A major historian tells the dramatic and untold story of the shadowy networks of revolutionaries across Asia who laid the foundations in the early twentieth century for the end of European imperialism on their continent. This is the epic tale of how modern Asia emerged out of conflict between imperial powers and a global network of revolutionaries in the turbulent early decades of the twentieth century. In 1900, European empires had not yet reached their territorial zenith. But a new generation of Asian radicals had already planted the seeds of their destruction. They gained new energy and recruits after the First World War and especially the Bolshevik Revolution, which sparked utopian visions of a free and communist world order led by the peoples of Asia. Aided by the new technologies of cheap printing presses and international travel, they built clandestine webs of resistance from imperial capitals to the front lines of insurgency that stretched from Calcutta and Bombay to Batavia, Hanoi, and Shanghai. Tim Harper takes us into the heart of this shadowy world by following the interconnected lives of the most remarkable of these Marxists, anarchists, and nationalists, including the Bengali radical M. N. Roy, the iconic Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh, and the enigmatic Indonesian communist Tan Malaka. He recreates the extraordinary milieu of stowaways, false identities, secret codes, cheap firearms, and conspiracies in which they worked. He shows how they fought with subterfuge, violence, and persuasion, all the while struggling to stay one step ahead of imperial authorities. Undergound Asia shows for the first time how Asia’s national liberation movements crucially depended on global action. And it reveals how the consequences of the revolutionaries’ struggle, for better or worse, shape Asia’s destiny to this day.
In the early stages of the Second World War, the vast crescent of British-ruled territories stretching from India to Singapore appeared as a massive Allied asset. It provided scores of soldiers and great quantities of raw materials and helped present a seemingly impregnable global defense against the Axis. Yet, within a few weeks in 1941-42, a Japanese invasion had destroyed all this, sweeping suddenly and decisively through south and southeast Asia to the Indian frontier, and provoking the extraordinary revolutionary struggles which would mark the beginning of the end of British dominion in the East and the rise of today's Asian world. More than a military history, this gripping account of groundbreaking battles and guerrilla campaigns creates a panoramic view of British Asia as it was ravaged by warfare, nationalist insurgency, disease, and famine. It breathes life into the armies of soldiers, civilians, laborers, businessmen, comfort women, doctors, and nurses who confronted the daily brutalities of a combat zone which extended from metropolitan cities to remote jungles, from tropical plantations to the Himalayas. Drawing upon a vast range of Indian, Burmese, Chinese, and Malay as well as British, American, and Japanese voices, the authors make vivid one of the central dramas of the twentieth century: the birth of modern south and southeast Asia and the death of British rule.
This is the first general social and political history of Malaya. Focusing on the years 1945 to 1957, the last years of British rule and the achievement of independence, it embraces a wealth of social, economic and cultural, as well as political themes. It contains new research on the impact of the Second World War in Malaya, the origins and course of the Communist Emergency, and the response of Malaya's various ethnic communities to nationalism and social change. A concluding chapter takes these themes forward into the 1990s to shed new light on the emergence of this important Southeast Asian nation.
Packed with entertaining and disturbing stories and with new accounts of the disastrous British military takeovers of Java and Vietnam in 1945, this title shows how the mishandling of the latter led directly to the Vietnam War.
Packed with entertaining and disturbing stories and with new accounts of the disastrous British military takeovers of Java and Vietnam in 1945, this title shows how the mishandling of the latter led directly to the Vietnam War.
This is a panoramic account of the bitter wars of the end of empire, seen not only through the eyes of the fighters, but also through the personal stories of ordinary people.
Approximately 15,000 entries dealing with ethnography, history, psychology, human biology and medicine of native peoples of North America. Includes published materials issued before and during 1972.
INSTITUTIONS: The Economy; The Political Order; Marriage and the Family; Education; Religion; Medicine and Health Care; WORKING FOR CHANGE: Collective Social Action. For anyone interested in an introduction to sociology.
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