The first comprehensive and authoritative history of the Koh-i Noor, arguably the most celebrated and mythologised jewel in the world. On 29 March 1849, the ten-year-old Maharajah of the Punjab was ushered into the magnificent Mirrored Hall at the centre of the great Fort in Lahore. There, in a public ceremony, the frightened but dignified child handed over to the British East India Company in a formal Act of Submission to Queen Victoria not only swathes of the richest land in India, but also ar...
Mongolia has often been treated in Western scholarly literature as an appendage of Russia or China. In this history, Julia Nordby avoids this approach and instead focuses on Mongol aspirations of statehood and nationhood in an attempt to describe events from the Mongolian point of view. The extent to which Mongolian culture, religion and the nomadic way of life have survived in a society greatly influenced by its communist neighbours also features strongly, as does the exploitation by the Mongol...
'The most dangerous place in the world' - Barack Obama. The borderlands of Afghanistan and Pakistan have become the arena for a global conflict with consequences that defy prediction. "Afghan Frontier" traces the history of this region as a hotly contested battlefield for millennia. At the crossroads of Central Asia, gateway to India and the West, Afghanistan has tempted countless invaders in their quest for domination. Leading regional expert Victoria Schofield presents a gripping portrait of t...
Central Asia in World History (New Oxford World History)
by Peter B. Golden
A vast region stretching roughly from the Volga River to Manchuria and the northern Chinese borderlands, Central Asia has been called the "pivot of history," a land where nomadic invaders and Silk Road traders changed the destinies of states that ringed its borders, including pre-modern Europe, the Middle East, and China. In Central Asia in World History, Peter B. Golden provides an engaging account of this important region, ranging from prehistory to the present, focusing largely on the unique...
A gripping narrative and a savvy, incisive analysis of the power struggle for the world's remaining energy sources.
Central Asia is likely to become a new arena of international interest in the twenty-first century, not least because of its volatile cocktail of abundant oil and gas, Islamic Jehadist groups, dictatorial regimes and the political and economic rivalry of the United States, Russia, China and Iran. Some believe that it could become the new Middle East' a battleground for access to precious resources, religious fundamentalism and democratic politics. Narcotics, ethnic tensions and impoverished stat...
History of Civilisations of Central Asia (History of civilisations of Central Asia (A 7-volume series))
The Plight of a Postmodern Hunter
by Mukhtar Shakhanov and Chingiz Aitmatov
For 1,400 years, two colossal figures of the Buddha overlooked the fertile Bamiyan Valley on the Silk Road in Afghanistan. Witness to a melting pot of passing monks, merchants, and armies, the Buddhas embodied the intersection of East and West, and their destruction by the Taliban in 2001 provoked international outrage. Llewelyn Morgan excavates the layers of meaning these vanished wonders hold for a fractured Afghanistan. Carved in the sixth and seventh centuries, the Buddhas represented a conf...
Vietnam Notebook Large Size 8.5 x 11 Ruled 150 Pages
by Wild Pages Press
Securing Gains in Fragile States
by Stephen Watts, Jeffrey Martini, Jason H Campbell, and Inhyok Kwon
Toward Filipino Self-Determination (SUNY series in Global Modernity)
by E. San Juan
From the resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism, to the fate of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, and the Palestinian conflict, this volume brings together Gilbert Achcar's major writings on these issues over the past decades. Achcar analyses the social bases, strategies and tactics of PLO, Hizbollah, Israel and the United States from the establishment of the state of Israel to the second Intifada. He pinpoints the contradictions of the Israeli state - seeking at the same time to be Jewish...
The author of several travel books and winner of literary prizes for her outstanding quality of writing Niema is highly regarded by readers and critics alike. Brought up in Montreal, she embarked on her first trip abroad when she was only fourteen. Since then she has spent most of her life travelling or writing about her travels and as such it was some years before she was to return to Montreal as a home. As she says, "I left Montreal an adolescent and returned an adult, with a husband, a baby a...
(Sanitized)Letters of Instruction for Home Studies in Russian(sanitized)
At the height of her imperial power Britain clashed with Russia at many points from Turkey to China. But it was only in Persia and Central Asia that these two expansionist empires met face to face. The fear of a Russian drive against India had initially impelled the British to oppose the extension of Russian influence. Russia's subsequent advance into Central Asia and her spectacular conquests in the second half of the nineteenth century both startled Europe and narrowed the gap separating the R...
Few countries are so fascinatingly suspended in time as Tibet, and few so rich in spiritual and human values. History and human tradition exists alongside unpolluted natural beauty, in a succession of senses: colours, smells and sights. This book looks back at the events of the past and takes a broad ranging view of the present and the future of the nation on the roof of the world in this journey through the highest peaks on Earth, where the air may be thin but the people are always able to smil...
China and South Korea have come a long way since they were adversaries. The arc of their relationship since the late 1970s is an excellent model of East-West cooperation and, at the same time, highlights the growing impact of China's "rise" over its regional neighbors, including America's close allies. South Korea-China relations have rarely been studied as an independent theme. The accumulation of more than fifteen years of research, Between Ally and Partner reconstructs a comprehensive portrai...
Yukichi Fukuzawa (1835-1901) was a leading figure in the cultural revolution that transformed Japan from an isolated feudal nation into a full-fledged player in the modern world. He translated a wide range of Western works and adapted them to Japanese needs, inventing a colorful prose style close to the vernacular. He also authored many books, which were critical in introducing the powerful but alien culture of the West to the Japanese. Only by adopting the strengths and virtues of the West, he...