Regional / International studies Books

For centuries, the Arabian Gulf has been a crossroads where seafaring people and Bedouins alike travelled great distances transacting business. Events of the past few years, both good and bad, have directed the world's attention to the Arabian Peninsula,...

Between the years of 1898 and 1926, Edward Westermarck spent a total of seven years in Morocco, visiting towns and tribes in different parts of the country, meeting local people and learning about their language and culture; his findings are noted in...

Using philosophical analysis, this book explores the construction of gender in Muslim societies and its implication to the constitution of the self. The root of the existing discourse of the hierarchical principle is examined as is the extent to which...

This is the first book to present a comprehensive history of the Northwest Caucasus. Based on extensive research, it describes the peoples of the Northwest Caucasus, which have a significantly different ethnic makeup and history than the Northeast...

Caspian Energy Politics analyses the role of oil and gas in the development of the three main petroleum exporters in the Caspian region - Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan - and how energy resources influence interactions with semi-authoritarian...

This volume unravels the politics surrounding behind China's hegemonic project of heritage tourism development in Lijiang.  It provides a compelling study of the dialectical relationships between global and domestic capital, the state, tourists and...

This book contributes to a critical understanding of how Chinese same-sex identity in urban China is variously imagined; how it is transformed; and how it presents its resistances as China continues to open up to global power relations. Equally...

Since the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) embarked on a programme of 'reform and openness' in the late 1970s, Chinese society has undergone a series of dramatic transformations in almost all realms of social, cultural, economic and political life and the...

International law is often manipulated in the debate about humanitarian intervention. The Liberian case provides an opportunity to challenge the UN and The Economic Community of West African States' (ECOWAS') new approach. ECOWAS and the UN's...

Assessing and managing risk is vitally important, and is increasingly studied in a range of areas including politics and international relations, finance and insurance, and innovation and the valuing of intangible assets such as patents and intellectual...

The Great Rebellion of 1857 in India was much more than a 'sepoy mutiny'. It was a major event in South Asian and British colonial history that significantly challenged imperialism in India. This fascinating collection explores hitherto ignored...

Contemporary Mongolia is often seen as one of the most open and democratic societies in Asia, undergoing remarkable post-socialist transformation. Although the former ruling party, the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party (the MPRP), has fundamentally...

Economic liberalisation associated with globalisation is causing a pervasive growth of economic insecurity experienced all over the world. This is placing urgent demands on policymakers to rethink old policies and institutions. This book sets out a new...

This book examines the contrasting interpretations of Islam and the Qur'an by Averroes and Al-Ghazali, as a way of helping us untangle current impasses affecting each Abrahamic faith. This has traditionally been portrayed as a battle between philosophy...

This volume presents a multidisciplinary perspective on dance scholarship and practice as they have evolved in India and its diaspora, outlining how dance histories have been written and re-written, how aesthetic and pedagogical conventions have changed...

This book presents a historical account of plantations in India in the context of the modern world economy. It brings history up to the present, thereby showing how history can assist in explaining contemporary conditions and trends. The author focuses...

India has one of the highest numbers of HIV carriers in the world. HIV has remained associated with sex work, and large sums of money provided to fund public health interventions have come from global institutions such as UNAIDS, the World Bank and USAID...

The premise of this book is that legal theory in general, and critical legal theory in particular, do not facilitate the identification of choices being made in the different facets of law -- whether in the enacting, interpreting, administering or...

This book explores the interaction of rituals and ritualised practices utilising a cross-cultural approach. It discusses whether and why rituals are important today, and why they are possibly even more relevant than before.

For the first time, this influential study by Ludwig Alsdorf is made available to an English speaking audience, translated by Bal Patil. It focuses on two of the most pertinent issues in Indian religion, the history of vegetarianism and cow-veneration,...

This book is concerned with human-environment relations in the Himalaya. It explores how different populations and communities in the region understand or conceive of the concept of environment, how their concepts vary across lines of gender, class, age,...

Chinese companies have managed to perform well in Malaysia, especially after the recession in the mid-1980s, due to a clear change in the Malay dominated government's attitude to Chinese capital. Despite the problems that prevail among UMNO...

Orhan Pamuk, Secularism and Blasphemy is the first critical study of all of Pamuk's novels, including the early untranslated work. In 2005 Orhan Pamuk was charged with "insulting Turkishness" under Article 301 of the Turkish penal code. Eighteen months...

Questions over the compatibility of Islam and Human Rights have become a key area of debate in the perceived tensions between 'Islam and the West'. In many ways, discussion over the stance of Islam in relation to such factors as gender rights, religious...

