Paintings of various ethnic groups of Nepal.

Photographs show life among the Gurung people and the techniques they use in gathering honey from cliffside hives

"Embark on a scholarly exploration of the Kingdom of Nepal with Francis Hamilton in 'An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal.' Hamilton, a keen observer and naturalist, presents a comprehensive study of Nepal during the late 18th century. Through meticulous documentation, Hamilton delves into the geography, culture, flora, and fauna of this Himalayan kingdom. His account provides readers with a nuanced understanding of Nepal's unique features and customs, offering insights into an era when the region was relatively unknown to the Western world. 'An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal' is more than a travel narrative; it's a valuable historical and scientific record that invites readers to journey alongside Hamilton through the landscapes and cultures of this captivating realm, revealing the marvels and mysteries of Nepal in a bygone era."

In the past 20 years, Christians around the world have launched initiatives to reach Muslims, Communists, Hindus and other major unreached people groups but the Buddhist world has largely been overlooked. Hundreds of millions of Buddhists continue to live and die without any exposure to the Gospel. In Peoples of the Buddhist World, researcher and author Paul Hattaway graphically presents prayer profiles of more than 200 Buddhist people groups around the world, beautifully illustrated with color pictures throughout. In addition, experts have contributed articles on various aspects of Buddhism, helping the reader to learn, pray and work until that day when "the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ and he will reign for ever and ever" (Rev. 11:15).--From publisher's description.

This book provides a comprehensive examination of the human face, providing fascinating information from biological, cultural, and social perspectives. Our faces identify who we are—not only what we look like and what ethnicities we belong to, but they can also identify what religions we practice and what personal ideologies we have. This one-of-a-kind A–Z reference explores the ways we change, beautify, and adorn our faces to create our personalities and identities. In addition to covering the basics such as the anatomical structure and function of parts of the human face, the entries examine how the face is viewed around the world, allowing students to easily draw connections and differences between various cultures around the world. Readers will learn about a wide variety of topics, including identity in different cultures; religious beliefs; folklore; extreme beautification; the "evil eye;" scarification; facial piercing and facial tattooing masks; social views about beauty including cosmetic surgery and makeup; how gender, class and sexuality play a role in our understanding of the face; and skin, eye, mouth, nose, and ear diseases and disorders. This encyclopedia is ideal for high school and undergraduate students studying anthropology, anatomy, gender, religion, and world cultures.

Describes how the author's three-month service as a volunteer at the Little Princes Orphanage in war-torn Nepal became a commitment for advocacy and reform when he discovered that many of his young charges were victims rescued from human traffickers.

‘Chidambaram illuminates the crucial interface between economics and politics . . . his style is simple, austere, impressive . . . there is much that I enjoyed in this book’ —Meghnad Desai in PBI - Indian Express ‘Economics is the science of the possible made to look like the art of the impossible’ is a definition that would strike a chord with any finance minister of PBI - India who, every year, has to perform the great PBI - Indian hope trick. Otherwise known as the Budget—a careful balancing act between revenue and expenditure, tax rates and tax sops, growth and equity, reforms and the status quo. Within these constraints, however, there is much that a finance minister can actually accomplish, as P. Chidambaram, one of PBI - India’s most accomplished economists and commentators, shows in A View from the Outside, a collection of columns that assesses the promises and performance of the NDA government in the period 2002–2004. The columns, originally published in the PBI - Indian Express and the Financial Express,reflect the views of Chidambaram, finance minister between 1996 and 1998 and again from 2004 onwards, on a range of issues that remain important regardless of the government in power. They also provide snapshots of the PBI - Indian economy in good times and bad. This collection covers subjects such as agriculture, reforms, budgets, forex reserves, economic growth and tax policies. It also offers perceptive political analyses and some telling comments on social issues. Far more than mere reactions to developments during that period, Chidambaram provides the reader with an extraordinarily clear understanding of the problems underlying the PBI - Indian economy—and its politics—and ways of solving them. Reviews ‘There is a lot of wisdom in this book, as well as entertainment’— Gurcharan Das in Outlook

In the new edition of this major work, Seyom Brown brings his authoritative account of United States foreign policy completely up-to-date with analyses of the Truman administration to the Clinton administration. Most notably, Brown provides an insightful overview of the last three presidencies, beginning with an expanded treatment of the Reagan years to the first major scholarly assessment of Bush's foreign policies to Clinton's early ambivalence toward grappling with the dilemmas of the post-Cold War world.

Reciting the Goddess presents the first critical study of the Svasthanivratakatha (SVK), a sixteenth-century Hindu narrative textual tradition. The extensive SVK manuscript tradition offers a rare opportunity to observe the making of a specific, distinct Hindu religious tradition. Jessica Vantine Birkenholtz argues that the SVK serves as a lens through which we can observe the creation of modern 'Hinduism' in the Himalayas, as the text both mirrored and informed key moments in the self-conscious creation of Nepal as the 'world's only Hindu kingdom' in the late medieval and early modern period. Birkenholtz mines the literary historiography that is contained within the SVK text itself, chronicling the text's literary and narrative development as well as the development of the Svasthani goddess tradition. She outlines the process whereby the SVK gradually transformed into a Purana text, and became a critical source for Nepali Hindu belief and identity. She also examines the elusive character of the goddess Svasthani whose identity is tied to the pan-Hindu goddess tradition, and the representation of women in the SVK and the ways in which the text influenced local and regional debates on the ideal of Hindu womanhood. Reciting the Goddess presents Nepal's celebrated SVK as a micro-level illustration of the powerful ways in which people, place, and literature intersect to produce new ideas and concepts of identity and place, even in a historically non-literate culture.