Regional / International studies Books

This important book contains case studies with substantive analysis of Chinese workers in a variety of settings: state enterprises, urban collectives, township and village enterprises, domestic private enterprises, and foreign funded enterprises. The...

In this major undertaking David Keenan translates and contextualizes over 100 tales from the Notes from the Hut for Examining the Subtle, a collection of 1,200 tales and observations by Chi Yun, one of eighteenth century China's leading intellectuals. By...

This text rethinks the contours of Japanese history, culture and nationality. Challenging the mythology of a historically unitary, even monolithic Japan, it offers a different perspective on culture and identity in modern Japan.

More than two hundred years after the first visit of an American official to Turkey, Turkish and American mutual interests have expanded significantly and developed into what President Clinton termed 'a strategic partnership' at the Grand National...

In examining the links between gender and the media, this volume asks questions involving the relationship between global media flows, gender and modernity in the region.

First Published in 2004. These essays deal with the Western penetration of Asia from the earliest times to the recent past in the quest for trade, and by means of opening up routes and communications to bridge East and West, thereby influencing...

This book offers a multidisciplinary approach to the medina, the traditional walled Arab city of North Africa. The medina becomes a concrete case study for comparative explorations of general questions about the social use of urban space by opening up...

The book examines 'wildmen', images of hairy humanlike creatures known to rural villagers and other local people in Southeast Asia and elsewhere. Sometimes described in considerable detail, the creatures are reported as still living or as having survived...

This Chinese-English dictionary of proverbs (yanyu) consists of approximately 4,000 Chinese proverbs alphabetically arranged by the first word(s) (ci) of the proverb, according to the Hanyu Pinyin transcription and Chinese characters (standard...

This evaluation of the work of a colonial administration uses an analysis of the policies employed in the fields of education, administration, justice and agriculture. It shows how a largely archaic and isolated country transformed itself and its...

This book discusses issues concerning human rights and religion. Is a more integrated approach to human rights desirable - an approach that transcends the individual-centred orientation of civil and political liberties of the dominant centres of power in...

The historical and cultural richness of the Near and Middle East is reflected visually in its costume. In this book, Jennifer Scarce makes brilliant use of years or research to provide a lucid acount of the development of women's dress from...

This book gives true characters of Japanese speech sounds in reference to European speech sounds. When it was first published in 1931, it was the first book of its kind. There are only 5 Japanese vowel elements as opposed to 18 in English, 13 in French...

Ismail Fahmy was Minister of Foreign Affairs and Deputy Premier of Egypt, but resigned in protest against President Sadat's visit to Jerusalem in 1977. This book, published in 1983, presents the first portrait of Sadat from within the Arab ruling elite,...

First published in 2000. This is Volume VI of six of the Oriental series looking at Arabic History and Culture. It was written in 1922, and the following text traces the transmission of Hellenistic thought through the medium of Muslim philosophers and...

This is Volume I of thirteen in a collection on Persia. Originally published in 1880, this is a translation of The Gulistan or Rose-Garden of Shekh Muslihu'D-Din Sadi Shiraz. The Gulistan of Sadi has attained a popularity in the East which, perhaps, has...

Gorbachev's accession to General Secretary promised great changes to the Soviet Union and its relationship with the rest of the world. This book, first published in 1987, discusses the problems faced by Gorbachev when he entered office and how he planned...

This book explores speakers' intentions, and the structural and pragmatic resources they employ, in spoken Arabic - which is different in many essential respects from literary Arabic. Based on new empirical findings from across the Arabic world this book...

Under Stalin's totalitarian leadership of the USSR, Soviet national identities with historical narratives were constructed. These constructions envisaged how nationalities should see their imaginary common past, and millions of people defined themselves...

Colonialism has three foundational concerns - violence, territory, and population control - all of which rest on racialist discourse and practice. Placing the Zionist project in Israel/Palestine within the context of settler colonialism reveals...

To some, Islamic Fundamentalism means the restoration of a true religion. To others, it is a politics that stands apart from capitalism and socialism. To many Westerners, particularly in the past decade, it has come to constitute a threat to established...

This book presents a comprehensive reassessment of Europe in the Cold War period, 1945-91. Contrary to popular belief, it shows that relations between East and West were based not only on confrontation and mutual distrust, but also on collaboration. The...

This book discusses the idea that there is a specific Islamic form of entrepreneurship. Based on extensive original research amongst small and medium sized enterprises in Saudi Arabia, it shows how businesses are started and how they grow in the context...

Strategically placed on the global chess board, as well as controlling vast oil resources, the Middle East was one of the main theatres of Cold War. In the 1950s the Soviet Union had taken advantage of Arab Nationalists' disillusion with British and...