This book describes the strategies used by President Putin from 2000 onwards to recreate 'Greater Russia', that is a Russia that controls most of the territory of the former Soviet Union. It shows the subtlety of the means of control, often through...

Introduction  Part I: Caste, Community and performance  A ritual performance of Kerala, Vayala Vasudevan Pillai The Patuas of Bengal, Makbul Islam Bards and goddesses: The Pombalas in Tirupati, Anand Akundy Explorations in the art...

Marco Polo's famous book about his journey to China, written in 1298, continues to be a subject of considerable controversy. One recent work on the subject argues that Marco Polo never went to China at all, and other scholars have pointed out apparent...

This innovative study on the phenomenon of 'grammaticalization' and its manifestation in Chinese provides new insights into language change in Chinese and a large number of grammatical topics. Grammaticalization occurs in all of the world's languages...

The Anglo-Japanese Alliance was the first formal agreement of its type reached by a Western 'great' power with a non-Caucasian nation in the modern era. As such, it represented an important milestone diplomatically, strategically and culturally. This...

As China's government manages a transition away from the socialist plan, how does it build the regulatory institutions it needs to manage the new market economy? Without the correct institutions, laws and agencies that implement the laws in place, the...

Adding a new perspective to the current literature on decentralization in Japan, Cities, Autonomy and Decentralization in Japan, approaches the subject from an urban studies and planning approach. The essays in the collection present a cogent compilation...

First Published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The Naqshbandiyya is one of the most widespread and influential Sufi orders in the Muslim world. Having its origins in the Great Masters tradition of Central Asia almost a millennium ago, it played a significant role in the pre-modern history of the...

Muslims in India today are responding to the challenge of religious pluralism in a variety of ways. This book explores the attempts being made by scholar-activists and Muslim organisations to develop new understandings of Islam to relate to people of...

Brian Hodgson lived in Nepal from 1820 to 1843 during which time he wrote and published extensively on Nepalese culture, religion, natural history, architecture, ethnography and linguistics. Contributors from leading historians of Nepal and South Asia...

This book explores Japanese investment in Europe and Southeast Asia, in relation to the automobile industry. In Part I the authors examine industrial organization and policy issues in Thailand, Malaysia, The Philippines and Indonesia, looking at Japanese...

This book explores how one of the world's most literary-oriented societies entered the modern visual era, beginning with the advent of photography in the nineteenth century, focusing then on literature's role in helping to shape cinema as a tool of...

This book presents significant new findings on new domains of employment for women in China's burgeoning market economy of the 1990s and the twenty-first century. Experts in gender, politics, media studies, and anthropology discuss the impact of economic...

The beliefs and practices surrounding the meanings and symbols of the spirit world in Vietnam are explored in detail in this innovative study on popular religion in the country. The author shows an abiding interest in the 'subconscious life' at a...

This book sets new standards for the documentation of water transport, and introduces styles of boat-building which are unlikely to be found outside the sub-Continent. A fascinating and accessible read for anyone interested in boats or the South Asian...

East Asia is a potential area of international conflict, with a number of possible 'flashpoints' and with the absence of strong regional organisations able to deal with conflict resolution. At the same time, global powers frequently get involved in the...

The concept of 'good governance' is of increasing importance, and is used by international organizations to ensure reasonable conformity to high standards in states which participate in the global trading regime and other international activities. This...

How do the Japanese and Okinawans remember Occupation? How is memory constructed and transmitted? Michael Molasky explores these questions through careful, sensitive readings of literature from mainland Japan and Okinawa. This book sheds light on...

This unique and groundbreaking book seeks to re-focus gender debate onto the issue of daughter discrimination - a phenomenon still hidden and unacknowledged across the world.It asks the controversial question of why millions of girls do not appear to be...

The Japanese education system has attracted increasing attention over the past 20 years, largely due to the belief that it has been central to Japan's economic growth. Many have felt, however that the system is stunted by an inability, or perhaps even on...

This book examines employment structure, working practice and recruitment strategies in Japanese retail in the 1990s through a case-study of one large chain store. Issues focused on include gender in the workplace, changing notions of corporate community...

Shibata, Carroll and Boege address the various dimensions of the climate change-conflict nexus and shed light on the overwhelming challenges of climate change in the Pacific Islands region.This book highlights the multidimensionality of the problems:...

Hinduism comprises perhaps the major cluster of religio-cultural traditions of India, and it can play a valuable role in helping us understand the nature of religion and human responses to life. Hindu image-worship lies at the core of what counts for...