to be their finest pieces - extracts from books, key articles, salient research findings, major theoretical and practical...

The term 'revolutionary' is used liberally in histories of Indian anticolonialism, but scarcely defined. Implicitly understood, it functions as a signpost or a badge, generously conferred in hagiographies, loosely invoked in historiography, and...

This is a book on Arab regionalism and the power relations involved in the making of an Arab region. On an empirical level, this book focuses on the drawing of topographic and ideational boundaries in the Arab region, on Arab regional organizations, on...

The Taihang Mountains lay on the border between Shansi and Hopei in China and originally published in 1972, this edited anthology collates family histories as told by the people who lived there. This title will be of interest to students of Asian studies...

The financial markets of Hong Kong have a reputation for volatility, but careful analysis of past behaviour reveals consistent trends and coherent actions. This study, first published in 1991, at a time of uncertainty before Hong Kong's transfer to China...

The essays collected in this volume, first published in 1998, address the profound changes and disruptions wrought in peasant societies as a result of European colonial domination and the spread of the capitalist world economy from its European base...

This book locates teachers’ work and lives in China in a critical analysis of the political, socio-cultural, ideological and educational reform contexts, and demonstrates how teachers retain their commitment for learning and development.

As China globalises the number of marriages between Chinese people and foreigners is increasing. These Chinese-foreign marriages have profound implications for China's cultural identity. This book, based on extensive original research, outlines the...

Using life history to overcome the dichotomy between individual and society, this book studies the life and learning of famous Korean artists and craftsmen, proposing a new conceptual tool to navigate lifelong learning from a postmodern...

This book discusses Japan's earlier experiments with jury trials, compares developing views in Japan on this issue with views in other countries where dissatisfaction with the jury system is often evident, and concludes by assessing how the new...

Franz Vranitzky, the banker turned politician, was chancellor during the ten years (1986-96) when the world dramatically changed in the aftermath of the cold war

October Earthquake presents a chronological account of the days surrounding the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) War, along with the significant military and political events of each day of the conflict

This book analyses the nature of the Tibetan Buddhism in the Diaspora. It examines how the re-signification of Tibetan Buddhist practices and organizational structures in the present refers back to the dismantlement of the Tibetan state headed by the...

Across many parts of the postcolonial world, it is everyday reality for people to cross regularly between state-based and customary governance, institutions and norms. This book examines this phenomenon in the context of the villages of Timor-Leste, and...

Why people kill themselves remains an enduring and unanswered question. With a focus on Sri Lanka, a country that for several decades has reported 'epidemic' levels of suicidal behaviour, this book develops a unique perspective linking the causes and...

Buddhism is widely known to advocate a stance of total pacifism towards all sentient beings, and because of this, it is often thought that Buddhist doctrine would stipulate that non-violent food practices, such as vegetarianism, be mandatory. However,...

As China moved from a planned to a market economy many people expected that China's political system would similarly move from authoritarianism to democracy. It is now clear, however, that political liberalisation does not necessarily follow economic...

China suffers frequently from many types of natural disasters, which have affected the lives of many millions of Chinese. The steps which the Chinese state has taken to prevent disasters, mitigate their consequences, and reconstruct in the aftermath of...

China's recent economic reforms have opened its economy to the world. This policy, however, is not new: in the late nineteenth century, the United States put forward the Open Door Policy as a counter to European exclusive 'spheres of influence' in China...

Based on extensive, original research, this book portrays a different and an under-represented perspective of young Muslim girls in the bustees (shanty towns) of Kolkata. Through a series of personal narratives, photos and artwork, it demonstrates that...

This book, first published in 1988, assembles a key pool of references in English to help study the 'Japanese economic challenge' of the 1980s. Collectively, these writings chronicle the historical, social and cultural background of Japan's spectacular...

This book, first published in 1994, takes a broad look at the reasons behind the failure of foreign banks to penetrate Japanese financial markets. It accepts the common argument that the Japanese bureaucracy has skilfully limited the scope of foreign...

The study, first published in 1981, traces the history and development of Japanese business from the seventeenth century, and is the only text that systematically treats the rise of Japanese business in its full complexity and against the background of...

This volume, first published in 1995, looks at the development of Chinese business and management practices across Asia from the late nineteenth century. Experts examine how familism and informal networks have contributed to Chinese entrepreneurial...

