You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
The peoples of Sri Lanka have participated in far-flung trading networks, religious formations, and Asian and European empires for millennia. This interdisciplinary volume sets out to draw Sri Lanka into the field of Asian and Global History by showing how the latest wave of scholarship has explored the island as a ‘crossroads’, a place defined by its openness to movement across the Indian Ocean.Experts in the history, archaeology, literature and art of the island from c.500 BCE to c.1850 CE use Lankan material to explore a number of pressing scholarly debates. They address these matters from their varied disciplinary perspectives and diverse array of sources, critically assessing concepts such as ethnicity, cosmopolitanism and localisation, and elucidating the subtle ways in which the foreign may be resisted and embraced at the same time. The individual chapters, and the volume as a whole, are a welcome addition to the history and historiography of Sri Lanka, as well as studies of the Indian Ocean region, kingship, colonialism, imperialism, and early modernity.
This volume provides the most up-to-date and holistic but compact account of the peopling of the world from the perspective of language, genes and material culture, presenting a view from the Himalayas. The phylogeny of language families, the chronology of branching of linguistic family trees and the historical and modern geographical distribution of language communities inform us about the spread of languages and linguistic phyla. The global distribution and the chronology of spread of Y chromosomal haplogroups appears closely correlated with the spread of language families. New findings on ancient DNA have greatly enhanced our understanding of the prehistory and provenance of our biological ancestors. The archaeological study of past material cultures provides yet a third independent window onto the complex prehistory of our species.
H.C.P.Bell, the first Archaeological Commissioner of Ceylon from 1890 to 1912, was also an authority on the remote Maldive Islands. Self-taught and sublimely self-confident, he began the official survey, excavation and conservation of the buried cities of Anuradhapura and Polunnaruwa and of the extraordinary rock fortress at Siguriya. His work in the Ceyolon jungles was often carried out 'single-handed', but he once declared, 'It is good to be a Head Man even in Hell'. In old age he realised his dream of proving that a Bhuddist civilisation preceded the Muslim conversion of the Maldives, and his posthoumous Monograph became 'the standard of reference for the history, archaeology and epigraphy of the Maldives for many years to come'.
Chinese traders and explorers first visited the Maldives, an archipelago in the Indian Ocean, in the early fourteenth century. The traveler Wang Dayuan “discovered” the island sultanate for the Chinese world, and merchants increasingly dealt in Maldivian goods such as coconuts, cowrie shells, and ambergris. Zheng He’s fifteenth-century voyages ventured to the islands, by then a trading hub, and brought their envoys to Beijing. But the Maldives faded from Chinese records by the end of the sixteenth century, after the Ming state suddenly retreated from the Indian Ocean and shifted focus to Southeast Asia. Discovered but Forgotten is a pioneering examination of China’s relations with th...
This book tells about the Ecuadorian War of Independence and the events that led to this conflict. It contains some important documents and letters and presents an important source for historical research.
Pedro de Cieza de León's 'The War of Chupas' is a historical account of the rebellion and subsequent battle that took place in Peru in the mid-16th century. Written in a detailed and narrative style, the book provides readers with a vivid picture of the political and social turmoil of the time, offering insights into the motivations and strategies of the key players involved. Cieza de León's use of primary sources and firsthand accounts adds an authenticity to the text, making it a valuable resource for historians and scholars interested in the period. This book is a must-read for anyone looking to deepen their understanding of this lesser-known chapter of Latin American history.
Translated from the Evora MS. and edited, with a translation of the Act of Possession of Pedro Teixeira, 1639, and of contemporary references in Portuguese sources to the work of Father Fritz in the Upper Amazon. This is a new print-on-demand hardback edition of the volume first published in 1922. Owing to technical constraints it has not been possible to reproduce Fritz's Map of 1707 which was included in the first edition of the work.
In English translation. For further documents, see Second Series 71, 99 and 111. This is a new print-on-demand hardback edition of the volume first published in 1929. Owing to technical constraints it has not been possible to reproduce the "Portion of a map by Diego Homem showing Central America and the West Indies, 1568" which appeared in the first edition of the work.
'Translated from the Portuguese Text First Published in 1812 A.D. by the Royal Academy of Sciences at Lisbon, in Vol. II of its Collection of Documents regarding the History and Geography of the Nations beyond the Seas', edited and annotated. With a translation of chapter 2, the history of Rander, from Narmashankar's 'Principal events of Surat'. Continued in Second Series 49. This is a new print-on-demand hardback edition of the volume first published in 1918. Owing to technical constraints part of Diego Ribero's Map of the World, 1529, known as the Second Borgian Map, is not included.