Download or read book The Making and Unmaking of Colonial Cities written by Julia C. Obert and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2023-09-21 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Making and Unmaking of Colonial Cities is a comparative study of architectural space in four (post-)colonial capitals: Belfast, Northern Ireland; Windhoek, Namibia; Bridgetown, Barbados; and Hanoi, Vietnam. Each chapter takes up one of these cities, outlining its history of building and urban planning under colonial rule and linking that history to its contemporary shape and scope. This genealogical information is drawn from primary source documents and archival materials. The chapters then look to local literary texts to better understand the lingering impact of colonial building practices on individuals living in (post-)colonial cities today. These texts often foreground the difficulty of moving through a city that can never feel comfortably one's own; legacies of racial segregation, buildings that disregard indigenous resources, and street names that serve as constant reminders of a history of oppression, for example, can produce feelings of anxiety, even of unbelonging, for native subjects. However, the literature also highlights ways in which the subversive wanderings of particular pedestrians—taking shortcuts, trespassing in forbidden places, diverting spaces from their intended uses—can contest 'official' topography. Bodies can therefore move against the power of a repressive regime, at least to some degree, even when that power is literally set in stone. Obert argues for the significance of these small gestures of reclamation, suggesting that we must counterpose the potential flexibility of lived space to the prohibitions of the map in order to more fully understand (post-)colonial power relations.

Download or read book Seeking a Future for the Past written by Philipp Demgenski and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2024-02-19 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seeking a Future for the Past: Space, Power, and Heritage in a Chinese City examines the complexities and changing sociopolitical dynamics of urban renewal in contemporary China. Drawing on ten years of ethnographic fieldwork in the northeastern Chinese city of Qingdao, the book tells the story of the slow, fragmented, and contentious transformation of Dabaodao—an area in the city’s former colonial center—from a place of common homes occupied by the urban poor into a showcase of architectural heritage and site for tourism and consumption. The ethnography provides a nuanced account of the diverse experiences and views of a range of groups involved in shaping, and being shaped, by the urban renewal process—local residents, migrant workers, preservationists, planners, and government officials—foregrounding the voices and experiences of marginal groups, such as migrants in the city. Unpacking structural reasons for urban developmental impasses, it paints a nuanced local picture of urban governance and political practice in contemporary urban China. Seeking a Future for the Past also weighs the positives and negatives of heritage preservation and scrutinizes the meanings and effects of “preservation” on diverse social actors. By zeroing in on the seemingly contradictory yet coexisting processes of urban stagnation and urban destruction, the book reveals the multifaceted challenges that China faces in reforming its urbanization practices and, ultimately, in managing its urban future.

Download or read book Murder in Manchuria written by Scott D. Seligman and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2023-10 with total page 189 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Murder in Manchuria, Scott D. Seligman explores an unsolved murder set amid the chaos that reigned in China in the run-up to World War II. The story unfolds against the backdrop of a three-country struggle for control of Manchuria--an area some called China's "Wild East"--and an explosive mixture of nationalities, religions, and ideologies. Semyon Kaspé, a young Jewish musician, is kidnapped, tortured, and ultimately murdered by disaffected, antisemitic White Russians, secretly acting on the orders of Japanese military overlords who covet his father's wealth. When local authorities deliberately slow-walk the search for the kidnappers, a young French diplomat takes over and launches his own investigation. Part cold-case thriller and part social history, the true, tragic saga of Kaspé is told in the context of the larger, improbable story of the lives of the twenty thousand Jews who called Harbin home at the beginning of the twentieth century. Scott D. Seligman recounts the events that led to their arrival and their hasty exodus--and solves a crime that has puzzled historians for decades.

