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Modern Japan: All That Matters (All That Matters)
Par Jonathan Clements. 2014
Jonathan Clements charts the rise of Japan since the end of World War Two. Presenting the country as the Japanese…
themselves see it, he explains key issues in national reconstruction, the often-overlooked US Occupation, the influence of the Cold War, student unrest, political scandals, and the meteoric rise and sudden fall of the Japanese economy in the late 20th century.He chronicles changes in women's rights and consumer habits, developments in politics, education and health today, and the shadow of nuclear issues from Hiroshima to Fukushima. He also raises topics rarely covered by the foreign media - Japan's ethnic minorities and burakumin underclass, the influence of organised crime and the hard sell behind "soft" power.A final chapter examines the price Japan has paid for its meteoric rise, the problems of a greying population and a declining countryside, and the long-term implications of the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami.All That Matters about modern Japan. All That Matters books are a fast way to get right to the heart of key issues.Modern Korea: All That Matters Ebook (All That Matters)
Par Andrew Salmon. 2014
In no nation on earth has history accelerated with such speed as in Korea. A medieval dynasty at the end…
of the 19th century, it underwent a traumatic colonization, then, in its hour of liberation was divided by the great powers at the end of World War II. Devastated by a fratricidal war, the peninsula has remained divided ever since.South Korea is the greatest national success story of the 20th century. From the ashes of war, it transformed itself, against the odds - and against much advice - into an industrial powerhouse and thriving democracy. Now a high-tech wonderland, it is undergoing social and cultural transformations that add further layers to its dynamic DNA.North Korea is an economic, social and political disaster, successful only at totalitarianism. Having transmogrified from a blood-and-iron communist dictatorship into a bizarre, neo-fascist monarchy, it is a black hole at the heart of Asia. Engulfed by paranoia, the regime presides over a malnourished populace, a 1.1 million man army and a nuclear arsenal. From nuclear missiles to Samsung smartphones; from assassins to salarymen; from Kim Il-sung to Psy; this is the extraordinary story of the flashpoint peninsula that dominates talk in boardrooms and newsrooms. Korea, the author argues, provides two stark benchmarks for national development: Epic success and catastrophic failure. And its final chapter has yet to be written.This book presents a detailed assessment of the role of navies in the Korean War. It highlights that, despite being…
predominantly a land war, navies played a vital part. Moreover, the naval war was not solely a U.S. operation. Smaller navies from many countries made important contributions both in supporting the United States and carrying out independent and combined naval operations. This subject holds special importance since current Western strategic thinking and capabilities emphasise the necessity of combined naval operations involving multiple navies in any potential future naval conflict. The example set by the Korean War therefore offers valuable insights into the operational and strategic problems, and benefits and opportunities of contemporary and future combined coalition naval operations.A fascinating examination of what &“the pursuit of happiness&” meant to our nation&’s Founders and how that famous phrase defined…
their lives and became the foundation of our democracy.The Declaration of Independence identified &“the pursuit of happiness&” as one of our unalienable rights, along with life and liberty. Jeffrey Rosen, the president of the National Constitution Center, profiles six of the most influential founders—Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton—to show what pursuing happiness meant in their lives. By reading the classical Greek and Roman moral philosophers who inspired the Founders, Rosen shows us how they understood the pursuit of happiness as a quest for being good, not feeling good—the pursuit of lifelong virtue, not short-term pleasure. Among those virtues were the habits of industry, temperance, moderation, and sincerity, which the Founders viewed as part of a daily struggle for self-improvement, character development, and calm self-mastery. They believed that political self-government required personal self-government. For all six Founders, the pursuit of virtue was incompatible with enslavement of African Americans, although the Virginians betrayed their own principles. The Pursuit of Happiness is more than an elucidation of the Declaration&’s famous phrase; it is a revelatory journey into the minds of the Founders, and a deep, rich, and fresh understanding of the foundation of our democracy.This book examines Israel’s civil-military relations (CMR) in order to explore alternatives to orthodox Western models of security sector reform…
