191 pubs · 4,047 cites · h-index 25
The demise of the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) and the rise of the Qing Dynasty (1644–1912) marked an epochal moment in Chinese and world history. Attention has been given to the North China droughts during 1627–1643 that destabilized the Ming Dynasty. However, there is little attention paid to how climate influenced the rise of a minority Manchu state in Northeast China and its conquest of the Ming. Here, we find that contrasting climate conditions between North and Northeast China persisted over a six-decade period (1581–1644), which diversely affected economic, societal, and political changes at the regional level. Five successive megadroughts ravaged North China, while relatively wet and mild climate conditions prevailed in the Manchu homeland of Northeast China. Furthermore, in the early decades of Manchu rule in North China (1645–1680), increased precipitation facilitated the Qing Dynasty’s consolidation. Reconstructions and climate model simulations revealed that these unusual climatic patterns were influenced by the centennial variation of clustering El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events and were amplified by the Little Ice Age cooling. These findings shed light on how long-term contrasting future climate changes could lead to divergent socioeconomic responses, potentially increasing the risk of conflict between neighboring states.
Investigation into the nexus of human-environmental behavior has seen increasing collaboration of archaeologists, historians, and paleo-scientists. However, many studies still lack interdisciplinarity and overlook incompatibilities in spatiotemporal scaling of environmental and societal data and their uncertainties. Here, we argue for a strengthened commitment to collaborative work and introduce the "dahliagram" as a tool to analyze and visualize quantitative and qualitative knowledge from diverse disciplinary sources and epistemological backgrounds. On the basis of regional cases of past human mobility in eastern Africa, Inner Eurasia, and the North Atlantic, we develop three dahliagrams that illustrate pull and push factors underlying key phases of population movement across different geographical scales and over contrasting periods of time since the end of the last Ice Age. Agnostic to analytical units, dahliagrams offer an effective tool for interdisciplinary investigation, visualization, and communication of complex human-environmental interactions at a diversity of spatiotemporal scales.
This debate takes up the question whether the concept of »state« can be used meaningfully in the context of medieval studies. The opening article by Brent D. Shaw addresses the political organization of the Roman empire, and develops a comprehensive argument why even by high standards it should be regarded as a state. The six comments by Nicola Di Cosmo (Chinese History), Stefano Gasparri and Cristina La Rocca, Hans-Werner Goetz, Régine Le Jan (European Medieval History), John Haldon and Yannis Stouraitis (Byzantine History) draw on their own fields of expertise to provide theoretical and pragmatic views on the possible significance of the concept of state for political entities of Antiquity and the Middle Ages.
The 852/3 CE eruption of Mount Churchill, Alaska, was one of the largest first-millennium volcanic events, with a magnitude of 6.7 (VEI 6) and a tephra volume of 39.4–61.9 km3 (95 % confidence). The spatial extent of the ash fallout from this event is considerable and the cryptotephra (White River Ash east; WRAe) extends as far as Finland and Poland. Proximal ecosystem and societal disturbances have been linked with this eruption; however, wider eruption impacts on climate and society are unknown. Greenland ice core records show that the eruption occurred in winter 852/3 ± 1 CE and that the eruption is associated with a relatively moderate sulfate aerosol loading but large abundances of volcanic ash and chlorine. Here we assess the potential broader impact of this eruption using palaeoenvironmental reconstructions, historical records and climate model simulations. We also use the fortuitous timing of the 852/3 CE Churchill eruption and its extensively widespread tephra deposition of the White River Ash (east) (WRAe) to examine the climatic expression of the warm Medieval Climate Anomaly period (MCA; ca. 950–1250 CE) from precisely linked peatlands in