In Encounters of the Opposite Coast Markus Vink provides a narrative of the first half century of cross-cultural interaction between the Dutch East India Company (VOC), one of the great northern European chartered companies, and Madurai, one of the 'great southern Nayakas' and successor-states of the Vijayanagara empire, in southeast India (c. 1645-1690). A shared interest in trade and at times converging political objectives formed the unstable foundations for a complex relationship fraught with tensions, a mixture of conflict and coexistence typical of the 'age of contained conflict'. Drawing extensively on archival materials, Markus Vink covers a topic neglected by both Company historians and their Indian counterparts and sheds important light on a 'black hole in South Indian history'.

Winner of the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for History Encounters at the Heart of the World concerns the Mandan Indians, iconic Plains people whose teeming, busy towns on the upper Missouri River were for centuries at the center of the North American universe. We know of them mostly because Lewis and Clark spent the winter of 1804-1805 with them, but why don't we know more? Who were they really? In this extraordinary book, Elizabeth A. Fenn retrieves their history by piecing together important new discoveries in archaeology, anthropology, geology, climatology, epidemiology, and nutritional science. Her boldly original interpretation of these diverse research findings offers us a new perspective on early American history, a new interpretation of the American past. By 1500, more than twelve thousand Mandans were established on the northern Plains, and their commercial prowess, agricultural skills, and reputation for hospitality became famous. Recent archaeological discoveries show how these Native American people thrived, and then how they collapsed. The damage wrought by imported diseases like smallpox and the havoc caused by the arrival of horses and steamboats were tragic for the Mandans, yet, as Fenn makes clear, their sense of themselves as a people with distinctive traditions endured. A riveting account of Mandan history, landscapes, and people, Fenn's narrative is enriched and enlivened not only by science and research but by her own encounters at the heart of the world.

Part odyssey, part pilgrimage, this epic personal narrative follows the author's exploration of coasts, islands, reefs, and the sea's abyssal depths. Scientist and fisherman Carl Safina takes readers on a global journey of discovery, probing for truth about the world's changing seas, deftly weaving adventure, science, and political analysis.

"For decades, scholars have examined the Mughal Empire, South Asia's largest and most powerful pre-colonial empire, to measure the greatness of its political, ideological, and cultural institutions. Between Household and State departs from dynastic narrations of the Mughal past to highlight the role of elite households and familial networks in shaping imperial power, particularly in peninsular India, the only region of the subcontinent never fully incorporated into the imperial realm. Drawing upon rare documentary and literary materials in Persian and Urdu alongside the Dutch East India Company's archives, the book takes us on a journey from military forts and regional courts in the Deccan to the weaving villages of the Coromandel Coast to examine how regional elite alliances, feuds, and material exchanges intersected with imperial institutions to create new forms of affinity, belonging, and social exclusion. Between Household and State brings attention to the importance of ghar-or home-as an analytical framework for the creation of mobile forms of sovereignty that anchored the Mughal frontier across the variable geography of peninsular India in the seventeenth century"--

Blending global scope with local depth, this book throws new light on important themes. Spanning four centuries and vast space, it combines the history of ideas with particular histories of encounters between European voyagers and Indigenous people in Oceania (Island Southeast Asia, New Guinea, Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands).

Seeking continuous improvement and ways to make an impact on society, Dr. Luis decided to further his academic career. He started his masters from the Autonomous University of Mexico. This greatly helped him in understanding how the society behaved and he developed a clear concept of in which direction he wished his career to head in. Since excellence has no boundaries, which inspired this great man to go beyond the mere boundaries of a master’s degree. He went further to earn not one, but two PhD’s in Psychology and Urbanism from the world-renowned States of New York and California. This enlightened him to fight for the right s of those who were unable to do so for themselves or were unaware of even having actual rights. To highlights some of the achievements of Dr. Luis Antonio Rivera: · Remained the mayor of the Municipal of Comerío in Puerto Rico from 1993 to 2000. · Held a professional oce in Puerto Rico. · A capable and acknowledged university professor. · Licensed as a Professional Planner in Puerto Rico and certified in the United States. · A writer of various books on topics pertaining to economics, health, self-help, politics, and Urban planning. · Has been honored in various TV and Radio programs in Puerto Rico and the United States. He is known as “The defender of equality of Puerto Rico” through the ideal of Statehood. Other than that, there is still much more to be said about the personality of this great man. Dr. Luis has been involved in numerous public service subjects such as: · The issue of public education and reforms it needs right now. · Fighting for the rights of special needs and how it has to be supported, highlighted, and promoted. · The development of poor communities by providing them with equal opportunities in terms of education and jobs, and other fields of life. · Especially in the domain of equal rights for women. Dr. Luis has put a lot of efforts in this eld and worked as an advocate for equal rights of women in Puerto Rico and outside as well. · Dr. Luis has also dedicated a lot of efforts towards ensuring the fulfillment of services that people with physical disabilities and special needs are entitled to. Throughout his life, Dr. Luis Antonio Rivera has been fighting for the right of those who couldn’t do it themselves. From being activist for people with special needs, Dr. Luis Rivera has dedicated his life for others, to be the voice of justice and reason, when there is no other.

In contrast to much scholarship on cross-cultural encounters, which focuses primarily on contact between indigenous peoples and ’settlers’ or ’sojourners’, this book is concerned with migrant aspects of this phenomenon – whether migrant-migrant or migrant-host encounters – bringing together studies from a variety of perspectives on cross-cultural encounters, their past, and their resonances across the contemporary Asia-Pacific region. Organised thematically into sections focusing on ’imperial encounters’ of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, ’identities’ in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and ’contemporary citizenship’ and the ways in which this is complicated by mobility and cross-cultural encounters, the volume presents studies of New Zealand, Singapore, Australia, Vanuatu, Mauritius and China to highlight key themes of mobility, intimacies, ethnicity and ’race’, heritage and diaspora, through rich evidence such as photographs, census data, the arts and interviews. Demonstrating the importance of multidisciplinary ways of looking at migrant cross-cultural encounters through blending historical and social science methodologies from a range of disciplinary backgrounds, Migrant Cross-Cultural Encounters in Asia and the Pacific will appeal to anthropologists, sociologists, cultural geographers and historians with interests in migration, mobility and cross-cultural encounters.