Events in the Indian sub-continent during the 1970s, where, in the summer of 1975, the ruling party engineered a 'constitutional' coup by declaring a national emergency, re-emphasised the need for a fuller understanding of India's social system and...

Despite the bitter conflict that divided Jerusalem and Damascus, a fascinating process of indirect - through the United States - and tacit understandings emerged with regard to Lebanon in the 1970s. This derived largely from the Israeli deterrence...

This book explores the history, structure and current operations of the World Bank, which despite being the largest development organisation and the largest development research body in the world with tremendous direct and indirect influence on...

This book explores contemporary practices within the new institution of international meditation centers in Thailand. It discusses the development of the lay vipassana meditation movement in Thailand and relates Thai Buddhism to contemporary processes of...

This book focuses on the analysis of pure consciousness as found in Advaita Vedanta, one of the main schools of Indian philosophy. According to this tradition, reality is identified as Brahman, the world is considered illusory, and the individual self is...

Written as a companion to Eliot's 3-volume Hinduism and Buddhism this text begins with an overview of Buddhism as practiced in India and China before presenting an in depth account of the history of Buddhism in Japan. It follows...

Working with Bengali mentors, especially his close friend A. B. Ghose, Sir John Woodroffe became the pseudonymous orientalist Arthur Avalon, famous for his tantric studies at the beginning of the twentieth century. Best known for The Serpent Power, the...

Translating a collection of the most important descriptions of the Turks found in medieval Arabic texts into English, this book aims at delineating the coming of the Turkic people in the eleventh century, their military successes in Iran and Iraq, and...

This collection of commentaries and reflections on Japanese culture, first published in 1904, was written shortly after the return of two English aristocrats from five years spent immersed in the 'Land of the Rising Sun'. Their intention through these...

During the First World War, Cemal Pasha attempted to establish direct control over Syrian and thereby reaffirm Ottoman authority there through various policies of control, including the abolishment of local intermediaries.Elaborating on these Ottoman...

First published in 1930, this is the final of Edward Westermarck's trilogy of titles that explore the society, culture and customs of Morocco. Compiled from years of personal research and interviews conducted with local people, this collection of native...

The concept of "innovation systems" has gained considerable attention from scholars and politicians alike. The concept promises not only to serve as a tool to explain sustained economic development, but also to provide policy-makers with scientifically...

The articles in this edited collection, first published in 1985, consider the competing theories of the nature of development and underdevelopment in Southeast Asia. Each chapter challenges the academic orthodoxies and dominant traditions of Southeast...

The Middle East is a region of critical importance in world affairs, both politically and economically. In this comprehensive study, first published in 1950, Professor Fisher examines all the principal elements - physical and human - that influence...

The Hanbali School of Law and Ibn Taymiyyah provides a valuable account of the development of Hanbalite jurisprudence, placing the theoretical and conceptual parameters of this tradition within the grasp of the interested reader. Studying the vibrant...

Islamism in Egypt is more diversified in terms of its sociology and ideology than is usually assumed. Through linguistic analysis of Islamist rhetoric, this book sheds light upon attitudes towards other Muslims, religious authority and secular society...

The Modern Anthropology of India is an accessible textbook providing a critical overview of the ethnographic work done in India since 1947. It assesses the history of research in each region and serves as a practical and comprehensive guide to the main...

Exploring violent confrontation between the state and the population in colonial and postcolonial India, this book is both a study of the many techniques of colonial coercion and state violence and a cultural history of the different ways in which...

The Japanese have long regarded themselves as a homogenous nation, clearly separate from other nations. However, this long-standing view is being undermined by the present international reality of increased global population movement. This has resulted...

First published in 2007. Reading like a detective thriller involving the highest of stakes, this is the story of a discovery that is still to be fully realised one that has split the scholarly community worldwide and which may yet transform our...

Since 2003, Hong Kong has witnessed a series of large-scale protests which have constituted the core of a reinvigorated pro-democracy movement. What drove tens of thousands of citizens to the street on a yearly basis to protest? What were the social and...

This book critically analyses the functions and interconnectedness between religion and digital media in a range of East Asian countries. It discusses both how religious organizations make use of new technologies, and also explores how new technologies...

Any understanding of the complex politics of the post-Soviet Caucasus presupposes an understanding of the relationship between the transportation of Azerbaijan's oil, inter-state relations and ethnic conflicts. Energy and Security in the Caucasus...

Originally published in 1899, The Heart of Asia is a definitive history of Central Asia from pre-history to the contemporary machinations of the Russian empire. The book is valuable not only because of the quality of the historical work on the early...