The defining moment in the development of a modern China is shown to be 4 May 1919 at the Tian'anmen gate in Beijing, where a new generation rejected Confucianism and traditional Chinese culture, and protested violently against the Paris Peace Conference. Chinese cities at that time still bore the imprints of their ancient past, with narrow lanes and sacred temples, but they were starting to ch…
J.N Dixit tenure as the foreign secretary of India witnessed, both in the national and international arenas - as series of dramatic, profound and epoch-making events, which marked a phase of significant transition. Momentous happenings - such as the disintegration of the gigantic Soviet Union, the ethnic conflicts among the constituents of former Yugoslavia, the destruction of the Babri mosque …
South Yemen has come to be seen as a potential Al-Qaeda stronghold and at the heart of a separatist movement threatening to rip apart southern Arabia. How has this country of forbidding mountains and arid deserts gone from British colony to communist state and then to 'terrorist base' in just half a century? In Yemen Divided, author and Middle East expert Noel Brehony tells for the first time t…
Rather unexpectedly, a new phenomenon called the Taliban was sprung on an unsuspecting world in late 1994. Even those who knew about it earlier, looked upon it as just another Islamic fundamentalist faction ridden Afghan politics. But the Taliban's captures of Kabul in September 1996 and their claim to governance in the war-torn country introduces a new complexion on this band of mostly young A…
Since 9/11, the war in Afghanistan and the invasion of Iraq, the West has been fighting a 'War on Terror', through force and through the building of new societies in the region. In this clear and devastating account, with unparalleled access and intimate knowledge of the political players, Descent into Chaos chronicles our failure. Having reported from central Asia for a quarter of a century…
This volume is a series of studies that ICES has commissioned and publications it has sponsored over the years on devolution. Its focus of attention consists of the most recent body of proposals made by the P Government for constitutional reform, whose direction is the transformation of the Sri Lankan political structure into a "Union of Regions." The contributors to this symposium have in comm…
How did a nation founded as a homeland for South Asian Muslims, most of whom follow a tolerant nonthreatening form of Islam, become a haven for Al Qaeda and a rogues gallery of domestic jihadist and sectarian groups? In this groundbreaking history of Pakistans involvement with radical Islam, John R. Schmidt, the senior U.S political analyst in Pakistan in the years before 9/11, places the blam…
The late summer headlines of a landmark peace accord between the government of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization stunned and delighted citizens of conscience from every walk of life and from all over the world. Here, at last, were the first glimmerings of harmony for a region whose bloody, intractable conflicts between Arab and Jew had outlived hot and cold wars alike to become a…
Iranian politics has been marked by sharp ideological divisions and infighting. These divides, kept largely out of public view until the 1990s, came to greater light with the contested 2009 presidential elections. To explain the diverse and complex forces that led to this event and that animate Iran’s current fractured society and polity, author Shireen T. Hunter looks beyond the battle betwe…
The Prize recounts the panoramic history of the world’s most important resource: oil. Daniel Yergin’s timeless book chronicles the struggle for wealth and power that has surrounded oil for over a century and continues to fuel global rivalries, shake the world economy, and transform the destiny of men and nations. The Prize proves the unwavering significance of oil throughout the modern era …