By David R. Ambaras (NHC Fellow, 2014–15) This major new study uses vivid accounts of encounters between Chinese and Japanese people living at the margins of empire to elucidate Sino-Japanese relations in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Each chapter explores mobility in East Asia through the histories of often ignored categories of people, including … Continued
Edited by Harriet Ritvo (Trustee; NHC Fellow, 1989–90; 2002–03) and Jonathan Arac Increasingly in the last decade, macropolitics—a consideration of political transformations at the level of the state—has become a focus for cultural inquiry. From the macropolitical perspective afforded by contemporary postcolonial studies, the essays in this collection explore the relationship between politics and culture … Continued
By John Plotz (NHC Fellow, 2001–02) What fueled the Victorian passion for hair-jewelry and memorial rings? When would an everyday object metamorphose from commodity to precious relic? In Portable Property, John Plotz examines the new role played by portable objects in persuading Victorian Britons that they could travel abroad with religious sentiments, family ties, and national … Continued
Edited by Dane Kennedy (NHC Fellow, 2010–11) Exploration was a central and perhaps defining aspect of the West's encounters with other peoples and lands. Rather than reproduce celebratory narratives of individual heroism and national glory, this volume focuses on exploration's instrumental role in shaping a European sense of exceptionalism and its iconic importance in defining … Continued
By Harold G. Marcus (NHC Fellow, 1985–86) In this eminently readable, concise history of Ethiopia, Harold Marcus surveys the evolution of the oldest African nation from prehistory to the present. For the updated edition, Marcus has written a new preface, two new chapters, and an epilogue, detailing the development and implications of Ethiopia as a … Continued
By Franklin W. Knight (NHC Fellow, 1986–87) Offering a rare pan-Caribbean perspective on a region that has moved from the very center of the western world to its periphery, The Caribbean: The Genesis of a Fragmented Nationalism journeys through five centuries of economic and social development, emphasizing such topics as the slave-run plantation economy, the changes in … Continued
Edited by Richard Bjornson (NHC Fellow, 1982–83) and Isaac James Mowoe This volume, written by leading African and Western specialists, is among the first to provide a broad interdisciplinary view of African culture that allows contemporary Africa to be understood on its own terms–freed from Western ethnocentric preconceptions and values. The book begins with an … Continued
Edited by Orville Vernon Burton (NHC Fellow, 1994–95) and Georganne B. Burton The wife of South Carolina secessionist governor Francis W. Pickens and known as the “Queen of the Confederacy,” Lucy Holcombe Pickens (1832–1899) was during her lifetime one of the most famous women in the South. Indeed, she was the only woman pictured on … Continued
Edited by Lawrence Stone (NHC Fellow, 1990–91; 1991–92) The study of eighteenth century history has been transformed by the writings of John Brewer, and most recently, with The Sinews of Power, he challenged the central concepts of British history. Brewer argues that the power of the British state increased dramatically when it was forced to pay … Continued
By David Armitage (NHC Fellow, 1996–97) The Ideological Origins of the British Empire presents a comprehensive history of British conceptions of empire for more than half a century. David Armitage traces the emergence of British imperial identity from the mid-sixteenth to the mid-eighteenth centuries, using a full range of manuscript and printed sources. By linking … Continued