Download or read book Alfred Raquez and the French Experience of the Far East 1898 1906 written by William L. Gibson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-05-10 with total page 139 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Study of an Enigmatic Travel Writer and His Work in Colonial Asia during the fin de siècle. In 1898, a man calling himself Alfred Raquez appeared in Indochina claiming to be a writer travelling the world to escape unfathomable sorrows back home in France. He published thousands of pages of highly detailed travel accounts that open a unique window onto the European presence in the Far East. He travelled far into the Zomia of upland Southeast Asia, a peripheral zone populated by people who lived beyond official state power. Raquez explored the nightlife of Shanghai and operated a popular cabaret in Hanoi. An amateur anthropologist, he helped mount expositions of colonial material in Hanoi and Marseille. Raquez met people in the highest circles of belle époque Indochina, as well as the kings of Annam, Cambodia, Laos and Siam. And yet, despite the charm and the ebullience and the erudition, through all his travels and rising fame, the man kept a secret that was so mortifying that even his closest companions would not learn of it until after his death in 1907. In truth, Alfred Raquez did not exist. A fascinating read for students and scholars of colonial Southeast Asia, and European colonialism more broadly.

Download or read book Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Vietnam written by Jonathan D. London and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2022-07-29 with total page 728 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Vietnam is a comprehensive resource exploring social, political, economic, and cultural aspects of Vietnam, one of contemporary Asia’s most dynamic but least understood countries. Following an introduction that highlights major changes that have unfolded in Vietnam over the past three decades, the volume is organized into four thematic parts: Politics and Society Economy and Society Social Life and Institutions Cultures in Motion Part I addresses key aspects of Vietnam’s politics, from the role of the Communist Party of Vietnam in shaping the country’s institutional evolution, to continuity and change in patterns of socio-political organization, political expression, state repression, diplomatic relations, and human rights. Part II assesses the transformation of Vietnam’s economy, addressing patterns of economic growth, investment and trade, the role of the state in the economy, and other economic aspects of social life. Parts III and IV examine developments across a variety of social and cultural fields through chapters on themes including welfare, inequality, social policy, urbanization, the environment and society, gender, ethnicity, the family, cuisine, art, mass media, and the politics of remembrance. Featuring 38 essays by leading Vietnam scholars from around the world, this book provides a cutting-edge analysis of Vietnam’s transformation and changing engagement with the world. It is an invaluable interdisciplinary reference work that will be of interest to students and academics of Southeast Asian studies, as well as policymakers, analysts, and anyone wishing to learn more about contemporary Vietnam.

Download or read book Ultra Modernism written by Edward Denison and published by Hong Kong University Press. This book was released on 2016-12-01 with total page 159 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first half of the twentieth century was fraught with global tensions and political machinations. However, for all the destruction in that period, these geopolitical conditions in Manchuria cultivated an extraordinary variety of architecture and urban planning, which has completely escaped international attention until now. With over forty carefully chosen images, Ultra-Modernism: Architecture and Modernity in Manchuria is the first book in English that illustrates Manchuria’s encounter with modernity through its built environment. Edward Denison and Guangyu Ren take readers through Russia’s early territorial claims, Japan’s construction of the South Manchuria Railway (SMR), and the establishment of Manchukuo in 1932. The book examines in detail the creation of modern cities along the SMR and focuses on three of the most important modern urban centres in Manchuria: the Russian-dominated city of Harbin, the port of Dalian, and the new capital of Manchukuo, Hsinking (Changchun). Like so much of the world outside ‘the West’ during the twentieth century, Manchuria’s encounter with modernity is merely a faint whisper drowned out by the deafening master narrative of Western-centric modernism. This book attempts to redress an imbalance in the modern history of China by studying the impact of Japan on architecture and planning beyond the depredations of the Sino-Japanese War. ‘Ultra-Modernism: Architecture and Modernity in Manchuria is a concise, fascinating reminder of northeast China’s transformation a century ago, when it was known as Manchuria. Denison and Ren show how Dalian, Shenyang, Changchun, and Harbin went from a sleepy port, a decaying imperial seat, and small agricultural settlements to sleek, manicured metropolises linked by the world’s longest railway to Europe. This is an excellent addition to both syllabus and bookshelf.’ —Michael Meyer, author of In Manchuria: A Village Called Wasteland and the Transformation of Rural China and The Last Days of Old Beijing: Life in the Vanishing Backstreets of a City Transformed ‘Manchuria today conjures up images of rusting heavy industry and a hostile environment. But beneath the coal dust is a built environment that was once at the cutting edge of what was meant to be modern. This creative and comprehensive book takes readers back to a time when the region was an outdoor laboratory for modernity and cosmopolitanism.’ —James Carter, author of Creating a Chinese Harbin: Nationalism in an International City, 1916–1932

