Dear China

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregor Benton ◽  
Hong Liu ◽  
Gungwu Wang
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Chinese Diaspora ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Chinese History ◽  
Trade Finance ◽  
Global Migration ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Social Modernization ◽  
The Comparative Study

Qiaopi is the name given to the “silver letters” Chinese emigrants sent home in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. These letters-cum-remittances, which were entered into UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register in 2013, document the changing history of the Chinese diaspora in different parts of the world and in different periods, as well as its linkages to China. The qiaopi trade played a big part in making China transnational. This book, the first in English on qiaopi and on the origins, structure, and operations of the qiaopi trade, makes an important contribution to our understanding of modern Chinese history and to the comparative study of global migration. It examines the culture, business, geography, and politics of the qiaopi phenomenon, both in China and abroad, as well as the special features of the qiaopi trade in each of its Chinese regions. It traces the history of the trade, including the shift from individual couriering to large-scale enterprise, and its role in China’s difficult transition from an agrarian bureaucracy under the Qing to capitalism and the start of modern statehood under the Kuomintang and then to collectivism and full statehood under the communists. The study argues that the qiaopi trade was indispensable to modern China’s economic and social modernization and the basis for one of China’s earliest excursions into the modern world. The changes that it wrought were built initially on primordial ties of locality, kinship, and dialect, and it later joined or created national, transnational, and international networks based on trade, finance, and general migration.

Book Reviews

2016 ◽  
Vol 54 (3) ◽  
pp. 957-958
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
University Of Cambridge ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Left And Right

Murray Milgate of Queen's College, University of Cambridge reviews “Bourgeois Equality: How Ideas, Not Capital or Institutions, Enriched the World,” by Deirdre Nansen McCloskey. The Econlit abstract of this book begins: “Presents a social and intellectual history of how the ideology of European liberalism accorded a new liberty and dignity to commoners—including the bourgeois—and shaped the revaluation by society of trading and the betterment of technologies. Focuses on how a great enrichment happened, and will happen; how explanations from the left and right have proven false; how bourgeois life had been rhetorically revalued in Britain at the onset of the industrial revolution; how a probourgeois rhetoric formed in England around 1700; how England had recently lagged in bourgeois ideology, compared with the Netherlands; how reformation, revolt, revolution, and reading increased the liberty and dignity of ordinary Europeans; how nowhere before on a large scale had bourgeois or other commoners been honored; how words and ideas caused the modern world; how history and economics have been misunderstood; and how rhetoric made and can readily unmake the contemporary world.”

The Strait of Magellan—a Gateway to New Worlds

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mauricio Onetto Pavez
Keyword(s):  
Global Scale ◽  
Modern World ◽  
American Continent ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Strait Of Magellan ◽  
The World ◽  
The Strait Of Magellan ◽  
History Of ◽  
First Time

The year 2020 marks the five hundredth anniversary of the “discovery” of the Strait of Magellan. The unveiling of this passage between 1519 and 1522 allowed the planet to be circumnavigated for the first time in the history of humanity. All maritime routes could now be connected, and the idea of the Earth, in its geographical, cosmographic, and philosophical dimensions, gained its definitive meaning. This discovery can be considered one of the founding events of the modern world and of the process of globalization that still continues today. This new connectivity awoke an immediate interest in Europe that led to the emergence of a political consciousness of possession, domination, and territorial occupation generalized on a global scale, and the American continent was the starting point for this. This consciousness also inspired a desire for knowledge about this new form of inhabiting the world. Various fields of knowledge were redefined thanks to the new spaces and measurements produced by the discovery of the southern part of the Americas, which was recorded in books on cosmography, natural history, cartography, and manuscripts, circulating mainly between the Americas and Europe. All these processes transformed the Strait of Magellan into a geopolitical space coveted by Europeans during the 16th century. As an interoceanic connector, it was used to imagine commercial routes to the Orient and political projects that could sustain these dynamics. It was also conceived as a space to speculate on the potential wealth in the extreme south of the continent. In addition, on the Spanish side, some agents of the Crown considered it a strategic place for imperial projections and the defense of the Americas.

The Social Life of Fighting Words

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 108-124
Author(s):  
Ronald S. Stade
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Political Correctness ◽  
Conceptual History ◽  
Political Conflicts ◽  
Political Analysis ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Contemporary Context

Political correctness has become a fighting word used to dismiss and discredit political opponents. The article traces the conceptual history of this fighting word. In anthropological terms, it describes the social life of the concept of political correctness and its negation, political incorrectness. It does so by adopting a concept-in-motion methodology, which involves tracking the concept through various cultural and political regimes. It represents an attempt to synthesize well-established historiographic and anthropological approaches. A Swedish case is introduced that reveals the kind of large-scale historical movements and deep-seated political conflicts that provide the contemporary context for political correctness and its negation. Thereupon follows an account of the conceptual history of political correctness from the eighteenth century up to the present. Instead of a conventional conclusion, the article ends with a political analysis of the current rise of fascism around the world and how the denunciation of political correctness is both indicative of and instrumental in this process.

scholarly journals EVOLUTION OF THE CONCEPT OF «ARMED CONFLICT»: HISTORICAL, LEGAL AND THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL ASPECTS

2021 ◽  
Vol 74 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-26
Author(s):  
Oleksandra Severinova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Modern World ◽  
International Humanitarian Law ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
Law Of Armed Conflict ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Methodological Aspects

