After more than two centuries of self-seclusion, Japan finally opened itself to Western traders and influences in the 1850s. However, Westerners were restricted to a handful of Foreign Concessions set adjacent to selected Japanese cities, where they could fashion a working urban space suited to their own cultural patterns, and which provided the Japanese with a microscopic lens on Western ways of behaviour and commerce. Kōbe was one of these treaty ports, and its Foreign Concession, along ...

A Prospect Best Book of 2021‘A fascinating and timely book.’ William Boyd‘Gripping…a must read.’ FT‘Compelling…humane, reasonable, and ultimately optimistic.’ Evening Standard‘[A] valuable guide to a complex narrative.’ The TimesIn 1897, Britain sent a punitive expedition to the Kingdom of Benin, in what is today Nigeria, in retali...

New in the Short History of Asia series, edited by Milton Osborne, this is a comprehensive, readable history of the land of the Rising Sun, from its ancient origins to its fascinating present.Japan is a country of contradictions and extremes. It is a country of age-old practices and cutting edge technology, strong martial traditions and refined artistic accomplishments. Few countries have been the subject of so much attention yet remain so elusive....

<I>A Traveller’s History of Japan</I> not only offers the reader a chronological outline of the nation’s development but also provides an invaluable introduction to its language, literature and arts, from kabuki to karaoke. This clearly written history explains how a country embedded in the traditions of Shinto, Shoguns and Samurai has achieved stupendous economic growth and dominance in this century.

The weather on the Labour Day weekend of 1907 was hot and tempers were short. British Columbians had always been sensitive to Asian immigration and had become increasingly fearful over the summer. More Japanese immigrants were coming to B.C. and rumours smouldered of massive labour contracts for the projected Grand Trunk Pacific Railway.Like the citizens of Seattle and San Francisco, the residents of Vancouver had established a bipartisan Asiatic Exclusion League aimed at Japanese,...

Whether it is politics, journalism or literature the most talked about topic today is undoubtedly corruption. This book deals with it throughout.Each page of Bleeding Mountains of Nepal is a ghastly tale of how the country is run by people whose unsaturated greed and avarice for power and perks and their dereliction of duty may be unmatched by anyone anywhere in the world.The book is a verification of how national resources, funds and revenue, foreign loans and ass...

Japan Reloaded is a MASSIVE collection of everything you need know before going to JAPAN.Learn about Japan's history, culture, food, buzzwords, religions, languages and culture. For only 4.99, it is a great travel companion!All facts and tips in this book include source citation and external references, in order to ensure quality and accuracy.Written by: Takumi Kawasaki, Lecturer Intro JapaneseEdited by: Kira Takahashi PhD, Japanese History

In a rare combination of comprehensive coverage and sustained critical focus, this book examines Japan's progress through its entire history to its current status as an economic, technological, and cultural superpower. A key factor is a pragmatic determination to succeed. Little-known facts are also brought to light, and the latest findings used.

The first ever history of India to explore the benefits – institutional, political and civil – of British Colonial Rule on the subcontinent.The story of The Making of India begins in the seventeenth century, when a small seafaring island, one tenth the size of the Indian subcontinent, despatched sailing ships over 11,000 miles on a five-month trading journey in search of new opportunities. In the end they helped build a new nation. The sheer audacity and s...

Intra-Asian trade is a major theme of recent writing on Asian economic history. From the second half of the nineteenth century, intra-Asian trade flows linked Asia into an integrated economic system, with reciprocal benefits for all participants. But although this was a network from which all gained, there was also considerable inter-Asian competition between Asian producers for these Asian markets, and those of the wider world.This collection presents captivating snap-shots of tra...

Neil Armstrong, Edwin Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins flew high above the planet Earth to reach the Moon and to land on it for the first time. But it was the men at Kolar Gold Field who dug deepest excavations below the surface and landed on the ultra-deep horizon into the planet Earth for the first time in human history! The latter was a hundred times dangerous than the space odyssey. While space expeditions explore the heavenly bodies, the land expeditions explore the earthly formations...

This book charts the history of artisan production and marketing in the Bombay Presidency from 1870 to 1960. While the textile mills of western India's biggest cities have been the subject of many rich studies, the role of artisan producers located in the region's small towns have been virtually ignored. Based upon extensive archival research as well as numerous interviews with participants in the handloom and powerloom industries, this book explores the role of weavers, merchants, consume...