The Kurillian Knot

Author : Hiroshi Kimura
Publisher : Stanford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0804786828
Total Pages : 294 pages
Book Rating : 4.29/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Kurillian Knot written by Hiroshi Kimura and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2008-03-28 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides an answer to the mystery of why no peace treaty has yet been signed between Japan and Russia after more than sixty years since the end of World War Two. The author, a leading authority on Japanese-Russian diplomatic history, was trained at the Russian Institute of Columbia University. This volume contributes to our understanding of not only the intricacies of bilateral relations between Moscow and Tokyo, but, more generally, of Russia's and Japan's modes of foreign policy formation. The author also discusses the U.S. factor, which helped make Russia and Japan distant neighbors, and the threat from China, which might help these countries come closer in the near future. It would be hardly possible to discuss the future prospects of Northeast Asia without having first read this book.

Author : Paul B. Richardson
Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
ISBN 13 : 0824875478
Total Pages : 265 pages
Book Rating : 4.73/5 ( download)

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Download or read book At the Edge of the Nation written by Paul B. Richardson and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2018-06-30 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Debates over the remote and beguiling Southern Kuril Islands have revealed a kaleidoscope of divergent and contradictory ideas, convictions, and beliefs on what constitutes the “national” identity of post-Soviet Russia. Forming part of an archipelago stretching from Kamchatka to Hokkaido, administered by Russia but claimed by Japan, these disputed islands offer new perspectives on the ways in which territorial visions of the nation are refracted, inverted, and remade in a myriad of different ways. At the Edge of the Nation provides a unique account of how the Southern Kurils have shaped the parameters of the Russian state and framed debates on the politics of identity in the post-Soviet era. By shifting the debate beyond a proliferation of Eurocentric and Moscow-focused writings, Paul B. Richardson reveals broad alternatives and possibilities for Russian identity in Asia. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, when Russia was suffering the fragmentation of empire and a sudden decline in its international standing, these disputed islands became symbolic of a much larger debate on self-image, nationalism, national space, and Russia’s place in world politics. When viewed through the prism of the Southern Kurils, ideas associated with the “border,” “state,” and “nation” become destabilized, uncovering new insights into state-society relations in modern Russia. At the Edge of the Nation explores how disparate groups of political elites have attempted to use these islands to negotiate enduring tensions within Russia’s identity, and traces how the destiny of these isolated yet evocative islands became irrecoverably bound to the destiny of Russia itself.

Author : James C. Scott
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 0415539757
Total Pages : 178 pages
Book Rating : 4.53/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Decoding Subaltern Politics written by James C. Scott and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book brings together James C. Scott's most important work on peasant religion and ideology; everyday forms of peasant resistance; and state technologies of personal identification. In a collection of interrelated essays Scott introduces the major concepts that lie at the core of his work and illustrates, through ethnographic and historical work how they can be understood through practical examples.

Author : Norton Wheeler
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 0415506573
Total Pages : 242 pages
Book Rating : 4.71/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Role of American NGOs in China's Modernization written by Norton Wheeler and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the waning years of the Cold War, the United States and China began to cautiously engage in cultural, educational, and policy exchanges, which in turn strengthened new security and economic ties. These links have helped shape the most important bilateral relationship in the late-twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. This book explores the dynamics of cultural exchange through an in-depth historical investigation of three organizations at the forefront of U.S.-China non-governmental relations: the Hopkins-Nanjing Center for Chinese and American Studies, the National Committee on United States-China Relations, and The 1990 Institute. Norton Wheeler reveals the impact of American non-governmental organizations (NGOs) on education, environment, fiscal policy, and civil society in contemporary China. In turn, this book illuminates the important role that NGOs play in complementing formal diplomacy and presents a model of society-to-society relations that moves beyond old debates over cultural imperialism. Finally, the book highlights the increasingly significant role of Chinese Americans as bridges between the two societies. Based on extensive archival research and interviews with leading American and Chinese figures, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of Chinese politics and history, international relations and transnational NGOs.