This book, first published in 1988, examines the nature of trade agreements with Chinese companies, and is divided into three parts which are arranged in accordance with the stages of development: from a trade talk to the final stage of a contract. At...

This book, first published in 1988, considers the problems that developing countries face when importing technology from abroad. The major issues - technical, economic, political - are analysed in the case of one particular country: Korea. The book...

The focal point of this study, first published in 1991, is to investigate the effect of growth patterns on inflation and the distribution of income through inductive examination of the particular experiences in Korea and Taiwan. Both countries are...

This book, first published in 1988, is a comprehensive reference of the laws and practice relating to trade between China and the rest of the world, at a time when the country had only recently opened its markets to foreigners. It shows how China wished...

The first comprehensive study of post-war Japanese transnational corporations in Australia, this book, first published in 1990, gives valuable insights into the particular characteristics of Japanese overseas investment. It looks at how, where and why...

Economic success in Japan has been attributed to the existence of harmonious labour-management relations. This book, first published in 1991, argues that this unique 'culture of harmony' was consciously invented and developed over the last century. A...

This book, first published in 1996, examines the problems associated with the management of change, particularly those brought about by the rapid pace of economic development in China in the 'reform' period since 1979. China's managers were challenged as...

This book, first published in 1941, is a comprehensive study on the native banks that linked small Chinese traders and the larger Chinese and foreign banks. It is based on extensive research in Tientsin and Peking, and a large number of interviews with...

This book, first published in 1985, tackles simultaneously three major questions about the course of industrial evolution: what are the features of the industrial systems that have developed outside Western capitalism? What are the salient evolutionary...

The Cultural Revolution in China generated a cascade of commentaries and interpretations on the development and meaning of the upheaval. Many students and researchers have found it difficult to locate and identify literature on the period. This...

This book, first published in 1983, examines the significant economic reforms undergone by China following the death of Mao and the downfall of the Gang of Four. It looks at Chinese economists' conceptions of the necessity for change and compares China's...

This book, first published in 1992, provides a detailed analysis of the reform programme in post-Mao China. In it, a distinguished group of specialists show how the dramatic events that came to a head in Tiananmen Square in 1989 were the result of a...

Japan's suicide phenomenon has fascinated both the media and academics, although many questions and paradoxes embedded in the debate on suicide have remained unaddressed in the existing literature, including the assumption that Japan is a "Suicide...

This book, first published in 2001, uses key oral histories to confirm and explain the professional and private lives of post-1949 Chinese intellectuals through the focal point of Chen Renbing, a man personally criticised by Mao Zedong. Intellectuals...

This book, first published in 1977, attempts to show Mao Tse-tung in his relationship with the Chinese people. The author makes extensive use of a number of interviews with a cross-section of Chinese people, as well as examining the written records made...

The decade of the 1980s began in China with great expectations of the societal benefits of modernisation, and ended with gunfire in Tiananmen Square. This book, first published in 1991, presents essays that explore the political and economic reform...

This book, first published in 1982, is an in-depth study of the process of 're-education' undergone by those who had opposed the Communist revolution in China. Told at first hand by several men who had occupied military or government positions of...

This book, first published in 1980, addresses the questions raised by the death of Mao Zedong and the arrest of the 'Gang of Four'. Was China reverting to a capitalist form of development, and abandoning Mao's policies? Was China's leadership remaining...

This book, first published in 1961, examines the old Tibetan Bon religion, the development of Buddhism in India and Tibet, and covers the religious struggles of the eighth and ninth centuries. It also describes the rise of the Lamaist sects and the...

This book, first published in 1933, reproduces the diary of the 1930 explorations by the great Italian traveller, Giotto Dainelli. In it he records his experiences as he travels the little-explored (by Westerners) region of Western Tibet, and the result...

This book is an analysis of the philosophical chapters of the Tattvārthādhigama (TA), a foundational text for the Jaina tradition and the first text that presented the Jaina worldview in a clear and systematic way. The book also includes the first...

This book analyzes the last phase of the Warsaw Pact, based on unusually large-scale archival research conducted in many countries.

This book presents diverse, composite, non-exclusive and non-hierarchical perspectives on displacement of people as represented in literature. It examines the experiences of migration as a result of wars, natural disasters, religious strife, loss of...