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The Sino-Japanese war is one of the most important links in the development of the modern Far East. A Dutch Spy in China offers a selection from the reports written by a Dutch colonel at the request of the General Staff of the Royal Netherlands Indies Army. After his retirement colonel De Fremery joined the group of Western military specialists who were helping Chiang Kai Shek in his efforts to modernize the Nationalist Chinese armed forces. Having acted in an advisory capacity for several years, De Fremery resigned but continued to live in China. Mounting anxiety in the East-Indies about Japan’s military activity urged the authorities to collect as much information about the Japanese armed forces as possible. De Fremery’s reports on the Sino-Japanese war were in this period a most welcome source of information. Contemporary reports on this conflict by militarily qualified Western observers are very rare. Colonel De Fremery’s account of the struggle forms an important contribution to our knowledge of its military aspects.
This accessible handbook is the first of its kind to examine the sociological approach to the study of the military. The contents are compiled from the work of researchers at universities around the world, as well as military officers devoted to the sector of study. Beginning with a review of studies prior to contemporary research, the book provides a comprehensive survey of the topic. The scope of coverage extends to civic-military relations, including issues surrounding democratic control of the armed forces; military culture; professional training; conditions and problems of minorities in the armed forces; an examination of structural change within the military over the years including new duties and functions following the Cold War.
Maritime security is of vital importance to the South China Sea, a critical sea route for maritime transport of East Asian countries including China. The adjacent countries have rendered overlapping territorial and/or maritime claims in the South China Sea which complicate the situation of maintaining maritime security and developing regional cooperation there. This book focuses on contemporary maritime security in the South China Sea as well as its connected sea area, the Straits of Malacca and Singapore. It identifies and examines selected security issues concerning the safety of navigation, crackdown on transnational crimes including sea piracy and maritime terrorism, and conflict prevention and resolution. In the context of non-traditional security, issues such as maritime environmental security and search and rescue at sea are included. The book explores ways and means of international cooperation in dealing with these maritime security issues.
The global operations of the East India Companies were profoundly shaped by European perceptions of foreign lands. Providing a cultural perspective absent from existing economic and institutional histories, Ethnography and Encounter is the first book to systematically explore how Company agents’ understandings of and attitudes towards Asian peoples and societies informed institutional approaches to trade, diplomacy, and colonial governance. Its fine-grained comparisons of Dutch and English activities in seventeenth-century South Asia show how corporate ethnography was produced, how it underpinned given modes of conduct, and how it illuminates connections across space and time. Ethnography and Encounter identifies deep commonalities between Dutch and English discourses and practices, their indebtedness to pan-European ethnographic traditions, and their centrality to wider histories of European expansion.
Recent studies on Dutch encounters with indigenous peoples in the Americas and West Africa have taken a narrow regional approach rather than a comparative Atlantic perspective. This book, based on Dutch archival records and primary and secondary sources in multiple languages, integrates indigenous peoples more fully in the Dutch Atlantic by examining the development of formal relations between the Dutch and non-Europeans in Brazil, the Gold Coast, West Central Africa, and New Netherland from the first Dutch overseas voyages in the 1590s until the dissolution of the West India Company in 1674. By taking an Atlantic perspective this study of Dutch-indigenous alliances shows that the support and cooperation of indigenous peoples was central to Dutch overseas expansion in the Atlantic.
Now fully revised and updated, The United States and China offers a comprehensive synthesis of US-Chinese relations from initial contact to the present. Balancing the modern (1784–1949) and contemporary (1949–present) periods, Dong Wang retraces centuries of interaction between two of the world’s great powers from the perspective of both sides. She examines state-to-state diplomacy, as well as economic, social, military, religious, and cultural interplay within varying national and international contexts. As China itself continues to grow in global importance, so too does the US-Chinese relationship, and this book provides an essential grounding for understanding its past, present, and possible futures.
In War, Capital, and the Dutch State (1588-1795), Pepijn Brandon traces the interaction between state and capital in the organisation of warfare in the Dutch Republic from the Dutch Revolt of the sixteenth century to the Batavian Revolution of 1795. Combining deep theoretical insight with a thorough examination of original source material, ranging from the role of the Dutch East- and West-India Companies to the inner workings of the Amsterdam naval shipyard, and from state policy to the role of private intermediaries in military finance, Brandon provides a sweeping new interpretation of the rise and fall of the Dutch Republic as a hegemonic power within the early modern capitalist world-system. Winner of the 2014 D.J. Veegens prize, awarded by the Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities. Shortlisted for the 2015 World Economic History Congress dissertation prize (early modern period).
New Diplomatic History has turned into one of the most dynamic and innovative areas of research – especially with regard to early modern history. It has shown that diplomacy was not as homogenous as previously thought. On the contrary, it was shaped by a multitude of actors, practices and places. The handbook aims to characterise these different manifestations of diplomacy and to contextualise them within ongoing scientific debates. It brings together scholars from different disciplines and historiographical traditions. The handbook deliberately focuses on European diplomacy – although non-European areas are taken into account for future research – in order to limit the framework and ensure precise definitions of diplomacy and its manifestations. This must be the prerequisite for potential future global historical perspectives including both the non-European and the European world.
In the early 1990s a number of violent civil wars and large-scale ethnic crises shocked the world. In Rwanda, Bosnia, Chechnya and elsewhere atrocities were committed that led to hundreds of thousands of dead and displaced people. Explaining the origins and dynamics of such inhuman actions and events, this new sensitive and detailed analysis includes: full analysis of the origins of civil wars, terrorism and ethnic strife insights drawn from across the social sciences practical and topical illustrations of the information provided fully updated assessments with details of key contemporary events Although the number of these conflicts has diminished over the years, the phenomenon has not disa...