The article analyzes the theoretical and methodological aspects of the formation and development of doctrinal ideas about the meaning of the concept of «armed conflict» in the history of world political and legal thought. The question of the name of the branch of law that regulates armed conflict, by analyzing its historical names such as «law of war», «laws and customs of war», «law of armed conflict», «international humanitarian law» and «international humanitarian law, used in armed conflicts». As a result of this analysis, it can be concluded that it would be most appropriate to use the terms «international humanitarian law» only in a narrow sense or «international humanitarian law applicable in armed conflicts», which is more cumbersome but most accurately describes the field. It is emphasized that due to the availability of new powerful weapons (economic, political, informational, cultural and weapons of mass destruction), which are dangerous both for the aggressor and for the whole world; the aggressor's desire to downplay its role in resolving conflicts in order to avoid sanctions from other countries and international organizations, as well as to prevent the loss of its authority and position on the world stage; the attempts of the aggressor countries to establish their control over the objects of aggression (including integrating them into their political, economic and security systems) without excessive damage to them is the transformation of methods and means of warfare. It is determined that the long history of the formation of the law of armed conflict has led to the adoption at the level of international law of the provision prohibiting any armed aggression in the world, which is reflected in such a principle as non-use of force or threat of force. At the same time, the UN Charter became the first international act in the history of mankind, which completely prohibited armed aggression and enshrined this principle at the international level, which is binding on all states of the modern world.

Legal and Economic Consequences of Russia's Expansionary Policy

2022 ◽  
pp. 243-256
Author(s):  
Giga Abuseridze ◽  
Janis Grasis
Keyword(s):  
Black Sea ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Economic Consequences ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
Legal Analysis ◽  
Military Interventions ◽  
Black Sea Region ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Russian Federation

In the recent history of the world, especially in the last two decades, large-scale military actions by Russia and Russian intervention have attracted wide international attention. Russia's increasingly confrontational stance has been manifested in military interventions in Georgia (2008) and in Ukraine (2014). The occupation/annexation of the territories of Georgia and Ukraine by the Russian Federation is a gross violation of the principle of sovereignty and territorial integrity of a country, as well as of the norms and principles of international law, that have significantly changed the international order established between the states and called into question the security of the Black Sea region and Europe as a whole. The purpose of this chapter is to provide a legal analysis of Russia's aggressive policy and the economic consequences of Ukraine and Georgia as aggrieved parties.

Monasticism: A Very Short Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen J. Davis
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Short Introduction ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
The World ◽  
Different Types ◽  
History Of ◽  
Monastic Communities

Monasticism is a social and religious phenomenon that originated in antiquity, which remains relevant in the 21st century. Monasticism: A Very Short Introduction discusses the history of monasticism from the earliest evidence for it, and the different types that have developed. It considers where monasteries are located around the world, and how their settings impact the everyday life and worldview of the monks and nuns who dwell in them. Exploring how monastic communities are organized, this VSI also looks at how all aspects of life are regimented. Finally, it discusses what the stories about saints communicate about monastic identity and ethics, and considers what place there is for monasticism in the modern world.

scholarly journals Human Mobility and the Longue Durée: The Prehistory of Global Migration Law

AJIL Unbound ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 111 ◽  
pp. 136-141
Author(s):  
Jacqueline Bhabha
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Human Mobility ◽  
Human Migration ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Global Migration ◽  
History Of ◽  
Longue Duree ◽  
Life On Earth ◽  
Migration Law ◽  
Constant Element

The long history of human migration sets the stage for a probing engagement with current migration law and the challenges of bringing it into alignment with contemporary needs and rights. If very large scale movements of people are a constant element of life on earth, should we reconsider the migration panic that has gripped political leaders and their publics, and should we reassess the responses that are being advanced? Instead of crisis should we be talking of continuum, instead of restrictions on foreigner entry should we be considering support for human ingenuity and opportunity? Despite its scale, should we consider ways to extend to distress-migration the facilitatory infrastructure we routinely apply to business or service related human mobility?

scholarly journals Against the Modern World

2005 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 108-110
Author(s):  
Ali Hassan Zaidi
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
North America ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Modern World ◽  
World Religions ◽  
Perennial Philosophy ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Muslims In Europe ◽  
Muslim Scholars

One effect of 9/11 has been that Muslim voices, which until then had beenmostly ignored, are increasingly reaching a wider audience of other Muslimsand non-Muslims. In Europe and North America, this has meant that selfidentified“progressive” Muslim scholars who emphasize social justice, aswell as “traditional” Muslims who emphasize Islam’s spiritual or esotericdimension, have been contributing in a much more vocal manner to the contemporaryinterpretation of what it means to be Muslim. Since most of theleading figures presented herein are Sufi Muslims of a particular strand ofesoteric Islam, this book helps fill an important lacuna concerning the developmentof the traditionalist position – a position that has been voiced bysuch Muslim scholars as Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Martin Lings.Sedgwick promotes the book as a biography of René Guénon (1886-1951) and an intellectual history of the traditionalist movement that heinaugurated in the early twentieth century. Guénon’s movement combineselements of perennial philosophy, which holds that certain perennial problemsrecur in humanity’s philosophical concerns, and that this perennialwisdom is now only found in the traditional forms of the world religions ...

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