Download or read book The Architecture of Empire written by Gauvin Alexander Bailey and published by McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP. This book was released on 2022-09-16 with total page 489 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most monumental buildings of France’s global empire – such as the famous Saigon and Hanoi Opera Houses – were built in South and Southeast Asia. Much of this architecture, and the history of who built it and how, has been overlooked. The Architecture of Empire considers the large-scale public architecture associated with French imperialism in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century India, Siam, and Vietnam, and nineteenth- and twentieth-century Indochina, the largest colony France ever administered in Asia. Offering a sweeping panorama of the buildings of France’s colonial project, this is the first study to encompass the architecture of both the ancien régime and modern empires, from the founding of the French trading company in the seventeenth century to the independence and nationalist movements of the mid-twentieth century. Gauvin Bailey places particular emphasis on the human factor: the people who commissioned, built, and lived in these buildings. Almost all of these architects, both Europeans and non-Europeans, have remained unknown beyond – at best – their surnames. Through extensive archival research, this book reconstructs their lives, providing vital background for the buildings themselves. Much more than in the French empire of the Western Hemisphere, the buildings in this book adapt to indigenous styles, regardless of whether they were designed and built by European or non-European architects. The Architecture of Empire provides a unique, comprehensive study of structures that rank among the most fascinating examples of intercultural exchange in the history of global empires.

Download or read book White Russians Red Peril written by Sheila Fitzpatrick and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-05-12 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over 20,000 ethnic Russians migrated to Australia after World War II – yet we know very little about their experiences. Some came via China, others from refugee camps in Europe. Many preferred to keep a low profile in Australia, and some attempted to ‘pass’ as Polish, West Ukrainian or Yugoslavian. They had good reason to do so: to the Soviet Union, Australia’s resettling of Russians amounted to the theft of its citizens, and undercover agents were deployed to persuade them to repatriate. Australia regarded the newcomers with wary suspicion, even as it sought to build its population by opening its door to more immigrants. Making extensive use of newly discovered Russian-language archives and drawing on a lifetime’s study of Soviet history and politics, award-winning author Sheila Fitzpatrick examines the early years of a diverse and disunited Russian-Australian community and how Australian and Soviet intelligence agencies attempted to track and influence them. While anti-Communist ‘White’ Russians dreamed a war of liberation would overthrow the Soviet regime, a dissident minority admired its achievements and thought of returning home.

Download or read book A History of Plague in Java 1911 1942 written by Maurits Bastiaan Meerwijk and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2022-12-15 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In A History of Plague in Java, 1911–1942, Maurits Bastiaan Meerwijk demonstrates how the official response to the 1911 outbreak of plague in Malang led to one of the most invasive health interventions in Dutch colonial Indonesia. Eager to combat disease, Dutch physicians and officials integrated the traditional Javanese house into the "rat-flea-man" theory of transmission. Hollow bamboo frames and thatched roofs offered hiding spaces for rats, suggesting a material link between rat plague and human plague. Over the next thirty years, 1.6 million houses were renovated or rebuilt, millions more were subjected to periodic inspection, and countless Javanese were exposed to health messaging seeking to "rat-proof" their beliefs along with their houses. The transformation of houses, villages, and people was documented in hundreds of photographs and broadcast to overseas audiences as evidence of the "ethical" nature of colonial rule, proving so effective as propaganda that the rebuilding continued even as better alternatives, such as inoculation, became available. By systematically reshaping the built environment, the Dutch plague response dramatically expanded colonial oversight and influence in rural Java.

Download or read book China s Provinces and the Belt and Road Initiative written by Dominik Mierzejewski and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-03-30 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book discusses the Belt and Road Initiative at the provincial level in China. It analyses the evolution of the role of local governments in Chinese foreign policy since the opening of China’s economy in 1978, showing how the provinces initially competed with each other, and how the central government was forced to react, developing more centralised policies. Unlike other books on the Belt and Road Initiative, which focus on the international aspects of the initiative, this book demonstrates the importance of the Belt and Road in reinforcing China’s unitary status and for managing and coordinating development at the local level as well as centre-province relations and province to province relations inside China.

