An important center of dancehall reggae performance, sound clashes are contests between rival sound systems: groups of emcees, tune selectors, and sound engineers. In World Clash 1999, held in Brooklyn, Mighty Crown, a Japanese sound system and the only non-Jamaican competitor, stunned the international dancehall community by winning the event. In 2002, the Japanese dancer Junko Kudo became the first non-Jamaican to win Jamaica’s National Dancehall Queen Contest. High-profile victories such as these affirmed and invigorated Japan’s enthusiasm for dancehall reggae. In Babylon East, the anthropologist Marvin D. Sterling traces the history of the Japanese embrace of dancehall reggae and other elements of Jamaican culture, including Rastafari, roots reggae, and dub music. Sterling provides a nuanced ethnographic analysis of the ways that many Japanese involved in reggae as musicians and dancers, and those deeply engaged with Rastafari as a spiritual practice, seek to reimagine their lives through Jamaican culture. He considers Japanese performances and representations of Jamaican culture in clubs, competitions, and festivals; on websites; and in song lyrics, music videos, reggae magazines, travel writing, and fiction. He illuminates issues of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and class as he discusses topics ranging from the cultural capital that Japanese dancehall artists amass by immersing themselves in dancehall culture in Jamaica, New York, and England, to the use of Rastafari as a means of critiquing class difference, consumerism, and the colonial pasts of the West and Japan. Encompassing the reactions of Jamaica’s artists to Japanese appropriations of Jamaican culture, as well as the relative positions of Jamaica and Japan in the world economy, Babylon East is a rare ethnographic account of Afro-Asian cultural exchange and global discourses of blackness beyond the African diaspora.

At the distant beginning of Western civilization, according to European tradition, Greece stands as an insular, isolated, near-miracle of burgeoning culture. This book traverses the ancient world's three great centers of cultural exchange--Babylonian Nineveh, Egyptian Memphis, and Iranian Persepolis--to situate classical Greece in its proper historical place, at the Western margin of a more comprehensive Near Eastern-Aegean cultural community that emerged in the Bronze Age and expanded westward in the first millennium B.C. In concise and inviting fashion, Walter Burkert lays out the essential evidence for this ongoing reinterpretation of Greek culture. In particular, he points to the critical role of the development of writing in the ancient Near East, from the achievement of cuneiform in the Bronze Age to the rise of the alphabet after 1000 B.C. From the invention and diffusion of alphabetic writing, a series of cultural encounters between "Oriental" and Greek followed. Burkert details how the Assyrian influences of Phoenician and Anatolian intermediaries, the emerging fascination with Egypt, and the Persian conquests in Ionia make themselves felt in the poetry of Homer and his gods, in the mythic foundations of Greek cults, and in the first steps toward philosophy. A journey through the fluid borderlines of the Near East and Europe, with new and shifting perspectives on the cultural exchanges these produced, this book offers a clear view of the multicultural field upon which the Greek heritage that formed Western civilization first appeared.

From the 1880s through the 1920s a motley collection of American scholars, soldiers of fortune, institutional bureaucrats, and financiers created the academic fields that give us our knowledge of the ancient Near East. Bruce Kuklick's new book begins with the story of the initial adventure of these determined investigators--a twelve-year dig near the Biblical Babylon, at Nippur, conducted at intervals from 1888 through 1900 and bankrolled by the Babylonian Exploration Fund. To unearth tens of thousands of cunneiform tablets, the leaders of this venture faced harsh living conditions in the desert and an academic war of each against all that was quickly begun at the site itself. As their knowledge increased, they risked their personal religious beliefs in the search for historical truth. Kuklick discusses their tribulations to illuminate two other contemporary developments: first, the maturation of the American university, particularly in contrast to its German counterpart; and second, the influence of religious-secular conflict on the ways in which Western scholarship appropriated or appreciated other cultures. The Nippur expedition spawned unseemly (and entertaining) fights among the University of Pennsylvania, Johns Hopkins, Yale, Harvard, and Chicago for leadership in the study of ancient Near East--not to mention disagreements with their own developing museums and an international scandal called the Hilprecht controversy. More significant than these quarrels was the concern for the meaning of history displayed in this period of Near Eastern scholarship. The field was linked to Biblical criticism and Judeo-Christian interests, and many of the orientalists originally possessed strong religious commitments--which some put aside as they struggled for objectivity. As recent critics have shown, "orientalism" was an example of the West's ability to appropriate the "other" for its own purposes. However, Kuklick's study demonstrates that the censure of orientalism hinges on modes of argumentation that scholars of the ancienet Near East helped to legitimate, and at no small cost to themselves. Bruce Kuklick is Killbrew Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania. Among his books are To Every Thing a Season: Shibe Park and Urban Philadelphia, 1909-1976 (Princeton), Churchmen and Philosophers: Jonathan Edwards to John Dewey, and The Rise of American Philosophy: Cambridge Massachusetts, 1860-1930. Originally published in 1996. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

This carefully edited historical collection has been designed and formatted to the highest digital standards and adjusted for readability on all devices. The Ancient Near East was the home of early civilizations within a region roughly corresponding to the modern Middle East: Mesopotamia, ancient Egypt, ancient Iran Asia Minor and Armenian Highlands, the Levant, Cyprus and the Arabian Peninsula. This book covers the history of the entire region through the period of over three millennia. It brings political and cultural history of eight most important kingdoms and empires of the region: Egypt, Parthia, Chaldea, Assyria, Media, Babylon, Persia and Sasanian Empire. Content: Egypt Phoenicia Chaldea Assyria Media Babylon Persia Parthia Sasanian Empire The Kings of Israel and Judah The History of Herodotus: The Original Source