(SSR) in post-conflict societies. This book argues that the guidelines of SSR have always tended to draw on theoretical work in the field of CMR and focus too heavily on Western, liberal democratic models of governance. Consequently, reform programs based on these guidelines, and intended for use in post-conflict and conflict-affected states, have had, at best, mixed results. The book challenges the necessity for this over-reliance on traditional Western liberal democratic solutions and instead advocates an alternative approach. It proposes that by drawing on an unconventional CMR model, that in turn references the specific context and cultural background of the particular state being subject to reform, there is a significantly higher chance of success. Drawing on a case study of Israel's CMR, the author seeks to provide practical assistance to those working in this area and considers the question of how this unorthodox CMR model might usefully inform post-conflict and conflict-affected SSR programmes. This book will be of interest to students of military studies, security studies, Israeli politics, and International Relations.The Long History of Partition in Bengal: Event, Memory, Representations
Par Rituparna Roy, Jayanta Sengupta, Sekhar Bandyopadhyay. 2024
This book focuses on the aftermath of the 1947 Partition of India. It considers the long aftermath and afterlives of…
Partition afresh, from a wide and inclusive range of perspectives and studies the specificities of the history of violence and migration and their memories in the Bengal region. The chapters in the volume range from the administrative consequences of partition to public policies on refugee settlement, life stories of refugees in camps and colonies, and literary and celluloid representations of Partition. It also probes questions of memory, identity, and the memorialization of events. Eclectic in its theoretical orientation and methodology, this book will be of interest to scholars and researchers of partition history, colonialism, refugee studies, Indian history, South Asian history, migration studies, and modern history in general.Leaders and Thinkers in American History: 15 Influential People You Should Know (Biographies for Kids)
Par Megan DuVarney Forbes. 2021
Inspiring stories of American heroes throughout history—for kids ages 8 to 12 George Washington's life illustrates the very first values…
that American politicians shared. The story of Tecumseh teaches us about the power of being true to yourself and defending your community. Lucretia Mott shows us how to stand up against what is wrong and speak out for what is right. Leaders and Thinkers in American History is a colorful children's history book that explores the lives of influential American figures and their incredible accomplishments. Kids will discover the stories of men and women across hundreds of years, from all different backgrounds, and how they used their passion and talent to impact the world. Go beyond other American history books with: 15 detailed biographies—Kids will learn that the history of the United States is full of fascinating and impressive people who pioneered everything from politics to technology, music, and art. Learn and grow—These powerful stories will inspire kids to find their own gifts and use them to help others and achieve their dreams. Beyond this book—For kids who want to learn even more, each biography includes suggestions for further reading and tips for getting active in their community. Get kids excited about history with a children's history book featuring extraordinary Americans from all walks of life.The Red Widow: The Scandal that Shook Paris and the Woman Behind it All
Par Sarah Horowitz. 2022
"An unforgettable portrait of a woman who became one of the most notorious figures of her day and whose scandalous…
story sheds fascinating light not only on her own tumultuous time but ours as well." — Harold Schechter, author of Hell's Princess: The Mystery of Belle Guinness, Butcher of MenSex, corruption, and power: the rise and fall of the Red Widow of ParisParis, 1889: Margeurite Steinheil is a woman with ambition. But having been born into a middle-class family and trapped in a marriage to a failed artist twenty years her senior, she knows her options are limited.Determined to fashion herself into a new woman, Meg orchestrates a scandalous plan with her most powerful resource: her body. Amid the dazzling glamor, art, and romance of bourgeois Paris, she takes elite men as her lovers, charming her way into the good graces of the rich and powerful. Her ambitions, though, go far beyond becoming the most desirable woman in Paris; at her core, she is a woman determined to conquer French high society. But the game she plays is a perilous one: navigating misogynistic double-standards, public scrutiny, and political intrigue, she is soon vaulted into infamy in the most dangerous way possible.A real-life femme fatale, Meg influences government positions and resorts to blackmail—and maybe even poisoning—to get her way. Leaving a trail of death and disaster in her wake, she earns the name the "Red Widow" for mysteriously surviving a home invasion that leaves both her husband and mother dead. With the police baffled and the public enraged, Meg breaks every rule in the bourgeois handbook and becomes the most notorious woman in Paris.An unforgettable true account of sex, scandal, and murder, The Red Widow is the story of a woman determined to rise—at any cost.China's Civilian Army: The Making of Wolf Warrior Diplomacy
Par Peter Martin. 2021
The untold story of China's rise as a global superpower is chronicled through the diplomatic shock troops that connect Beijing…
