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The Yudahua Business Group in China's Early Industrialization
Juan Juan Peng
By tracing the history of Yudahua from the late nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth century, this study analyzes a successful inland business model among textile companies in modern China. The steady growth of this enterprise relied primarily on its strategy to focus on low-end markets and to locate new mills in underdeveloped interior regions. This strategy further allowed the enterprise to pioneer industrialization in its host localities, demonstrating a major social and economic impact on the local societies. At the same time, Yudahua’s unique team leadership pattern—five leading families shared its ownership and management—made the business an atypical family firm and allowed relatively easy institutional departure from Chinese social networks and adoption of Western corporate hierarchy. Therefore, by the late 1940s, Yudahua had gradually developed into a fairly integrated business group with a unified management structure and routinized connections between its member mills, which differed noticeably from the loose alliances normally found in other early twentieth-century Chinese business conglomerates.
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Navigating Uncertainty in the South China Sea Disputes: Interdisciplinary Perspectives
Nalanda Roy
This collaborative and edited volume explores the geopolitical and geostrategic significance of the South China Sea disputes. Experts from interdisciplinary fields and knowledge analyze the South China Sea's historical and contemporary strategic significance alongside the dynamics of evolving political powers in Asia. Overall, Navigating Uncertainty in the South China Sea Disputes explains why this issue resonates on a global scale and where it will move from here.
This book explores a complex conflict challenging democracy, patriotism, resources, power, and the nature of Asia's future identity. With the increasing demand for natural resources in the region, it is becoming difficult to maintain a balanced and humanistic approach on the global stage. Navigating Uncertainty in the South China Sea Disputes will answer two key questions: first, why the South China Sea is of vital importance to Asia-Pacific nations; second, cover the interests of external powers and explain what international laws apply to the South China Sea, detailing rules that all parties should follow. By focusing attention on these issues, we hope to encourage scholars to expand the range of texts and genres they are willing to explore in search of nuanced ideas and debates.
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A History of the Muslim World Since 1260
Vernon O. Egger
A History of the Muslim World since 1260 continues the narrative begun by A History of the Muslim World to 1750 by tracing the development of Muslim societies, institutions, and doctrines from the time of the Mongol conquests through to the present day. It offers students a balanced coverage of Muslim societies that extend from Western Europe to Southeast Asia. Whereas it presents a multifaceted examination of Muslim cultures, it focuses on analysing the interaction between the expression of faith and contemporary social conditions.
This extensively updated second edition is now in full colour, and the chronology of the book has been extended to include recent developments in the Muslim world. The images and maps have also been refreshed, and the literature has been updated to include the latest research from the last 10 years, including sections dedicated to the roles and status of women within Muslim societies throughout history.
Divided chronologically into three parts and accompanied by a detailed glossary, A History of the Muslim World since 1260 is a perfect introduction for all students of the history of Muslim societies.
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A History of the Muslim World to 1750: The Making of a Civilization
Vernon O. Egger
A History of the Muslim World to 1750 traces the development of Islamic civilization from the career of the Prophet Muhammad to the mid-eighteenth century. Encompassing a wide range of significant events within the period, its coverage includes the creation of the Dar al-Islam (the territory ruled by Muslims), the fragmentation of society into various religious and political groups including the Shi'ites and Sunnis, the series of catastrophes in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries that threatened to destroy the civilization, and the rise of the Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal empires.
Including the latest research from the last ten years, this second edition has been updated and expanded to cover the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries. Fully refreshed and containing over sixty images to highlight the key visual aspects, this book offers students a balanced coverage of the Muslim world from the Iberian Peninsula to South Asia, and detailed accounts of all cultures. The use of maps, primary sources, timelines, and a glossary further illuminates the fascinating yet complex world of the pre-modern Middle East.
Covering art, architecture, religious institutions, theological beliefs, popular religious practice, political institutions, cuisine, and much more, A History of the Muslim World to 1750 is the perfect introduction for all students of the history of Islamic civilization and the Middle East.
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The South China Sea Disputes: Past, Present, and Future
Nalanda Roy
Book Summary: The South China Sea has long been regarded as one of the most complex and challenging ocean-related maritime disputes in East Asia. Recently it has become the locus of disputes that have the potential of escalating into serious international conflicts. Historical mistrust, enduring territorial disputes, and competing maritime claims have combined to weaken an at least partially successful regional security structure. Issues of concern include territorial sovereignty; disputed claims to islands, rocks, and reefs; jurisdiction over territorial waters, exclusive economic zones, and the seabed; regional and international rights to use the seas for military purposes; maritime security; rapid economic development; and environmental degradation. The fear is that increasing competition for energy and other resources will exacerbate conflicts and further fuel nationalism and sovereignty issues in the region. The SCS has an integrated ecosystem and is one of the richest seas in the world in terms of marine flora and fauna: coral reefs, mangroves, sea-grass beds, fish, and plants. National economic security can be easily affected by conflicts occurring in major international trade routes like the SCS, or how such an unclear situation might even give rise to environmental challenges in the future. The book creates an understanding as to why this region is important not only to the claimants but to global powers like the United States and India. The book examines current and potential conflicts in the South China Sea, and also evaluates how conflicts have been “managed” to date and suggests as to how they might be better managed in the future.
This book concludes with recommendations for improving the situation in the region by ensuring a strong economic relationships, using high-resolution observation satellites, and undertaking joint development, and resource exploration etc.
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My Lai: An American Atrocity in the Vietnam War
William T. Allison
Book Summary: On March 16, 1968, American soldiers killed as many as five hundred Vietnamese men, women, and children in a village near the South China Sea. In My Lai William Thomas Allison explores and evaluates the significance of this horrific event. How could such a thing have happened? Who (or what) should be held accountable? How do we remember this atrocity and try to apply its lessons, if any?
My Lai has fixed the attention of Americans of various political stripes for more than forty years. The breadth of writing on the massacre, from news reports to scholarly accounts, highlights the difficulty of establishing fact and motive in an incident during which confusion, prejudice, and self-preservation overwhelmed the troops.
Son of a Marine veteran of the Vietnam War—and aware that the generation who lived through the incident is aging—Allison seeks to ensure that our collective memory of this shameful episode does not fade.
Well written and accessible, Allison’s book provides a clear narrative of this historic moment and offers suggestions for how to come to terms with its aftermath.
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The Tet Offensive: A Brief History with Documents
William T. Allison
Book Summary: With Americans turning against the war in ever greater numbers, struggles for power between the government and the military, and no end in sight to the fighting, the Tet Offensive of 1968 proved to be the turning point of the Vietnam War. In The Tet Offensive, historian William Thomas Allison provides a clear, concise overview of the major events and issues surrounding the Tet Offensive, and compiles carefully selected primary sources to illustrate the complex military, political, and public decisions that made up Tet.
The Tet Offensive is composed of two parts: an accessible, well-illustrated narrative overview, and a collection of core primary source documents. Throughout the narrative, historiographic questions are addressed within the text to highlight discussion among historians over pivotal points of debate. The objectively selected documents provide students with raw material from which to gain insight into these events through their own analysis, and to improve their ability to discuss and understand the importance of historical scholarship. Approachable and insightful, The Tet Offensive is not only a great introduction to reading history through primary sources, it is an essential tool for understanding what made the Tet Offensive such an important turning point of the Vietnam War.
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