Getting food, water, and services to the millions who live in the world's few dozen megacities is one of the twenty-first century's most formidable challenges. This innovative history traces nearly a century in the life of the megacity of Manila to show how it grew and what sustained it. Focusing on the city's key commodities-rice, produce, fish, fowl, meat, milk, flour, coffee-Daniel F. Doeppers explores their complex interconnections, the changing ecology of the surrounding region, and the social fabric that weaves together farmers, merchants, transporters, storekeepers, and door-to-door vendors.

An exploration of subversive, ribald variations of the most important story in Theravada Buddhism.

Beskrivelse af af de sociale forandringer i Filippinernes hovedstad Manila 1900-1941. Forfatterens speciale er social- og historisk geografi

Authoritative and original, Dreams of the Hmong Kingdom is among the first works of its kind, exploring the influence that French colonialism and Hmong leadership had on the Hmong people's political and social aspirations.

Why are some parts of the world so rich and others so poor? Why did the Industrial Revolution--and the unprecedented economic growth that came with it--occur in eighteenth-century England, and not at some other time, or in some other place? Why didn't industrialization make the whole world rich--and why did it make large parts of the world even poorer? In A Farewell to Alms, Gregory Clark tackles these profound questions and suggests a new and provocative way in which culture--not exploitation, geography, or resources--explains the wealth, and the poverty, of nations. Countering the prevailing theory that the Industrial Revolution was sparked by the sudden development of stable political, legal, and economic institutions in seventeenth-century Europe, Clark shows that such institutions existed long before industrialization. He argues instead that these institutions gradually led to deep cultural changes by encouraging people to abandon hunter-gatherer instincts-violence, impatience, and economy of effort-and adopt economic habits-hard work, rationality, and education. The problem, Clark says, is that only societies that have long histories of settlement and security seem to develop the cultural characteristics and effective workforces that enable economic growth. For the many societies that have not enjoyed long periods of stability, industrialization has not been a blessing. Clark also dissects the notion, championed by Jared Diamond in Guns, Germs, and Steel, that natural endowments such as geography account for differences in the wealth of nations. A brilliant and sobering challenge to the idea that poor societies can be economically developed through outside intervention, A Farewell to Alms may change the way global economic history is understood.

In European Small States and the Role of Consuls in the Age of Empire Aryo Makko offers a first account of how Sweden and Norway participated in the New Imperialism in the late 18th and early 19th centuries through consular service.

Tells the story of the growing Chinese Navy - The People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) - and its expanding capabilities, evolving roles and military implications for the USA. Divided into four thematic sections, this special collection of essays surveys and analyzes the most important aspects of China's navel modernization.