to the world. China's Civilian Army charts China's transformation from an isolated and impoverished communist state to a global superpower from the perspective of those on the front line: China's diplomats. They give a rare perspective on the greatest geopolitical drama of the last half century. In the early days of the People's Republic, diplomats were highly-disciplined, committed communists who feared revealing any weakness to the threatening capitalist world. Remarkably, the model that revolutionary leader Zhou Enlai established continues to this day despite the massive changes the country has undergone in recent decades. Little is known or understood about the inner workings of the Chinese government as the country bursts onto the world stage, as the world's second largest economy and an emerging military superpower. China's Diplomats embody its battle between insecurity and self-confidence, internally and externally. To this day, Chinese diplomats work in pairs so that one can always watch the other for signs of ideological impurity. They're often dubbed China's "wolf warriors" for their combative approach to asserting Chinese interests. Drawing for the first time on the memoirs of more than a hundred retired diplomats as well as author Peter Martin's first-hand reporting as a journalist in Beijing, this groundbreaking book blends history with current events to tease out enduring lessons about the kind of power China is set to become. It is required reading for anyone who wants to understand China's quest for global power, as seen from the inside.How the World Hunger Problem Was not Solved (Routledge Studies in Modern History)
Par Christian Gerlach. 2024
The world food crisis (1972–1975) gave rise to new development concepts. To eradicate world hunger, small peasants were supposed to…
use ‘modern’ inputs like high-yielding seeds, fertilizer, pesticides and irrigation. This would turn subsistence producers into business owners, transform rural areas, invigorate national economies and the crisis-stricken world economy and thus stabilize capitalism.Together with an in-depth account of the world food crisis, this book analyses how this global scheme largely failed. It shows its diverse initiators, their reasoning and motives, its political breakthrough, the degrees to which it was implemented globally and nationally in the following decades and its socioeconomic effects in rural areas. Despite internationally coordinated policies and coercive means, the scheme failed on all levels: situation analysis, design, policies, incapable institutions (including big business), implementation and peasants’ responses. Selective realization in certain regions and for certain crops and the appropriation of funds by local elites often aggravated inequality and hunger. Case studies are about Bangladesh, Indonesia, Tanzania and Mali. The book shows limits to global social engineering, imperialism and state control.It is aimed at students, scholars, activists and non-specialists interested in development and the world food problem.This book presents a comprehensive narrative and historical analysis of the political and economic relations between China and Italy from…
the Treaty of Friendship and Commerce signed in October 1866 to the Second World War. Utilizing primary sources found in public and private archives, the volume acknowledges the relevance of eminent figures and their roles and contributions in developing the relations between Italy and China. It provides an extensive presentation of the close relations between the Chinese nationalist and Italian fascist regimes and their interaction in the interwar period. The Italian and Chinese governments had a prolonged political and economic dialogue, which lasted for almost a decade and involved the active mediation of politicians, economists, academics, and professionals at different levels and in diverse fields. International historiography mostly neglects the relevance of this period in broader historical contexts. This work overcomes the unjustified oversight and examines, with reliable primary sources, the relevance of this extraordinary season of international relations. With a valuable exploration of a wealth of sources, this book provides a new opportunity of reflection for scholars and students interested in Sino-European relations and international history.Longstreet: The Confederate General Who Defied the South
Par Elizabeth Varon. 1895
A &“compelling portrait&” (Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize–winning author) of the controversial Confederate general who later embraced Reconstruction and became an…
outcast in the South. It was the most remarkable political about-face in American history. During the Civil War, General James Longstreet fought tenaciously for the Confederacy. He was alongside Lee at Gettysburg (and counseled him not to order the ill-fated attacks on entrenched Union forces there). He won a major Confederate victory at Chickamauga and was seriously wounded during a later battle. After the war, Longstreet moved to New Orleans, where he dramatically changed course. He supported Black voting and joined the newly elected, integrated postwar government in Louisiana. When white supremacists took up arms to oust that government, Longstreet, leading the interracial state militia, did battle against former Confederates. His defiance ignited a firestorm of controversy, as white Southerners branded him a race traitor and blamed him retroactively for the South&’s defeat in the Civil War. Although he was one of the highest-ranking Confederate generals, Longstreet has never been commemorated with statues or other memorials in the South because of his postwar actions in rejecting the Lost Cause mythology and urging racial reconciliation. He is being discovered in the new age of racial reckoning as &“one of the most enduringly relevant voices in American history&” (The Wall Street Journal). This is the first authoritative biography in decades and the first that &“brilliantly creates the wider context for Longstreet&’s career&” (The New York Times).Smoke And Ashes: Opium's Hidden Histories