Author : Donald M. Seekins
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 131760153X
Total Pages : 341 pages
Book Rating : 4.31/5 ( download)

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Download or read book State and Society in Modern Rangoon written by Donald M. Seekins and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-06-17 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While most of Asia’s major cities are increasingly homogenized by rapid economic growth and cultural globalization, Rangoon, which is Burma’s former capital and largest city, still bears the imprint of a unique and often turbulent history. It is the site of the Shwedagon Pagoda, a focus of Buddhist pilgrimage and devotion since the early second millennium C.E. that continues to play a major role in national life. In 1852, the British occupied Rangoon and made it their colonial capital, building a modern port and administrative center based on western designs. It became the capital of independent Burma in 1948, but in 2005 the State Peace and Development Council military junta established a new, heavily fortified capital at Naypyidaw, 320 kilometers north of the old capital. A major motive for the capital relocation was the regime’s desire to put distance between itself and Rangoon’s historically restive population. Reacting to the huge anti-government demonstrations of "Democracy Summer" in 1988, the new military regime used massive violence to pacify the city and sought to transform it in line with its supreme goal of state security. However, the "Saffron Revolution" of September 2007 showed that Rangoon’s traditions of resistance reaching back to the colonial era are still very much alive.

Author : Europa Publications
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317445120
Total Pages : 571 pages
Book Rating : 4.28/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Territories of the Russian Federation 2015 written by Europa Publications and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-02-20 with total page 571 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This excellent reference source brings together hard-to-find information on the constituent units of the Russian Federation. The introduction examines the Russian Federation as a whole, focusing on Russian federalism and elections, followed by a chronology, demographic and economic statistics, and a review of the Federal Government. The second section comprises territorial surveys, each of which includes a current map. This edition includes new surveys covering the recently annexed (and disputed) territories of Crimea and Sevastopol, as well as updated surveys of each of the other 83 federal subjects. The third section comprises a select bibliography of books. The fourth section features a series of indexes, listing the territories alphabetically, by Federal Okrug and Economic Area. Users will also find a gazetteer of selected alternative and historic names, a list of the territories abolished, created or reconstituted in the post-Soviet period, and an index of more than 100 principal cities, detailing the territory in which each is located.

Author : Kimie Hara
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317637895
Total Pages : 290 pages
Book Rating : 4.99/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The San Francisco System and Its Legacies written by Kimie Hara and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-11-20 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In September 1951, Japan signed a peace treaty with forty-eight countries in San Francisco; in April 1952, the treaty came into effect. The San Francisco Peace Treaty is an international agreement that in significant ways shaped the post–World War II international order in the Asia-Pacific. With its associated security arrangements, it laid the foundation for the regional structure of Cold War confrontation: the "San Francisco System" fully reflected the strategic interests and policy priorities of the peace conference’s host nation, the United States. The treaty fell far short of settling outstanding issues in the wake of the Pacific War or facilitating a clean start for the "post-war" period. Rather, critical aspects of the settlement were left equivocal, and continue to have significant and worrisome implications for regional international relations. This book examines the key developments of the contentious political and security issues in the Asia-Pacific that share a common foundation in the post-war disposition of Japan, particularly the San Francisco Peace Treaty. These include both tangible and intangible issues, such as disputes over territories and "history" problems. Taking the San Francisco System as its conceptual grounding, the authors examine how these issues developed and have remained contentious long after the San Francisco arrangements. To provide bases for producing solutions, the chapters offer comprehensive accounts that explain and deepen our understanding of these complex regional issues and the San Francisco System as a whole. By closely and systematically examining the legacy and various ramifications of the San Francisco System, this fascinating book adds to our understanding of current and growing tensions in the region. As such, it will be of great interest to students and scholars of Asian studies, history, international relations and politics.

