Books published by Leiden University Press

This book collects contributions by Richard T. Griffiths on the history of European integration, some published for the first time in English. The essays range in chronology from the early experiences with the Marshall Plan to the difficulties and opportunities for the EFTA countries afforded by association with the EEC in the 1970s and 80s. The book interprets European integration far wider than simply the current European Union and its forerunners. Thus, it devotes chapters to EFTA, the OECD, and to issues as agriculture, cartels and monetary problems. The volume also contains the essay in the title which poses the question of what would have happened had there been no Schuman Plan back in 1950. This book should appeal to students of contemporary history, especially those interested in EU history, and to political scientists who will discover a rich palette of case studies upon which to test their theories. Its constructively critical slant on developments provides interesting perspectives to those general readers seeking a nuanced approach between the extremes of the current pro- or anti- in the debates on Europe.Richard T. Griffiths is emeritus professor of Economic and Social History at Leiden University and former director of European Union Studies within the Humanities Faculty. He also lectures at Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok.

Dit boek bevat zes studies geschreven door prominente onderzoekers van het insulaire boek. De leidraad wordt gevormd door het handschrift als fysiek object, hoewel er ook aandacht is voor schrift op en in andere objecten. Verschillende aspecten van de Engelse schriftcultuur van voor 1200 komen aan de orde: van de layout in de Angelsaksische oorkonden (Kathryn Lowe) tot de overgang van Angelsaksische naar een Normandische-Geinspireerde schriftstijl (Teresa Webber). Twee hoofdstukken presenteren een eerste synthese van een fenomeen: Michelle Brown analyseert de schriftcultuur van het koninkrijk van Mercia, terwijl David Dumville een beknopte geschiedenis van het insulaire schrift presenteert. Francis Newton en Mary Garrison bestuderen elk een individueel handschrift. De eerste laat zien hoe de (Eadui) kopiist van het Hannover evangelienboek verantwoordelijk was voor het decoratieve programma van dit belangrijke handschrift terwijl de laatste betoogt hoe Plinius' Historia naturale in VLF 4 in de Leidse Universiteitsbibliotheek is vervaardigd in York ten tijde van Alcuinus.- Erik Kwakkel is palaeograaf aan de Universiteit Leiden, waar hij leiding geeft aan 'Turning Over een New Leaf: Manuscript Innovation in the Twelfth-Century Renaissance', mogelijk gemaakt door NWO.

This volume provides new insights in the concept of shari'a in the West, and sets out a framework of how shari'a in the West can be studied. The premise of this volume is that one needs to focus on the question 'What do Muslims do in terms of shari'a?' rather than 'What is shari'a?'. This perspective shows that the practice of Sharia is restricted to a limited set of rules that mainly relate to religious rituals, family law and social interaction. The framework of this volume then continues to explore two more interactions: the Western responses to these practices of shari'a and, in turn, the Muslim legal reaction to these responses.

Reclaiming the Faravahar is an ethnographic study of the contemporary Zoroastrians in Tehran. It examines hundreds of public discursive and ritual performances to show how they play upon national, religious, and ethnic categories to frame the Zoroastrian identity within the longstanding conflict between Iranian Shi'a and Arab Sunnis, defining and defending Zoroastrians' identity and values in Shi'i dominated Iran. The book focuses on two main concerns of the community: continuity with the past, hence a claim of being the authentic Iranians; and distinction from the dominant Shi'a, thus appealing to fellow non-Zoroastrians who are disenchanted with Islamic Republic. It also provides an historical sketch of Zoroastrians' condition after the Arab incursion into the Persian territory of seventh-century Iran and some of the challenges they have faced, such as emigration, conversion, absorption, and declining numbers. The book then explores the ways in which these challenges are received, understood, and articulated by today's community, and how the community makes a conscious effort to remain not only relevant in contemporary Iran but in a global context as well. The book will mainly appeal to scholars and students of religion, ritual, history, performance theories, discursive analysis, authoritarian regimes, and subalterns. Academics with an interest in Iran and the Shi'i tradition will take particular interest in the work.

Agreement Restrictions in Persian is the first comprehensive attempt to tackle the issue of verbal agreement in Persian from a cross-linguistic point of view. Persian is a field of research within theoretical linguistics that is yet to be sufficiently explored. This book adopts the Minimalist Program of Chomsky (1995-2004) which is at the forefront of recent theories of formal syntax and applies it to the Persian language.Although it is commonly believed that in Persian the verb agrees with the subject, several constructions seem to constrain this obligatory rule. Adopting the framework of Distributed Morphology, the author argues that agreement is in fact obtained with the plural inanimate subjects but a morphological rule may block the result. Unlike the previous analyses which consider the experiencer as the subject of the psychological constructions, the author argues that the psychological state is the subject of the sentence. The findings of this book not only contribute to better understanding of Persian syntax, but also have important implications for grammar theory.Anousha Sedighi is assistant professor of Persian and director of the Persian Program at Portland State University.