Par Amitav Ghosh. 2024
'The writing is sublime, the research thorough, the eye for story superb' Sunday TelegraphWhen Amitav Ghosh began the research for…
his monumental cycle of novels the Ibis Trilogy, he was startled to find how the lives of the 19th century sailors and soldiers he wrote of were dictated not only by the currents of the Indian Ocean, but also by the precious commodity carried in enormous quantities on those currents: opium. Most surprising at all, however, was the discovery that his own identity and family history was swept up in the story.Smoke and Ashes is at once a travelogue, memoir and a history, drawing on decades of archival research. In it, Ghosh traces the transformative effect the opium trade had on Britain, India, and China, as well as the world at large. The trade was engineered by the British Empire, which exported Indian opium to sell to China and redress their great trade imbalance, and its revenues were essential to the Empire's financial survival. Yet tracing the profits further, Ghosh finds opium at the origins of some of the world's biggest corporations, of America's most powerful families and prestigious institutions (from the Astors and Coolidges to the Ivy League), and of contemporary globalism itself.Moving deftly between horticultural histories, the mythologies of capitalism, and the social and cultural repercussions of colonialism, in Smoke and Ashes Amitav Ghosh reveals the role that one small plant had in making our world, now teetering on the edge of catastrophe.Jingjiao: The Earliest Christian Church in China
Par Glen L. Thompson. 2024
A balanced, accessible, and thorough history of Jingjiao, the first Christian church in China Many people assume that the…
first introduction of Christianity to the Chinese was part of nineteenth-century Western imperialism. In fact, Syriac-speaking Christians brought the gospel along the Silk Road into China in the seventh century. Glen L. Thompson introduces readers to the fascinating history of this early Eastern church, referred to as Jingjiao, or the &“Luminous Teaching.&” Thompson presents the history of the Persian church&’s mission to China with rigor and clarity. While Christianity remained a minority and &“foreign&” religion in the Middle Kingdom, it nonetheless attracted adherents among indigenous Chinese and received imperial approval during the Tang Dynasty. Though it was later suppressed alongside Buddhism, it resurfaced in China and Mongolia in the twelfth century. Thompson also discusses how the modern unearthing of Chinese Christian texts has stirred controversy over the meaning of Jingjiao to recent missionary efforts in China. In an accessible style, Thompson guides readers through primary sources as well as up-to-date scholarship. As the most recent and balanced survey on the topic available in English, Jingjiao will be an indispensable resource for students of global Christianity and missiology.Poet-Monks: The Invention of Buddhist Poetry in Late Medieval China
Par Thomas J. Mazanec. 2024
Poet-Monks focuses on the literary and religious practices of Buddhist poet-monks in Tang-dynasty China to propose an alternative historical arc…
of medieval Chinese poetry. Combining large-scale quantitative analysis with close readings of important literary texts, Thomas J. Mazanec describes how Buddhist poet-monks, who first appeared in the latter half of Tang-dynasty China, asserted a bold new vision of poetry that proclaimed the union of classical verse with Buddhist practices of repetition, incantation, and meditation.Mazanec traces the historical development of the poet-monk as a distinct actor in the Chinese literary world, arguing for the importance of religious practice in medieval literature. As they witnessed the collapse of the world around them, these monks wove together the frayed threads of their traditions to establish an elite-style Chinese Buddhist poetry. Poet-Monks shows that during the transformative period of the Tang-Song transition, Buddhist monks were at the forefront of poetic innovation.Eight Dogs, or "Hakkenden": Part Two—His Master's Blade
Par Kyokutei Bakin. 2024
Kyokutei Bakin's Nansō Satomi Hakkenden is one of the monuments of Japanese literature. This multigenerational samurai saga was one of…
the most popular and influential books of the nineteenth century and has been adapted many times into film, television, fiction, and comics.His Master's Blade, the second part of Hakkenden, begins the story of the eight Dog Warriors created from the mystic union between Princess Fuse and the dog Yatsufusa and born into eight different samurai families in fifteenth-century Japan. The first is Inuzuka Shino, orphaned descendent of proud warriors. Left with nothing save a magical sword and the bead that marks him as a Dog Warrior, young Shino escapes his evil aunt and uncle and sets out to restore his family name. Unaware of their karmic bond, Shino and the other Dog Warriors are drawn into a world of vendettas and quests, gallants, and rogues, as each strives to learn his true nature and find his place in the eight-man fraternity.This book explores people’s everyday experience of the media in Asian countries in confrontation with huge social change and transition…