Download or read book Beyond the Amur written by Victor Zatsepine and published by UBC Press. This book was released on 2017-03-09 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beyond the Amur describes the distinctive frontier society that developed in the Amur, a river region that shifted between Qing China and Imperial Russia as the two empires competed for natural resources. Although official imperial histories depict the Amur as a distant battleground between rival empires, this colourful history of a region and its people tells a different story. Drawing on both Russian and Chinese sources, Victor Zatsepine shows that both empires struggled to maintain the border. But much to the chagrin of imperial administrators, various peoples – Chinese, Russian, Indigenous, Japanese, Korean, Manchu, and Mongol – moved freely across it in pursuit of work and trade, exchanging ideas and knowledge as they adapted to the harsh physical environment. By viewing the Amur as a unified natural economy caught between two empires, Zatsepine highlights the often-overlooked influence of regional developments on imperial policies and the importance of climate and geography to local, state, and imperial histories.

Download or read book Harbin to Hanoi written by Laura Victoir and published by Hong Kong University Press. This book was released on 2013-01-01 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Colonial powers in China and northern Vietnam employed the built environment for many purposes: as an expression of imperial aspirations, a manifestation of supremacy, a mission to civilize, a re-creation of a home away from home, or simply as a place to live and work. In this volume, scholars of city planning, architecture, and Asian and imperial history provide a detailed analysis of how colonization worked on different levels, and how it was expressed in stone, iron, and concrete. The process of creating the colonial built environment was multilayered and unpredictable. This book uncovers the regional diversity of the colonial built form found from Harbin to Hanoi, varied experiences of the foreign powers in Asia, flexible interactions between the colonizers and the colonized, and the risks entailed in building and living in these colonies and treaty ports.

Download or read book Daily Report Foreign Radio Broadcasts written by United States. Central Intelligence Agency and published by . This book was released on 1965 with total page 430 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Appearances and Activities of Leading Personalities of the People s Republic of China written by United States. Central Intelligence Agency and published by . This book was released on 1976 with total page 968 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Impure and Worldly Geography written by Gavin Bowd and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-02-13 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tropicality is a centuries-old Western discourse that treats otherness and the exotic in binary – ‘us’ and ‘them’ – terms. It has long been implicated in empire and its anxieties over difference. However, little attention has been paid to its twentieth-century genealogy. This book explores this neglected history through the work of Pierre Gourou, one of the century’s foremost purveyors of what anti-colonial writer Aimé Césaire dubbed tropicalité. It explores how Gourou’s interpretations of ‘the nature’ of the tropical world, and its innate difference from the temperate world, were built on the shifting sands of twentieth-century history – empire and freedom, modernity and disenchantment, war and revolution, culture and civilisation, and race and development. The book addresses key questions about the location and power of knowledge by focusing on Gourou’s cultivation of the tropics as a romanticised, networked and affective domain. The book probes what Césaire described as Gourou’s ‘impure and worldly geography’ as a way of opening up interdisciplinary questions of geography, ontology, epistemology, experience and materiality. This book will be of great interest to scholars and students within historical geography, history, postcolonial studies, cultural studies and international relations.

Download or read book Appearances and Activities of Leading Personalities of the People s Republic of China written by National Foreign Assessment Center (U.S.) and published by . This book was released on 1977 with total page 624 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book World in Flames written by Ian Slater and published by Speaking Volumes. This book was released on 2020-05-01 with total page 534 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The battle rages on every front.... NATO armored divisions have broken out from near-certain defeat in the Soviet-ringed Dortmund/Bielefeld Pocket on the North German Plain. Russian SPETS commandos, dressed in captured American uniforms, have infiltrated NATO lines to sow confusion among Allied troops. Despite being faster than the American planes, Russian MiG-25s and Sukhoi-15s are unable to maintain air superiority over the western Aleutians, due to the upgraded pulse-Doppler look-­up, look-down radar on the American F-16 Falcons and the advanced AN/AWG-9 weapon control system on the F-14 Tomcats. With the war turning against them, the Russians are readying a submarine offensive against the American West Coast. There is no telling when they will escalate to even more dangerous tactics...including nuclear weapons. On every front, the war that once seemed impossible blazes its now inevitable path of worldwide destruction. There is no way to know how it will end.