Society and culture: general Books

Urban Spaces in Japan explores the workings of power, money and the public interest in the planning and design of Japanese space. Through a set of vivid case studies of well-known Japanese cities including Tokyo, Kobe, and Kyoto, this book examines the...

The growth of rights defence movements in China reflects the increasing capacity of Chinese citizens to shape their own civic discourse in order to achieve diverse goals. Rights defence campaigns have taken novel forms which are unprecedented in China,...

Economic development and a dramatic improvement in living standards in many parts of the People's Republic of China during the past three decades of economic reforms have been hailed by the Chinese Communist Party and many commentators in the...

Republican China attracted an uncommon diversity of foreign interests, groups, and individuals, which included missionaries, adventurers, diplomats, academics, humanitarians and refugees, as well as hedonists and tourists. By exploring the diverse nature...

The Sino-Russian relationship has experienced several permutations in recent decades as both states have undergone radical domestic changes, including the end of Soviet communism and the abandonment of Maoism. This volume brings together scholars to...

The purpose of this volume is to highlight the impacts on civic engagement of social capital, and its various component parts (trust, norms, networks and associations), in diverse parts of Asia. Addressing the pressing need for improved governance within...

Until the early 1990s, Japanese education was widely commended for achieving outstanding outcomes in global comparison. At the same time, it was frequently criticized for failing to cultivate 'individuality' and 'creativity' in students. Wide-ranging...

The Japanese economy underwent a fundamental transition from a liberal economy to a developmental state system during World War II, and despite efforts by the American occupation forces to dismantle them after 1945, these elements of the wartime economic...

This collection explores the contributions of Hispanic women writers to ongoing Western debates on gender, power, ethics, and the environment, offering a wide range of essays that specifically portray the ways in which contemporary writers focus on...

Until the 70s and 80s anthropologists studying different cultures had mainly confined themselves to the behaviour and idea systems of adults. Psychologists, on the other hand, working mainly in Europe and America, had studied child development in their...

The origins and the key defining moments of the Cold War in Southeast Asia have been widely debated. This book focuses on an area that has received less attention, the impact and legacy of the Cold War on the various countries in the region, as well as...

Orientalism refers to the imitation of aspects of Eastern cultures in the West, and was devised in order to have authority over the Orient. The concept of Re-Orientalism maintains the divide between the Orient and the West. However, where Orientalism is...

News depends for its effect on a culturally shared language, and this book concentrates on ways we can decode its messages without simply reproducing their underlying assumptions.

Touring Poverty addresses a highly controversial practice: the transformation of impoverished neighbourhoods into valued attractions for international tourists. In the megacities of the Global South, selected and idealized aspects of poverty are being...

Over the last two decades courts have become major players in the political landscape in Asia. This book assesses what is driving this apparent trend toward judicialization in the region. It looks at the variations within the judicialization trend, and...

Looking at the social, political and legal changes in Oman since 1970, this book challenges the Islamic and tribal traditional cultural norms relating to marriage, divorce and women's rights which guide social and legal practice in the modern Omani state...

This book explores the EU's relations with its eastern neighbours. Based on extensive original research - including surveys, focus-groups, a study of school essays and in-depth interviews with key people in Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Russia and in...

The Chinese Maritime Customs Service, which was led by British staff, is often seen as one of the key agents of Western imperialism in China, the customs revenue being one of the major sources of Chinese government income but a source much of which was...

This book presents a comprehensive analysis of the similarities and differences of contemporary human resource management systems, processes and practices in the two increasingly important economic great powers in Asia. It covers the full range of human...

As Malaysia's economy grows and flourishes, strong new links are being forged with other developing countries in the region and beyond. This book traces the ways in which age-old organizational, political, religious and trade networks between Nusantara,...

This book examines the encounter between western and Asian models of public health and medicine in a range of East and Southeast Asian countries over the course of the twentieth century until now. It discusses the transfer of scientific knowledge of...

This book sheds new light on the continuing debate within political thought as to what constitutes power, and what distinguishes legitimate from illegitimate power. It does so by considering the experience of Russia, a polity where experiences of the...

The rising demand for energy, the higher costs of oil and gas, and the association of fossil fuels with adverse climate change have all brought a renewed interest in nuclear energy. Nuclear power, however, is itself controversial, because of its costs,...

Nearly twenty years after the collapse of socialism, the countries of post-socialist Eastern Europe have experienced divergent trajectories of political development. This book looks at why this is the case, based on the assumption that societies, or...