the North Atlantic region. The reconstructed climate forcing potential of the 852/3 CE Churchill eruption is moderate compared with the eruption magnitude, but tree-ring-inferred temperatures report a significant atmospheric cooling of 0.8 ∘C in summer 853 CE. Modelled climate scenarios also show a cooling in 853 CE, although the average magnitude of cooling is smaller (0.3 ∘C). The simulated spatial patterns of cooling are generally similar to those generated using the tree-ring-inferred temperature reconstructions. Tree-ring-inferred cooling begins prior to the date of the eruption suggesting that natural internal climate variability may have increased the climate system's susceptibility to further cooling. The magnitude of the reconstructed cooling could also suggest that the climate forcing potential of this eruption may be underestimated, thereby highlighting the need for greater insight into, and consideration of, the role of halogens and volcanic ash when estimating eruption climate forcing potential. Precise comparisons of palaeoenvironmental records from peatlands across North America and Europe, facilitated by the presence of the WRAe isochron, reveal no consistent MCA signal. These findings contribute to the growing body of evidence that characterises the MCA hydroclimate as time-transgressive and heterogeneous rather than a well-defined climatic period. The presence of the WRAe isochron also demonstrates that no long-term (multidecadal) climatic or societal impacts from the 852/3 CE Churchill eruption were identified beyond areas proximal to the eruption. Historical evidence in Europe for subsistence crises demonstrate a degree of temporal correspondence on interannual timescales, but similar events were reported outside of the eruption period and were common in the 9th century. The 852/3 CE Churchill eruption exemplifies the difficulties of identifying and confirming volcanic impacts for a single eruption, even when the eruption has a small age uncertainty.
Empires and Exchanges in Eurasian Late Antiquity offers an integrated picture of Rome, China, Iran, and the Steppes during a formative period of world history. In the half millennium between 250 and 750 CE, settled empires underwent deep structural changes, while various nomadic peoples of the steppes (Huns, Avars, Turks, and others) experienced significant interactions and movements that changed their societies, cultures, and economies. This was a transformational era, a time when Roman, Persian, and Chinese monarchs were mutually aware of court practices, and when Christians and Buddhists criss-crossed the Eurasian lands together with merchants and armies. It was a time of greater circulation of ideas as well as material goods. This volume provides a conceptual frame for locating these developments in the same space and time. Without arguing for uniformity, it illuminates the interconnections and networks that tied countless local cultural expressions to far-reaching inter-regional ones
Investigations of the impacts of past volcanic eruptions on climate, environment and society require accurate chronologies. However, eruptions that are not recorded in historical documents can seldom be dated exactly. Here we use annually-resolved radiocarbon (14C) measurements to isolate the 775 CE cosmogenic 14C peak in a subfossil birch tree that was buried by a glacial outburst flood in southern Iceland. We employ this absolute time-marker to date a subglacial eruption of Katla volcano to late-822/early-823 CE. We argue for correlation of the 822/3 eruption with a conspicuous sulfur anomaly evident in Greenland ice cores, which follows in the wake of an even larger volcanic signal (circa 818-820 CE) as yet not attributed to a known eruption. An abrupt summer cooling in 824 CE, evident in tree-ring reconstructions for Fennoscandia and the Northern Hemisphere, suggests a climatic response to the Katla eruption. Written historical sources from Europe and China corroborate our proposed tree ring-radiocarbon-ice core linkage but also point to combined effects of eruptions occurring during this period. Our study describes the oldest, precisely dated, high-latitude eruption, and reveals the impact of an extended phase of volcanic forcing in the early-9th century. It also provides insight into the existence of pre-historic woodland cover and the nature of volcanism some decades before Iceland’s permanent settlement began.