Author : Francesca Bray
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1136184287
Total Pages : 330 pages
Book Rating : 4.84/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Technology, Gender and History in Imperial China written by Francesca Bray and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-06-19 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What can the history of technology contribute to our understanding of late imperial China? Most stories about technology in pre-modern China follow a well-worn plot: in about 1400 after an early ferment of creativity that made it the most technologically sophisticated civilisation in the world, China entered an era of technical lethargy and decline. But how are we to reconcile this tale, which portrays China in the Ming and Qing dynasties as a dying giant that had outgrown its own strength, with the wealth of counterevidence affirming that the country remained rich, vigorous and powerful at least until the end of the eighteenth century? Does this seeming contradiction mean that the stagnation story is simply wrong, or perhaps that technology was irrelevant to how imperial society worked? Or does it imply that historians of technology should ask better questions about what technology was, what it did and what it meant in pre-modern societies like late imperial China? In this book, Francesca Bray explores subjects such as technology and ethics, technology and gendered subjectivities (both female and male), and technology and statecraft to illuminate how material settings and practices shaped topographies of everyday experience and ideologies of government, techniques of the self and technologies of the subject. Examining technologies ranging from ploughing and weaving to drawing pictures, building a house, prescribing medicine or composing a text, this book offers a rich insight into the interplay between the micro- and macro-politics of everyday life and the workings of governmentality in late imperial China, showing that gender principles were woven into the very fabric of empire, from cosmology and ideologies of rule to the material foundations of the state and the everyday practices of the domestic sphere. This authoritative text will be welcomed by students and scholars of Chinese history, as well as those working on global history and the histories of gender, technology and agriculture. Furthermore, it will be of great use to those interested in social and cultural anthropology and material culture.

Author : Richard J. Smith
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1136209220
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.22/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Mapping China and Managing the World written by Richard J. Smith and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-05-20 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the founding of the Qin dynasty in 221 BCE to the present, the Chinese have been preoccupied with the notion of ordering their world. Efforts to create and maintain order are expressed not only in China’s bureaucratic institutions and methods of social and economic organization but also in Chinese philosophy, religious and secular ritual, and comprehensive systems of classifying all natural and supernatural phenomena. Mapping China and Managing the World focuses on Chinese constructions of order (zhi) and examines the most important ways in which elites in late imperial China sought to order their vast and variegated world. This book begins by exploring the role of ancient texts and maps as the two prominent symbolic devices that the Chinese used to construct cultural meaning, and looks at how changing conceptions of ‘the world’ shaped Chinese cartography, whilst both shifting and enduring cartographic practices affected how the Chinese regarded the wider world. Richard J. Smith goes on to examine the significance of ritual in overcoming disorder, and by focusing on the importance of divination shows how Chinese at all levels of society sought to manage the future, as well as the past and the present. Finally, the book concludes by emphasizing the enduring relevance of the Yijing (Classic of Changes) in Chinese intellectual and cultural life as well as its place in the history of Sino-foreign interactions. Bringing together a selection of essays by Richard J. Smith, one of the foremost scholars of Chinese intellectual and cultural history, this book will be welcomed by Chinese and East Asian historians, as well as those interested more broadly in the culture of China and East Asia.

Author : Lily Zubaidah Rahim
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1134013965
Total Pages : 503 pages
Book Rating : 4.68/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Singapore in the Malay World written by Lily Zubaidah Rahim and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2010-11-09 with total page 503 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Relations between Singapore and her immediate Malay neighbours have been perennially fraught with tension and misunderstanding. In making sense of this complex relationship, Lily Rahim explores the salience of historical animosities and competitive economic pressures, and Singapore’s janus-faced security and foreign economic policy orientation and ‘regional outsider’ complex. Focusing on Singapore’s relations with Malaysia, the book also examines the Indonesian dimension in bilateral relations. It highlights the paradoxical similarities in the nation-building approaches of Singapore and Malaysia. The author reflects critically on sensitive issues such as the rhetoric and reality of meritocracy and multiracialism in Singapore, and analyses the city-state’s weak regional soft power credentials and reputation as a political laggard despite its economic achievements. Incorporating perspectives and frameworks from the disciplines of comparative politics, area studies, international relations, political economy and history, this multidisciplinary study offers groundbreaking insights into the way in which the neighboring states of Singapore and Malaysia see themselves, each other, the region and beyond. This book will be of particular interest to keen observers of Southeast Asian politics.