Gay men often face struggles in the conservative world of rural life, due to the pervasive social stigmas associated with homosexuality and the lack of anonymity in a small-town setting. In this book, Preston and D'Augelli present the results of in-depth...

This volume intends to fill the gap in the range of publications about the post-transition social housing policy developments in Central and Eastern Europe by delivering critical evaluations about the past two decades of developments in selected...

First published in 1990, this is the first book-length study of Susan Sontag: essayist and analyst if culture, author of 'Notes on Camp' and Illness as Metaphor, novelist, reviewer, and filmmaker. It was modernism, and the excitement it created in her,...

Work-Related Learning and the Social Sciences provides a clear and accessible introduction to the theory and practice of work. Written in a student friendly style, it makes use of the following:Theoretical Perspectives: The theoretical foundations of...

First published in 1992, Subject to Others considers the intersection between late seventeenth- to early nineteenth-century British female writers and the colonial debate surrounding slavery and abolition. Beginning with an overview that sets the...

First published in 1987, this is an introductory study of the most widely read Canadian women novelists of the 1970s and 1980s. At its centre lies the question of how the search for a distinctive cultural identity relates to the need for a national...

In this book, Blackford historicizes the appeal of the Persephone myth in the nineteenth century and traces figurations of Persephone, Demeter, and Hades throughout girls' literature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. She illuminates...

First published in 1978, this title analyses a range of problems that arise in the study of North Africa and the Middle East, bridging the gap between studies of Sociology, Islam, and Marxism. Both Sociology and the study of Islam draw on an Orientalist...

Originally published in 1986, there was a divorce between the immense amount of research taking place in child psychology and the real world of professional carers or teachers working with children at the time. The aim of this book was therefore to...

Although the work of Piaget dealt with the intellectual development of children, and that of Goldman with a child's religious thought, there had hitherto been no comparable book on child morality to complete the developmental picture of the time...

Part of the 'Religion and Citizenship' series, this book is an ethnographic study of marginality of Muslims in urban India. It explores the realities and consequences of socio-spatial segregation faced by Muslim communities and the various ways in which...

This book studies the hitherto overlooked genre of horror cinema in India. It uncovers some unique and diverse themes that these films deal with, including the fear of the unknown, the supernatural, occult practices, communication with spirits of the...

This book explores 'sex work' in Nepal as a social and analytical category. Narrating stories of those subsumed under such definition, it examines changes as well as continuities characterising socio-cultural norms and perceptions through an analysis of...

While development has been the foremost agenda before successive governments in India, it has been viewed narrowly - from the perspective of economic development and particularly in terms of gross domestic product (GDP). This book questions...

Originally published in 1974: 'This book sets forth a theory of cognitive development based on simple but powerful processes of inference. The theory is applied with great ingenuity and freshness to complex phenomena found during intellectual development...

This book presents an overview of the democracy movement and the history of education in Nepal. It shows how schools became the battleground for the state and the Maoists as well as captures emerging trends in the field, challenges for the state and...

This volume examines the critical role of the humanities in universities in India and attempts to redefine its place, meaning and function in education. Bringing together distinguished scholars in the country, it debates the status and predicament of the...

This book traces connections in pre-modern Asia by looking at different worlds across geography, history and society. It examines how regions were connected by people, families, trade and politics as well as how they were maintained and remembered. The...

The book presents and further develops basic principles and concepts in international finance and open economy macroeconomics to make them more relevant for emerging and developing economies (EDEs). The volume emphasises the necessity of greater...

Prior research has tended to mirror popular representations of the female sex worker as a morally flawed individual and a victim of circumstances beyond her control. Sex Work and Female Self-Empowerment presents a fresh perspective on "the world's oldest...

This volume brings together critical and landmark studies in Indian migration.Covers a range of key themes - emigration policy in countries of destination and origin, development and remittances, gender issues, impact of the global financial crisis,...

This book explores how journalists at local metro papers in a south-western China metropolis give meaning to their work and how these meanings are shaped by the specific social environment within which these journalists operate. These metro papers...

This volume explores the reception of Premchand's works and his influence in the perception of India among Western cultures, especially Russian, German, French, Spanish and English. The essays in the collection also take a critical look at multiple...

This book provides a detailed examination of the impact of globalisation on plantation labour, dominated by women labour, in India. The studies presented here highlight the perpetuation of low wages, inferior social status and low human development of...