Ranking among the largest volcanic eruptions of the Common Era (CE), the ‘Millennium Eruption’ of Changbaishan produced a widely-dispersed tephra layer (known as the B-Tm ash), which represents an important tie point for palaeoenvironmental studies in East Asia. Hitherto, there has been no consensus on its age, with estimates spanning at least the tenth century CE. Here, we identify the cosmogenic radiocarbon signal of 775 CE in a subfossil larch engulfed and killed by pyroclastic currents emplaced during the initial rhyolitic phase of the explosive eruption. Combined with glaciochemical evidence from Greenland, this enables us to date the eruption to late 946 CE. This secure date rules out the possibility that the Millennium Eruption contributed to the collapse of the Bohai Kingdom (Manchuria/Korea) in 926 CE, as has previously been hypothesised. Further, despite the magnitude of the eruption, we do not see a consequent cooling signal in tree-ring-based reconstructions of Northern Hemisphere summer temperatures. A tightly-constrained date for the Millennium Eruption improves the prospect for further investigations of historical sources that may shed light on the eruption's impacts, and enhances the value of the B-Tm ash as a chronostratigraphic marker.
The Mongol invasion of Eastern Europe, and especially its sudden withdrawal from Hungary in 1242 CE, has generated much speculation and an array of controversial theories. None of them, however, considered multifaceted environmental drivers and the coupled analysis of historical reports and natural archives. Here we investigate annually resolved, absolutely dated and spatially explicit paleoclimatic evidence between 1230 and 1250 CE. Documentary sources and tree-ring chronologies reveal warm and dry summers from 1238-1241, followed by cold and wet conditions in early-1242. Marshy terrain across the Hungarian plain most likely reduced pastureland and decreased mobility, as well as the military effectiveness of the Mongol cavalry, while despoliation and depopulation ostensibly contributed to widespread famine. These circumstances arguably contributed to the determination of the Mongols to abandon Hungary and return to Russia. While overcoming deterministic and reductionist arguments, our 'environmental hypothesis' demonstrates the importance of minor climatic fluctuations on major historical events.
Introduction Nicola Di Cosmo, Allen J. Frank and Peter B. Golden Part I. The Rise of the Chinggisids: 1. Inner Asia c.1200 Peter B. Golden 2. The Mongol age in eastern inner Asia Peter Jackson 3. The Mongols in inner Asia from Chinggis Khan's invasion to the rise of Temur: the OEgoedeid and Chaghadaid realms Michal Biran 4. The Jochid realm: the western Steppe and eastern Europe Istvan Vasary Part II. Legacies of the Mongol Conquests: 5. Administration, revenues and trade Arsenio Peter Martinez 6. Migrations, ethnogenesis Peter B. Golden 7. Islamization in the Mongol Empire Devin DeWeese 8. Mongols as vectors for cultural transmission Tom Allsen Part III. Chinggisid Decline: 1368-c.1700: 9. The eastern Steppe: Mongol regimes after the Yuan (1368-1636) Veronic Veit 10. Temur and the early Timurids to c.1450 Beatrice Forbes Manz 11. Later Timurids c.1450-1526 Stephen Dale Part IV. Nomads and Settled Peoples in Inner Asia after the Timurids: 12. Uzbeks, Qazaqs and Turkmen Yuri Bregel 13. The western Steppe: Volga Ural region, Siberia and the Crimea Allen J. Frank 14. Eastern central Asia (Xinjiang): 1300-1800 James Millward 15. The Chinggisid restoration in central Asia: 1500-1785 Robert McChesney 16. The western Steppe: the Volga-Ural region, Siberia and the Crimea under Russian rule Christian Noack Part V. New Imperial Mandates and the End of the Chinggisid Era (18th-19th Centuries): 17. The Qing and Inner Asia: 1636-1800 Nicola Di Cosmo 18. The Qazaqs and Russia Allen J. Frank 19. Russia and the peoples of the Volga-Ural region: 1600-1850 Allen J. Frank 20. The new Uzbek states: Bukhara, Khiva and Khoqand: c.1750-1886 Yuri Bregel.