and the need to understand this phenomenon as it intersects with the media. It argues for the centrality of the media to Asian transformations in the era of globalization. The profusion of the media today, with new imaginations, new choices and contradictions, generates a critical condition for reflexivity engaging everyday people to have a resource for the learning of self, culture and society in a new light. Media culture is creating new connections, new desires and threats, and the identities of people are being reworked at individual, national, regional and global levels. Within historically specific social conditions and contexts of the everyday, the chapters seek to provide a diversity of experiences and understandings of the place of the media in different Asian locations. This book considers the emerging consequences of media consumption in people’s everyday life at a time when the political, socio-economic and cultural forces by which the media operate are rapidly globalizing in Asia.During the years 1764 through 1766, John Dickinson became a leading figure in the Pennsylvania Assembly and in the growing…
American resistance to unjust British taxation. The documents in this volume show that, in both roles, he sought to protect the fundamental rights of ordinary Americans. In the 1764 Assembly, after working to punish those responsible for the slaughter of peaceful Indians, Dickinson challenged Benjamin Franklin and Joseph Galloway in their plan to abolish Pennsylvania’s unique Quaker constitution that secured liberty of conscience and place the colony under the control of the Crown. Then, in 1765, he served as primary draftsman at the Stamp Act Congress in New York, producing the first official American documents of the Revolutionary Era. In his private capacity, Dickinson continued to write through 1765 and 1766, publishing, among other documents, the first practical advice to Americans on how to resist Great Britain. The present volume also contains draft legislation, fascinating case notes from his legal practice, and personal correspondence.Korea Letters in the William Elliot Griffis Collection: An Annotated Selection
Par William Eilliot Griffis. 2024
William Elliot Griffis (1843 – 1928) graduated from Rutgers College in 1869 and taught four years in Fukui and Tokyo.…
After his return to the United States, he devoted himself to his research and writing on East Asia throughout his life. He authored 20 books about Japan and five books about Korea including, Corea: The Hermit Nation (1882), Corea, Without and Within: Chapters on Corean History, Manners and Religion (1885), The Unmannerly Tiger, and Other Korean Tales (1911), A Modern Pioneer in Korea: The Life Story of Henry G. Appenzeller (1912), and Korean Fairy Tales (1922). In particular, his bestseller, Corea: The Hermit Nation (1882) was reprinted numerous times through nine editions over thirty years. He was not only known as "the foremost interpreter of Japan to the West before World War I but also the American expert on Korea. After his death, his collection of books, documents, photographs and ephemera was donated to Rutgers. The Korean materials in the Griffis Collection at Rutgers University consist of journals, correspondence, articles, maps, prints, photos, postcards, manuscripts, scrapbooks, and ephemera. These papers reflect Griffis's interests and activities in relation to Korea as a historian, scholar, and theologian. They provide a rare window into the turbulent period of late nineteenth- and twentieth-century Korea, witnessed and evaluated by Griffis and early American missionaries in East Asia. The Korea Letters in the William Elliot Griffis Collection are divided into two parts: letters from missionaries and letters from Japanese and Korean political figures. Newly available and accessible through this collection, these letters develop a multifaceted history of early American missionaries in Korea, the Korean independence movement, and Griffis's views on Korean culture.Pulitzer Prize winner Kai Bird&’s fascinating memoir of his early years spent in Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Lebanon…
provides an original and illuminating perspective into the Arab-Israeli conflict.In 1956, four-year-old Kai Bird, son of a charming American diplomat, moved to Jerusalem with his family. Kai could hear church bells and the Muslim call to prayer and watch as donkeys and camels competed with cars for space on the narrow streets. Each day on his way to school, Kai was driven through Mandelbaum Gate, where armed soldiers guarded the line separating Israeli-controlled West Jerusalem from Arab-controlled East. Bird would spend much of his life crossing such lines—as a child in Jerusalem, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, and later, as a young man in Lebanon. In Crossing Mandelbaum Gate, a narrative that &“rips along like a spy novel&” (The New York Times Book Review), Bird&’s retelling of &“events such as Suez in 1956, the Six Day War of 1967, and Black September in 1970 are as clear and fresh as yesterday&” (The Spectator, UK). Bird vividly portrays emblematic figures like George Antonius, author of The Arab Awakening; Jordan&’s King Hussein; the Palestinian hijacker Leila Khaled; Salem bin Laden; Saudi King Faisal; President Nasser of Egypt; and Hillel Kook, the forgotten rescuer of more than 100,000 Jews during World War II. Bird, his parents sympathetic to Palestinian self-determination and his wife the daughter of two Holocaust survivors, has written a &“kaleidoscopic and captivating&” (Publishers Weekly) personal history of a troubled region and an indispensable addition to the literature on the modern Middle East.