From 1652 until 1795, the Cape of Good Hope was a Dutch settlement marked by tensions, often portrayed as antagonism between the oppressive Dutch East India Company (VOC) and the Cape’s aggrieved burghers. However, by comparing the political structures, institutions and dynamics of the Dutch Republic and its overseas settlement, the Teun Baartman demonstrates that this relationship was more cooperative and that the Cape burghers were able to influence policies in their favor similar to the way burghers in the Dutch Republic did by forming political factions. Using the Cape Conflict of the later eighteenth century as a case study, Baartman illustrates that it was in fact a fight for power between factions within the ruling elite, which consisted of both VOC officials and burghers. This book offers new evidence, a variety of interpretations, and an innovative narrative about where burghers came from, what their position was, and how the Cape political world operated.
 

Centuries of intense and involuntary migrations deeply impacted the development of the creolised cultures on the Dutch Caribbean islands of Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao. This volume describes various forms of cultural heritage produced on these islands over time and whether these heritages are part of their ‘national’ identifications. What forms of heritage express the idea of a shared “we” (nation-building) and what images are presented to the outside world (nation-branding)? What cultural heritage is shared between the islands and what are some real or perceived differences? In this book, examples of cultural heritage on these three islands ranging from sports to questions of reparations, from museums to digital humanities, from archaeology to music, from language and literature to tourism, and from visual art to diaspora policies are compared to developments elsewhere in the Caribbean.

This book focuses on the practical challenges of managing a World Heritage listed historic city in a South Asian context. The focal point of the author’s research is Sri Lanka’s Galle Fort, a walled town, identified as the best-preserved colonial fort in South Asia. The costs and benefits of the fort’s World Heritage recognition to its local urban community, and to the colonial fort itself, are analyzed. Shown is how thirty years of the World Heritage project at Galle Fort changed a once small seaside walled town with dilapidated colonial buildings into a tourist hot-spot and prime real estate, thereby changing the lives of its inhabitants. It argues that the best practices of participatory and people-centered approaches of managing urban heritage at the global level are slow to progress at a local level.

'China Under Xi Jinping: A New Assessment' is one of the first scholarly books on Xi’s China during the pandemic, containing several features unmatched by existing scholarship. First, all the authors have studied and taught Chinese and American history or politics in China, Taiwan, and the United States for decades. They are quite familiar with and deeply understand the history, politics, ideology, and society in China and the United States. Therefore, their research would be more balanced and nuanced, if not more profound, than that of many Western or China-based students. Second, most authors are historians who examine Xi Jinping’s China and China’s relationship with the West from a motley crew of historical backdrops and political and legal perspectives. Their probe into the historical trajectory, precedents, causes, and problems of Xi’s policies and intentions helps readers obtain a better sense of what Xi and his government could do in the future. Third, most authors are established and internationally renowned scholars in their respective fields. Lastly, this book is one of the first studies spanning from Xi Jinping’s rise to power in the early 2000s to the pandemic era and beyond. The authors have kept a close eye on the latest developments and sources to analyze and compare Xi’s policies as well as his volatile relations with the West before and after the pandemic.

'The Civil Code Controversy in Meiji Japan' outlines the dramatic history of the failed liberalization of Japanese private law during the Meiji era.

This book, 'Climate Security and the Military: Concepts, Strategies and Partnerships', reviews the climate Security Nexus from the military angle and proposes the design of climate security strategies and how they can contribute to adaptation to and mitigation of the related challenges. Part 1 reviews the understanding of the Climate Security Nexus. Subsequently, Part 2 assesses the potential design of climate security strategies. In Part 3, adaptation to climate change by the military is reviewed. Finally, part 4 discusses the potential contribution of the military to climate mitigation from the angle of operations on land, at sea and in the air, and of solar geoengineering. By thus analysing the impact climate has on security around the world and military operations, this book provides a unique and much needed view on the mutual influence of climate security and the military and provides suggestions to adapt to and mitigate the resulting challenges.

Unlike most city histories, this book focuses exclusively on the city’s connections with colonialism and slavery. Rotterdam, the second-largest Dutch city, is one of Europe’s leading ports. Its maritime expansion was intrinsically linked to Dutch colonialism, including slave trading and colonial slavery in the Americas, Africa and Asia. This painful history sits uneasily with the city’s modern cosmopolitan image and its large population of ‘new Rotterdammers’ with colonial roots. The present volume provides a summary of the research that has documented this history, with chapters on the contribution of colonial trade to economic development; the city’s involvement in slavery; the role of the urban political elites; the impact on urban development and architecture; the ‘ethical impulse’; colonial art and ethnographic collections; colonial and postcolonial migration; and finally the resonance of this history in postcolonial Rotterdam.

The remains of Dutch East India Company forts are scattered throughout littoral Asia and Africa. But how important were the specific characteristics of European bastion-trace fortifications to Early-Modern European expansion? Was European fortification design as important for Early-Modern expansion as has been argued? This book takes on these questions by studying the system of fortifications built and maintained by the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in present-day India and Sri Lanka. It uncovers the stories of the forts and their designers, arguing that many of these engineers were in fact amateurs and their creations contained serious flaws. Subsequent engineers were hampered by their disagreement over fortification design: there proved not to be a single “European school” of fortification design. The study questions the importance of fortification design for European expansion, shows the relationship between siege and naval warfare, and highlights changing perceptions by the VOC of the capabilities of new polities in India in the late eighteenth century.

This book is the first study of Persian literary riddles to appear in English, analysing a wide range of complex riddling poems systematically from the tenth to the twelfth century. In addition to the genre of riddles, the book examines the relationship between metaphors and riddles and the genre of literary description. Riddles belong to the oldest genre in many literary traditions. Riddles were composed at courts in the Iranian world for various purposes, such as highlighting the courtly insignia that refer to the ruler’s administrative and military power. The aesthetic of puzzlement was much appreciated at courts. Through a riddle, the poet aims to demonstrate his artistic accomplishment in a short space; and at the same time he secures his social, professional and personal position at the court and in cultured circles. Literary riddles occur in the early specimens of Persian literature from the tenth century and they continue to be used in modern Iranian society. 

An archaeological history of the Assyrian Empire’s four capitals.

The Assyrian Empire moved and rebuilt its capital city three times—at Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta, Kalhu, Dur-Šarruken, and Nineveh. Creating Capitals explores why and how Assyria constructed these capitals as well as how they functioned within the empire. Drawing on extensive research, Aris Politopoulos offers a sweeping comparative analysis of these four ancient cities and proposes a new framework for understanding the construction of capitals in human history.