Over the past few years, Hong Kong movies have become more popular and studied by critics and film-goers alike. It is a cinema of incessant action, eye-popping effects and cartoon-like violence which has left its mark on the work of many young contemporary Western Film-makers. Conversely, Hong Kong film-makers like John Woo have crossed over and put their unique stamp on American films like Hard Target and Broken Arrow with John Travolta. In his book Fredric Dannen depicts the dark inner world of Hong Kong cinema: the brave and enigmatic actors who risk their lives performing dangerous stunts and explosive feats of martial arts; the movie producers, many of whom are involved with the criminal triad families and who will resort, literally, to murder to secure a deal or an actor for a film. Hong Kong Babylon is an indispensable guide to one of the most exciting national cinemas.

A gripping portrait of black power politics and the struggle for civil rights in postwar Oakland As the birthplace of the Black Panthers and a nationwide tax revolt, California embodied a crucial motif of the postwar United States: the rise of suburbs and the decline of cities, a process in which black and white histories inextricably joined. American Babylon tells this story through Oakland and its nearby suburbs, tracing both the history of civil rights and black power politics as well as the history of suburbanization and home-owner politics. Robert Self shows that racial inequities in both New Deal and Great Society liberalism precipitated local struggles over land, jobs, taxes, and race within postwar metropolitan development. Black power and the tax revolt evolved together, in tension. American Babylon demonstrates that the history of civil rights and black liberation politics in California did not follow a southern model, but represented a long-term struggle for economic rights that began during the World War II years and continued through the rise of the Black Panthers in the late 1960s. This struggle yielded a wide-ranging and profound critique of postwar metropolitan development and its foundation of class and racial segregation. Self traces the roots of the 1978 tax revolt to the 1940s, when home owners, real estate brokers, and the federal government used racial segregation and industrial property taxes to forge a middle-class lifestyle centered on property ownership. Using the East Bay as a starting point, Robert Self gives us a richly detailed, engaging narrative that uniquely integrates the most important racial liberation struggles and class politics of postwar America.

In George Rawlinson's 'The Seven Great Monarchies of the Ancient Eastern World: Babylon', readers are taken on a detailed exploration of the ancient Babylonian civilization, its history, culture, and influence on the world. Rawlinson's book is a scholarly work that delves into the political and social structures of Babylon, offering insights into the reigns of famous Babylonian monarchs such as Hammurabi and Nebuchadnezzar. The author's meticulous research and engaging narrative style make this book a valuable resource for those interested in ancient history and archaeology. Rawlinson's analysis of Babylonian architecture, religion, and daily life provides a comprehensive view of this fascinating civilization. His comparisons with other great ancient empires add depth to the narrative, placing Babylon in its rightful context within the ancient Eastern world. George Rawlinson, a renowned British historian and scholar, was well-equipped to write about the ancient Eastern world, given his expertise in ancient languages and civilizations. His passion for history and dedication to accuracy shine through in this seminal work. I highly recommend 'The Seven Great Monarchies of the Ancient Eastern World: Babylon' to anyone seeking a deeper understanding of one of the most influential civilizations in history.

Provides a new narrative history of the ancient world, from the beginnings of civilization in the ancient Near East and Egypt to the fall of Constantinople Written by an expert in the field, this book presents a narrative history of Babylon from the time of its First Dynasty (1880-1595) until the last centuries of the city’s existence during the Hellenistic and Parthian periods (ca. 331-75 AD). Unlike other texts on Ancient Near Eastern and Mesopotamian history, it offers a unique focus on Babylon and Babylonia, while still providing readers with an awareness of the interaction with other states and peoples. Organized chronologically, it places the various socio-economic and cultural developments and institutions in their historical context. The book also gives religious and intellectual developments more respectable coverage than books that have come before it. A History of Babylon, 2200 BC – AD 75 teaches readers about the most important phase in the development of Mesopotamian culture. The book offers in-depth chapter coverage on the Sumero-Addadian Background, the rise of Babylon, the decline of the first dynasty, Kassite ascendancy, the second dynasty of Isin, Arameans and Chaldeans, the Assyrian century, the imperial heyday, and Babylon under foreign rule. Focuses on Babylon and Babylonia Written by a highly regarded Assyriologist Part of the very successful Histories of the Ancient World series An excellent resource for students, instructors, and scholars A History of Babylon, 2200 BC - AD 75 is a profound text that will be ideal for upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses on Ancient Near Eastern and Mesopotamian history and scholars of the subject.

The north and the west and the south are good hunting ground, but it is forbidden to go east. It is forbidden to go to any of the Dead Places except to search for metal and then he who touches the metal must be a priest or the son of a priest. Afterwards, both the man and the metal must be purified. These are the rules and the laws; they are well made. It is forbidden to cross the great river and look upon the place that was the Place of the Gods-this is most strictly forbidden. We do not even say its name though we know its name. It is there that spirits live, and demons-it is there that there are the ashes of the Great Burning. These things are forbidden- they have been forbidden since the beginning of time.