Books in the World Social Change series

Ranging from discussions of the natural world, livelihoods, and religious and intellectual encounters to language play, crime and punishment, and gender, this book replays the themes of enduring hybridity and "creolization" of cultures dating from the first great encounter between Europe and Asia.

An analysis of the significant narrative forms and discursive strategies used in representing transnational space in contemporary China. This includes looking at how stay-at-homes fantasize about faraway or unknown places, and how those in the diaspora remember experiences of familiar places.

Provides an analysis and documentation of the brutal operations carried out by the Indonesian army and its East Timorese allies. This work explores a horrific frontal attack on democracy and calls for the establishment of an international tribunal for crimes against humanity in East Timor.

Provides an analysis and documentation of the brutal operations carried out by the Indonesian army and its East Timorese allies. This work explores a horrific frontal attack on democracy and calls for the establishment of an international tribunal for crimes against humanity in East Timor.

Presenting the political history of privatization in Central and Eastern Europe, this work demonstrates that the way that assets are privatized matters, both with respect to national economic performance and the successful development of the rule of law. It applies ownership regime theory to a range of post-communist privatization cases.

Traces the global history of human change and survival under the sway of capitalism since the voyages of Columbus.

Offering a nuanced, historically grounded, and critical perspective, this book presents a multidisciplinary exploration of the growing public controversy over reparations for historical injustices.

An investigation of the process of globalization in the context of Istanbul, usually identified as a battleground between East and West, Islam and secularism. Yet the authors argue that beyond this lies an ongoing struggle over the soul of the city and the identity of its inhabitants.

Water Frontier focuses principally on southwest Indochina (from modern southern Vietnam into eastern Cambodia and southwestern Thailand), which it calls the Lower Mekong region. The book''s excellent contributors argue that, during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, this area formed a single trading zone woven together by the regular itineraries of thousands of large and small junk traders. This zone in turn formed a regional component of the wider trade networks that linked southern China to all of Southeast Asia. This is the "water frontier" of the title, a sparsely settled coastal and riverine frontier region of mixed ethnicities and often uncertain settlements in which the waterborne trade and commerce of a long string of small ports was essential to local life. This innovative book uses the water frontier concept to reposition old nation-state oriented histories and decenter modern dominant cultures and ethnicities to reveal a different local past. It expands and deepens our understanding of the time and place as well as of the multiple roles played by Chinese sojourners, settlers, and junk traders in their interactions with a kaleidoscope of local peoples.

Discusses the empire-to-nation transition in comparative perspective, with chapters on Latin America, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Russia, and China. This work illustrates the common features and the diversity of the transition, concentrating on the empire-to-nation transition.

This deeply informed and clearly written text provides a comprehensive history of China from prehistory to the present. Now updated to include recent political events and scientific research, the book focuses on the interaction of humans and their environment, tracing changes in the physical and cultural world that is home to a fifth of humankind.

This groundbreaking book explores how adversaries in world politics can surmount their differences and disputes and start on the path to peaceful, productive relations. Gurtov draws lessons for diplomatic ways to engage, such as practicing mutual respect, paying attention to symbols, and using incentives rather than sanctions to find common ground.

This book provides a comprehensive analysis of Trump's foreign policy, including detailed case studies of policy toward key countries. Mel Gurtov makes a vigorous argument, centered on human-interest priorities, for rejecting a foreign policy that turns its back on the major issues of our times.

Eric Williams's influential and widely debated Capitalism and Slavery, first published in 1944, was based on his previously unavailable dissertation, now in book form for the first time. The significant differences between his two seminal works allow us to reconsider questions whose importance has only increased in our current charged climate.