Although many studies have associated the demise of complex societies with deteriorating climate, few have investigated the connection between an ameliorating environment, surplus resources, energy, and the rise of empires. The 13th-century Mongol Empire was the largest contiguous land empire in world history. Although drought has been proposed as one factor that spurred these conquests, no high-resolution moisture data are available during the rapid development of the Mongol Empire. Here we present a 1,112-y tree-ring reconstruction of warm-season water balance derived from Siberian pine (Pinus sibirica) trees in central Mongolia. Our reconstruction accounts for 56% of the variability in the regional water balance and is significantly correlated with steppe productivity across central Mongolia. In combination with a gridded temperature reconstruction, our results indicate that the regional climate during the conquests of Chinggis Khan's (Genghis Khan's) 13th-century Mongol Empire was warm and persistently wet. This period, characterized by 15 consecutive years of above-average moisture in central Mongolia and coinciding with the rise of Chinggis Khan, is unprecedented over the last 1,112 y. We propose that these climate conditions promoted high grassland productivity and favored the formation of Mongol political and military power. Tree-ring and meteorological data also suggest that the early 21st-century drought in central Mongolia was the hottest drought in the last 1,112 y, consistent with projections of warming over Inner Asia. Future warming may overwhelm increases in precipitation leading to similar heat droughts, with potentially severe consequences for modern Mongolia.
The term Pax Mongolica indicates a period of time (c. 1280-1360) during which Mongol domination seemingly guaranteed security on the Eurasian commercial routes. At this time the Italian maritime powers of Genoa and Venice established their commercial “emporia” on the Black Sea. This essay examines the links between Mongol-controlled continental Asia and Italian-controlled maritime trade by separating the sphere of interests of the Venetian and Genoese governments from the sphere of activities of private merchants, whose presence in China and Central Asia depended heavily upon Mongol support. The end of the Pax Mongolica had a different impact on both of these two spheres.Le terme Pax Mongolica indique une période (environ 1280-1360) pendant laquelle la domination mongole assurait apparemment la sécurité des itinéraires commerciaux eurasiatiques. A cette époque les puissances maritimes de Gênes et de Venise établissaient leurs ‘emporia’ commerciaux sur la Mer Noire. Cette contribution étudie les liens entre l’Asie continentale contrôlée par les Mongols et le commerce maritime, contrôlé par les Italiens en séparant la sphère d’intérêt des gouvernements vénitiens et génois de la sphère d’action des commerçants privés, dont la présence en Chine et Asie centrale dépendait du soutien mongol. La fin de la Pax Mongolica devrait affecter ces deux sphères de façon différente.
THOMAS S. BURNS. Rome and the Barbarians, 100 BC-AD 400. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003. Pp. xiv, 461. $49.95 (US). Reviewed by Peter S. Wells CATHARINE EDWARDS and GREG WOOLF, eds. Rome the Cosmopolis. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Pp. xv, 249. $60.00 (US). Reviewed by Richard J. A. Talbert WALTER E. KAEGI. Heraclius: Emperor of Byzantium. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Pp. xii, 359. $70.00 (US). Reviewed by Clive Foss ALFRED W. CROSBY. Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900–1900, 2nd ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Pp. xxii, 368. $20.00 (US), paper. Reviewed by Geoffrey W. Rice DONALD B. FREEMAN. The Straits of Malacca: Gateway or Gauntlet? Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2003. Pp. xxix, 249. $55.00 (CDN). Reviewed by Nicholas Tarling RICHARD BARBER. The Holy Grail: Imagination and Belief. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004. Pp. xiv, 463. $27.95 (US). Reviewed by Ian N. Wood MARTIN DIMNIK. The Dynasty of Chernigov, 1146–1246. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Pp. xxxviii, 437. $80.00 (US). Reviewed by David Goldfrank HERBERT FRANKE. Krieg und Krieger im chinesischen Mittelalter (12. bis 14. Jahrhundert): Drei Studien. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2003. Pp. 245. €49.00, paper. Reviewed by Nicola Di Cosmo PAULA SUTTER FICHTNER. The Habsburg Monarchy, 1490–1848. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Pp. xxiii, 222. $22.95 (US), paper; MICHAEL HOCHEDLINGER. Austria's Wars of Emergency: War, State, and Society in the Habsburg Monarchy, 1683–1797. London and New York: Longman, 2003. Pp. xviii, 466. £24.99, paper. Reviewed by Karl A. Roider MARY ANN LYONS. Franco-Irish Relations, 1500–1610: Politics, Migration, and Trade. Woodbridge, UK and Rochester, NY: Boydell Press for the Royal Historical Society, 2003. Pp. xiii, 242. $70.00 (US). Reviewed by Ronald S. Love GARY P. LEUPP. Interracial Intimacy in Japan: Western Men and Japanese Women, 1543–1900. New York: Continuum, 2003. Pp. xii, 313. $125.00 (US). Reviewed by Ian Nish JEROEN DUINDAM. Vienna and Versailles: The Courts of Europe's Dynastic Rivals, 1550–1780. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Pp. xi, 349. $80.00 (US). Reviewed by Roger Mettam MARSHALL T. POE. The Russian Moment in World History. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2003. Pp. xv, 116. $17.95 (US). Reviewed by John P. LeDonne CAESAR E. FARAH, ed. and trans. An Arab's Journey to Colonial Spanish America: The Travels of Elias al-Mûsili in the Seventeenth Century. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2003. Pp. xxvii, 117. $24.95 (US). Reviewed by Richard E. Boyer BENNO TESCHKE. The Myth of 1648: Class, Geopolitics, and the Making of Modern International Relations. London and New York: Verso, 2003. Pp. xii, 308. $35.00 (US). Reviewed by David Parrott GLYN WILLIAMS. Voyages of Delusion: The Quest for the Northwest Passage. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2003. Pp. xx, 467. $29.95 (US). Reviewed by Richard C. Davis EDWARD CORP, with contributions by EDWARD GREGG, HOWARD ERSKINE-HILL, and GEOFFREY SCOTT. A Court in Exile: The Stuarts in France, 1689–1718. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Pp. xvi, 386. $85.00 (US). Reviewed by Andrew C. Thompson ANNE SALMOND. The Trial of the Cannibal Dog: The Remarkable Story of Captain Cook's Encounters in the South Seas. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2003. Pp. xxii, 506. $30.00 (US); NICHOLAS THOMAS. Cook: The Extraordinary Voyages of Captain James Cook. Toronto: Viking Canada, 2003. Pp. xxxvii, 467. $40.00 (CDN). Reviewed by Ian C. Campbell SANKAR MUTHU. Enlightenment against Empire. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2003. Pp. xiv, 348. $69.50 (US). Reviewed by Dane Kennedy DANIEL MORAN and ARTHUR WALDRON, eds. The People in Arms: Military Myth and National Mobilization since the French Revolution. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Pp. ix, 268. $65.00 (US). Reviewed by John Lawrence Tone ALAN MACFARLANE. The Savage Wars of Peace: England, Japan, and the Malthusian Trap. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Pp. xxxv, 427. $24.95 (US), paper. Reviewed by Sheldon Watts LAURENT DUBOIS. Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution. Cambridge, MA and London: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2004. Pp. viii, 357. $29.95 (US). Reviewed by Norman Hampson VICTORIA JOAN MOESSNER, trans. The First Russian Voyage around the World: The Journal of Hermann Ludwig von Lowenstern (1803–1806). Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press, 2003. Pp. xxx, 482. $35.95 (US). Reviewed by Glynn Williams STEVE STRIFFLER and MARK MOBERG, eds. Banana Wars: Power, Production, and History in the Americas. Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, 2003. Pp. viii, 364. $22.95 (US), paper. Reviewed by Lester D. Langley CHRISTOPHER CLARK and WOLFRAM KAISER, eds. Culture Wars: Secular-Catholic Conflict in Nineteenth-Century Europe. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Pp. viii, 368. $70.00 (US). Reviewed by Ann Pottinger Saab HEINZ DUCHHARDT and MALGORZATA MORAWIEC, eds. Vision Europa: Deutsche und polnische Föderationspläne des lg. undfrühen 20. Jahrhunderts. Mainz: Verlag Philipp von Zabern, 2003. Pp. xiv, 137. €24.80. Reviewed by Richard Blanke PHILIPPA LEVINE. Prostitution, Race, and Politics: Policing Venereal Disease in the British Empire. London and New York: Roudedge, 2003. Pp. ix, 480. $25.00 (US), paper. Reviewed by Linda Bryder DAVID PAULL NICKLES. Under the Wire: How the Telegraph Changed Diplomacy. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 2003. Pp. 265. $30.95 (US). Reviewed by H. W. Brands PATRIZIA PALUMBO, ed. A Place in the Sun: Africa in Italian Colonial Culture from Post-Unification to the Present. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2003. Pp. 332. $24.95 (US), paper. Reviewed by R. J. B. Bosworth HODONG KIM. Holy War in China: The Muslim Rebellion and State in Chinese Central Asia, 1864–1877. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004. Pp. xviii, 295. $55.00 (US). Reviewed by Morris Rossabi GEOFFREY WAWRO. The Franco-Prussian War: The German Conquest of France in 1870–1871. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Pp. xvi, 327. $35.00 (US). Reviewed by H. Joachim Maitre ANDREW PORTER, ed. The Imperial Horizons of British Protestant Missions, 1880–1914. Grand Rapids and Cambridge, UK: William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2003. Pp. xiii, 250. $45.00 (US), paper. Reviewed by Daniel Y. K. Kwan THOMAS SCHOONOVER. Uncle Sam's War of 1898 and the Origins of Globalization. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2003. Pp. xv, 180. $30.00 (US). Reviewed by Edward P. Crapol DAVID C. ENGERMAN. Modernization from the Other Shore: American Intellectuals and the Romance of Russian Development. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 2003. Pp. vi, 399. $49.95 (US). Reviewed by David S. Foglesong GÜNTHER KRONENBITTER. ‘Krieg im Frieden’: Die Führung der k.u.k. Armee und die Groβmachtpolitik Österreichs-Ungarns, 1906–1914. Munich: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 2003. Pp. vii, 579. €79.80. Reviewed by Lothar Höbelt BRITON C. BUSCH, ed. Canada and the Great War: Western Front Association Papers. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2003. Pp. xiv, 240. $24.95 (CDN), paper. Reviewed by Desmond Morton ROBERT BICKERS. Empire Made Me: An Englishman Adrift in Shanghai. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003. Pp. 409. $32.50 (US). Reviewed by Parks M. Coble TIBOR FRANK, ed and intro. Discussing Hitler: Advisers of US Diplomacy in Central Europe, 1934–1941. Budapest and New York: Central European University Press, 2003. Pp. 374. $59.95 (US). Reviewed by Bennett Kovrig PHILIP SNOW. The Fall of Hong Kong: Britain, China, and the Japanese Occupation. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2003. Pp. xxvii, 477. $35.00 (US). Reviewed by A. Hamish Ion MAX PAUL FRIEDMAN. Nazis and Good Neighbors: The United States Campaign against the Germans of Latin America in World War II. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Pp. xii, 359. $30.00 (US). Reviewed by Reinhard R. Doerries PHILIP SNOW. The Fall of Hong Kong: Britain, China, and the Japanese Occupation. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2003. Pp. xxvii, 477. $35.00 (US). Reviewed by A. Hamish Ion MAX PAUL FRIEDMAN. Nazis and Good Neighbors: The United States Campaign against the Germans of Latin America in World War II. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Pp. xii, 359. $30.00 (US). Reviewed by Reinhard R. Doerries DONALD THOMAS. An Underworld at War: Spivs, Deserters, Racketeers, and Civilians in the Second World War. London: John Murray, 2003. Pp. xv, 429. £20.00. Reviewed by Paul Jankowski REINHARD R. DOERRIES, ed. Hitler's Last Chief of Foreign Intelligence: Allied Interrogations of Walter Schellenberg. London and New York: Frank Cass, 2003. Pp. xvii, 382. $69.95 (US). Reviewed by Norman J. W. Goda GILES SCOTT-SMITH and HANS KRABBENDAM, eds. The Cultural Cold War in Western Europe, 1945–1960. London and New York: Frank Cass, 2003. Pp. 335. $26.50 (US), paper. Reviewed by Ronald J. Grantieri SANDHYA SHUKLA. India Abroad: Diasporic Cultures of Postwar America and England. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2003. Pp. 322. $18.95 (US), paper. Reviewed by Kumkum Chatterjee YALE RICHMOND. Cultural Exchange and the Cold War: Raising the Iron Curtain. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003. Pp. xiv, 249. $35.00 (US). Reviewed by Frank Ninkovich LIONEL CARTER, ed. and new intro. Mountbatten's Report on the Last Viceroyalty, 22 March–15 August, 1947. New Delhi: Manohar, 2003. Pp. 397. Rs 850. Reviewed by A. Martin Wainwright ORNA ALMOG. Britain, Israel, and the United States, 1955–1958: Beyond Suez. London and New York: Frank Cass, 2003. Pp. xvii, 243. $59.50 (US). Reviewed by Nigel J. Ashton MICHAEL D. STEVENSON, ed. Canada: Documents on Canadian External Relations: XXIV: 1957–1958, Part I. Ottawa: Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, 2003. Pp. xlix, 1,377. $119.95 (CDN). Reviewed by Bruce Muirhead HOWARD B. SCHAFFER. Ellsworth Bunker: Global Troubleshooter, Vietnam Hawk. Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 2003; dist. Toronto: SBS. Pp. xiv, 380. $49.50 (CDN). Reviewed by William J. Duiker JEFFREY KIMBALL. The Vietnam War Files: Uncovering the Secret History of Nixon-Era Strategy. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004. Pp. xvii, 352. $34.95 (US). Reviewed by Andrew Preston PETER DALE SCOTT. Drugs, Oil, and War: The United States in Afghanistan, Colombia, and Indochina. Lanham: Rowman i& Littlefield, 2003. Pp. xix, 225. $75.00 (US). Reviewed by William O. Walker III PHILIP ROBINS. Suits and Uniforms: Turkish Foreign Policy since the Cold War. Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 2003. Pp. xix, 404. $30.00 (US), paper. Reviewed by Frank Tachau RICHARD E. MATLAND and KATHLEEN A. MONTGOMERY, eds. Women's Access to Political Power in Post-Communist Europe. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Pp. xxiii, 369. $165.00 (CDN). Reviewed by Éva Fodor IKECHI MGBEOJI. Collective Insecurity: The Liberian Crisis, Unilateralism, and Global Order. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2003. Pp. xii, 186. $80.00 (CDN), cloth; $24.95 (CDN)? paper. Reviewed by Christopher Clapham MARY L. DUDZIAK, ed. September 11 in History: A Watershed Moment? Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, 2003. Pp. 240. $22.95 (US). Reviewed by David A. Charters JENNIFER MILLIKEN, ed. State Failure, Collapse, and Reconstruction. Maiden and Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2003. Pp. x, 325. $34.95 (US), paper. Reviewed by Kathleen Hawk COLIN S. GRAY. The Sheriff: America's Defense of the New World Order. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2004. Pp. xi, 195. $29.95 (US). Reviewed by Andrew J. Bacevich EMILY O. GOLDMAN and LESLIE C. ELIASON, eds. The Diffusion of Military Technology and Ideas. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003. Pp. xx, 415. $75.00 (US). Reviewed by Colin S. Gray GEOFFREY TILL. Seapower: A Guide for the Twenty-First Century. London and New York: Frank Cass, 2004. Pp. xvi, 430. $27.95 (US), paper; JOHN REEVE and DAVID STEVENS, eds. The Face of Naval Battle: The Human Experience of Modern War at Sea. Crows Nest, NSW: Allen & Unwin, 2003. Pp. xx, 363. $39.95 (AUS). Reviewed by Robert C. Rubel STACY BERGSTROM HALDI. Why Wars Widen: A Theory of Prédation and Balancing. London and New York: Frank Cass, 2003. Pp. x, 198. $62.50 (US). Reviewed by T. V. Paul PETER D. FEAVER and CHRISTOPHER GELPI. Choosing Your Battles: American Civil-Military Relations and the Use of Force. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2004. Pp. xiii, 236. $37.50 (US).
