Janet Afary

Janet Afary is a native of Iran and a leading historian. Her work focuses on gender and sexuality and draws on her experience of growing up in Iran and her involvement with Iranian women of different ages and social strata. These observations, and a wealth of historical documents, form the kernel of this book, which charts the history of the nation's sexual revolution from the nineteenth century to today.

Theory, Practice, Transformations

Wael B. Hallaq

Wael Hallaq's magisterial overview of Shari'a sets the record straight by examining the doctrines and practices of Islamic law within the context of its history, and by showing how it functioned within pre-modern Islamic societies as a moral imperative.

Chris Baker, Pasuk Phongpaichit

In A History of Thailand, Chris Baker and Pasuk Phongpaichit reveal how a world of mandarin nobles and unfree labour evolved into a rural society of smallholder peasants and an urban society populated mainly by migrants from southern China.

The Iwakura Embassy to the USA and Europe

Kume Kunitake, Edited by Chushichi Tsuzuki, R. Jules Young

In 1871 Japan sent a high-ranking delegation to the USA and Europe, to negotiate treaties and trading agreements and to investigate how it might modernise its political and economic institutions. Led by the Foreign Minister Prince Tomomi Iwakura, the ‘embassy’ of politicians, courtiers and officials travelled extensively around the USA for eight months, before spending a further year examining the British manufacturing industry, German armaments and French culture.

History of an Emancipatory Community

Sean Hanretta

Exploring the history of a group of Muslim Sufi mystics and their religious community in colonial French West Africa, this study shows the relationship between religious, social, and economic change in the region.

Language and Creolization in an Indian Ocean Diaspora

Pier M. Larson

Ocean of Letters is a remarkable history of imperialism, language, and creolization in the largest African diaspora of the Indian Ocean in the early modern period. Ranging from Madagascar to the Mascarenes, the Comores, and South Africa, Pier M. Larson sheds new light on the roles of slavery, emancipation, oceanic travel, Christian missions, and colonial linguistics in the making of Malagasy-language literacy in the islands of the western Indian Ocean.

Richard J. Salvucci

In 1823 and 1824, the government of Mexico raised two loans in London totaling £6.4 million, which fell into default by 1827 and remained in default until 1887. This case study explores their history, how the process worked in Mexico in the early nineteenth century – when foreign lending was still a novelty – and the unexpected ways in which international debt could influence politics and policy, becoming one of the most significant, if largely misunderstood, issues in the political and financial history of nineteenth-century Mexico.

Policy Reform and Consumption in Liberalizing Economies

Andy Baker

Baker's study reveals that most Latin American citizens are enthusiastic about globalization because it has lowered the prices of many consumer goods and services. Citizens' sharp awareness of these consumer consequences informs Baker's argument that a new political economy of consumption has replaced a previously dominant politics of labor and class in Latin America.

Russia and Ukraine

Mikhail Myagkov, Peter C. Ordeshook, Dmitry Shakin

This volume identifies forensic indicators of election fraud applied to official election returns, and tests and illustrates their application in Russia and Ukraine. The authors conclude that fraud has metastasized within the Russian polity during Putin’s administration whereas in Ukraine, fraud has diminished considerably since the second round of its 2004 presidential election.