Between 1966 and 1980, the War History Office of the National Defense College of Japan (now the Center for Military History of the National Institute for Defense Studies) published the 102-volume "Senshi Sosho" (War History Series). These volumes give a detailed account of the operations of the Imperial Japanese Army and the Imperial Japanese Navy during the Second World War. Volume 3 of the series, "The Invasion of the Dutch East Indies", describes in depth the campaign to gain control over the Indonesian archipelago - at that time the largest transoceanic landing operation in the military history of the world. The present book is the first complete and unabridged translation of a volume from the comprehensive "Senshi Sosho" series. It enables military historians and the general public to see and study for the first time how the operation that put an end to Dutch colonial rule in Indonesia was planned and executed.Willem Remmelink was the executive director of the Japan-Netherlands Institute in Tokyo for more than twenty-five years. He is a specialist in Japanese and Indonesian history.

Since 1992, when the World Heritage Committee established its category of "cultural landscapes", scholarly debates have ensued on how they could best be managed. One approach, which appears to have gained significance over the past two decades or so, considers using traditional conservation practices as well as engaging local indigenous communities in the stewardship of these exemplary sites. To examine the efficacy of this recent approach, this book explores the concept of indigenous communities, the nature of traditional conservancy in the Matobo Hills Cultural World Heritage Landscape where this study was conducted, as well as the management history of the area. Based on the perspectives of the indigenous people of the Matobo Hills, this investigation studies the extent to which both traditional conservation practices and local involvement can be germane to the administration of World Heritage Cultural Landscapes.Simon Makuvaza is currently a Research Fellow in the Faculty of the Built Environment at the National University of Science and Technology in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. Previously, he lectured archaeology at the Catholic University of Malawi. He also worked as an archaeologist for the National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe.

This innovative work attempts to piece together the cultural biography of Mesoamerica's precolonial codices. Today less than twenty extant manuscripts are all that remains of the Mesoamerican book-making tradition. These pictographic and hieroglyphic texts have often been studied for their content, but in doing so their nature as physical objects faded into the background. By tracing the paths these books have followed over the past five hundred years, this study acquaints the reader with their production, use and re-use, destruction, rediscovery and reinvention. Even today, in fact, these books continue to add new chapters to their biography. That is, thanks to the most cutting-edge technology currently available, it has now been possible to uncover a completely new text from inside one of these precious and fragile manuscripts. Ludo Snijders is an archaeologist specialising in Mesoamerican cultures. This work is the result of collaboration with the TU Delft and the Bodleian Libraries of the University of Oxford, within the NWO Science4Arts funded project "Shedding light on endangered mutual heritage".

"For us non-Iranian readers of Hafiz's 14th-century ghazal poems, Iranianattitudes toward the premier lyric poet in the 1,000-year history of Persianliterature, are almost as intriguing as Hafiz's poetry itself. First is theinclination of Iranian readers to find deep, spiritual meaning in that poetry.Second is their personal identification with what they perceive as Hafiz'sphilosophy. Third is their linking of Iranian cultural identity with Hafiz's life and works to the point where some educated Iranians define part of theirIranianness by referencing Hafiz and even consider him a relevant politicalvoice. These features of Iranian appreciation of Hafiz come alive on pageafter page in The Reception of Hafiz in Nineteenth and Twentieth-CenturyPersia, while author Bahman Solati himself epitomizes Iranian love of andidentification with the poet's stances and themes in his poems."Michael Craig Hillmann, The University of Texas at Austin-Bahman Solati is Assistant Professor in Persian Language. He is the authorof several publications, including Rubaiyyat-i-Hakim Umar Khayyam, andPersian Proverbs in three volumes.

Persian passion play or ta`ziya depicts the role of the Prophets granddaughter Zeynab during the tragic death of the third Shiite Imam Hoseyn in Karbala in 680. This book depicts how Zeynab has become a role model in modern Iranian society, especially during the Islamic Revolution and the Iran-Iraq War.Mahnia A. Nematollahi Mahani worked as an editor at the Center for International Cultural Studies in Tehran, before she started her academic career in Persian Studies at Leiden University.

The aim of Sharia Incorporated is to provide unbiased and contextual information about a topic that has of late been hijacked by politics in the West. Sharia Incorporated is an ambitious study of the development and incorporation of sharia and Islamic and customary law traditions into national legal, political, and social state structures. Sharia Incorporated also explores the sensitive topic of 'Western' human rights and rule of law standards in a Muslim world. This book provides an in-depth analysis of the role of sharia in the historical and legal formation of twelve representative Muslim states. In particular, the introduction Jan Michiel Otto goes to the heart of the prevailing environment in which Western discourses tend to oversimplify and misrepresent the substance and effect of Islam and more specifically Sharia. Otto's analysis and the twelve chapters, each written by laudable international scholars of law and anthropology, speak to the origin of Islamic legal trends, providing not only a comprehensive overview but a unique comparison of relevant legal domains and key issues raised by the advent of sharia. It is intended that this wealth of factual information contribute to current international debates on sharia, law, and politics. Jan Michiel Otto is hoogleraar Law and governance in developing countries aan de Universiteit Leiden, en directeur van het Van Vollenhoven Institute for Law, Governance and Development.