The history of empires created by inner Asian peoples bears direct relevance to the conceptualization of world history down to the early modern period, as their impact on surrounding civilizations resulted in long-lasting demographic, economic, and political changes. This essay explores the basic mechanisms of state formation in inner Asia and presents an argument for the periodization of inner Asian history based on the incremental ability of inner Asian empires to extract from outside sources the wealth necessary for the maintenance of political and military state apparatus. On this basis, the essay proposes a four-phase periodization, including ages of tribute empires (209 B.C.- A.D. 551), trade-tribute empires (551Ð907), dual-administration empires (907Ð1259), and direct-taxation empires (1260Ð1796).
(1998). Qing Colonial Administration in Inner Asia. The International History Review: Vol. 20, No. 2, pp. 287-309.
The Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Peoples of Eastern Central Asia - Victor H. Mair, ed., The Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Peoples of Eastern Central Asia. 2 vols. Washington, D.C.: The Institute for the Study of Man, 1998. xvii + 899 pp. - Volume 23
Historical knowledge of Central Asia in China dates back to the second century B.C., and is associated with the odyssean journey of the imperial envoy Zhang Qian. Contacts between China and Central Asia had certainly been in existence long before then. The momentum behind the expansion of communication is commonly traced back to the development of a mobile way of life among the pastoral peoples of the Central Asian steppe, and to the increased level of economic specialization of farmers and herders, which provided both a means and a need for trade. Findings from the burials of the Pazyryk culture [Hiebert, 1992] show the extraordinary network of exchange woven by the pastoral nomadic cultures of the Sayano-Altai region. Though the findings cannot document the existence of any actual trade, it is clear that these people had access to products that were produced far away, in China and possibly the Near East. The evolution of the early nomadic cultures is also associated with developments in metallurgical production, accumulation of wealth in form of metal objects—in particular gold ornaments—and sophisticated burial complexes. Archeologists of Central Asia have traditionally paid attention to both the evolution of nomadism and nomadic interaction with sedentary cultures.
Such non-chinese people as the rong, di, and hu are often portrayed in the traditional historiography of ancient China as greedy, aggressive, and acquisitive (Sinor 1978; Honey 1990). Chinese writings of the Zhou dynasty (c. 1050–256 b.c. ) contain many instances of unflattering statements aimed at foreign peoples: the Zuo zhuan compares the Rong and Di to wolves (ZZ, 1:209); the Zhan guo ce says the state of Qin shares the same attributes as the Rong and Di—the heart of a tiger or wolf, greed, and cruelty (ZGC, 11:869; cf. Crump 1970:436). Foreign peoples were often considered “have-nots” with an insatiable lust for Chinese goods, mainly silk, grains, and, later, tea. This stereotype, which developed in the historical sources along with the process of crystallization of the Chinese ethnocultural identity and codification of the written and oral traditions, was regarded as sufficient to account for otherwise complex social and political phenomena. In the course of time, with the historical development of powerful nomadic states confronting China militarily and politically, the attributes of “greedy” and “ravenous” stuck essentially to those people who “moved in search of grass and water”: the pastoral nomads.