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Publications | Department of Asian Studies

Publications By Years

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Publications

2022
Fugitives: Nazi Mercenaries in the Cold War
Orbach, Danny . 2022. Fugitives: Nazi Mercenaries in the Cold War. New York/London: Pegasus and Hurst.Abstract

In the aftermath of WWII, the victorious Allies vowed to hunt Nazi war criminals “to the ends of the earth.” Yet many slipped away to the four corners of the world or were shielded by the Western Allies in exchange for cooperation.

Most prominently, Reinhard Gehlen, the founder of West Germany's foreign intelligence service, welcomed SS operatives into the fold. This shortsighted decision nearly brought his cherished service down, as the KGB found his Nazi operatives easy to turn, while judiciously exposing them to threaten the very legitimacy of the Bonn Government. However, Gehlen was hardly alone in the excessive importance he placed on the supposed capabilities of former Nazi agents; his American sponsors did much the same in the early years of the Cold War.

Other Nazi fugitives became freelance arms traffickers, spies, and covert operators, playing a crucial role in the clandestine struggle between the superpowers.  From posh German restaurants, smuggler-infested Yugoslav ports, Damascene safehouses, Egyptian country clubs, and fascist holdouts in Franco's Spain, Nazi spies created a chaotic network of influence and information. This network was tapped by both America and the USSR, as well as by the West German, French, and Israeli secret services. Indeed, just as Gehlen and his U.S sponsors attached excessive importance to Nazi agents, so too did almost all other state and non-state actors, adding a combustible ingredient to the Cold War covert struggle.

Shrouded in government secrecy, clouded by myths and propaganda, the tangled and often paradoxical tale of these Nazi fugitives and operatives has never been properly told—until now.

 

For further info/ To purchase the book click HERE.

Sensitive Reading: The Pleasures of South Asian Literature in Translation
Bronner, Yigal, and Charles Hallisey. 2022. Sensitive Reading: The Pleasures of South Asian Literature in Translation. California: University of California Press.Abstract

"What are the pleasures of reading translations of South Asian literature, and what does it take to enjoy a translated text? This volume provides opportunities to explore such questions by bringing together a whole set of new translations by David Shulman, noted scholar of South Asia. The translated selections come from a variety of Indian languages, genres, and periods, from the classical to the contemporary. The translations are accompanied by short essays written to help readers engage and enjoy them. Some of these essays provide background to enhance reading of the translation, whereas others model how to expand appreciation in comparative and broader ways. Together, the translations and the accompanying essays form an essential guide for people interested in literature and art from South Asia.

“The scholarly interpretations and commentary in this volume represent some of the most prominent voices in the philological and historical study of South Asia—a galaxy of experts in literary analysis and other subfields of South Asian cultural history. This volume beautifully illuminates the generative possibilities of the intimate, context-sensitive mode of reading that David Shulman has engaged in for decades.” DAVESH SONEJI, Department of South Asia Studies, University of Pennsylvania

YIGAL BRONNER is Professor in the Department of Asian Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. CHARLES HALLISEY is Yehan Numata Senior Lecturer on Buddhist Literatures at Harvard Divinity School. DAVID SHULMAN is Professor Emeritus at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem."

For further info/ To purchase the book click HERE.

2021
The Limits of Universal Rule: Eurasian Empires Compared
Pines, Yuri, Michal Biran, and Jörg Rüpke. 2021. The Limits of Universal Rule: Eurasian Empires Compared. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Abstract
All major continental empires proclaimed their desire to rule 'the entire world', investing considerable human and material resources in expanding their territory. Each, however, eventually had to stop expansion and come to terms with a shift to defensive strategy. This volume explores the factors that facilitated Eurasian empires' expansion and contraction: from ideology to ecology, economic and military considerations to changing composition of the imperial elites. Built around a common set of questions, a team of leading specialists systematically compare a broad set of Eurasian empires - from Achaemenid Iran, the Romans, Qin and Han China, via the Caliphate, the Byzantines and the Mongols to the Ottomans, Safavids, Mughals, Russians, and Ming and Qing China. The result is a state-of-the art analysis of the major imperial enterprises in Eurasian history from antiquity to the early modern that discerns both commonalities and differences in the empires' spatial trajectories.
First Words, Last Words: New Ways of Reading Old Texts in Sixteenth-Century India
Bronner, Yigal, and Lawrence McCrea. 2021. First Words, Last Words: New Ways of Reading Old Texts in Sixteenth-Century India. New York: Oxford University Press, 2021.Abstract

First Words, Last Words charts an intense "pamphlet war" that took place in sixteenth-century South India. Yigal Bronner and Lawrence McCrea explore this controversy as a case study in the dynamics of innovation in early modern India, a time of great intellectual innovation. This debate took place within the traditional discourses of Vedic Hermeneutics, or Mīmāṃsā, and its increasingly influential sibling discipline of Vedānta, and its proponents among the leading intellectuals and public figures of the period.

Bronner and McCrea examine the nature of theoretical innovation in scholastic traditions by focusing on a specific controversy regarding scriptural interpretation and the role of sequence-what comes first and what follows later-in determining our interpretation of a scriptural passage.
Vyāsatīrtha and his grand-pupil Vijayīndratīrtha, writers belonging to the camp of Dualist Vedānta, purported to uphold the radical view of their founding father, Madhva, who believed, against a long tradition of Mīmāṃsā interpreters, that the closing portion of a scriptural passage should govern the interpretation of its opening. By contrast, the Nondualist Appayya Dīkṣita ostensibly defended his tradition's preference for the opening. But, as this volume shows, the debaters gradually converged on a profoundly novel hermeneutic-cognitive theory in which sequence played little role, if any.

First Words, Last Words traces both the issue of sequence and the question of innovation through an in-depth study of this debate and through a comparative survey of similar problems in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, revealing that the disputants in this controversy often pretended to uphold traditional views, when they were in fact radically innovative.

2020
Korean Translation of Along the Silk Roads in Mongol Eurasia: Generals, Merchants, Intellectuals
Biran, Michal, Jonathan Brack, and Francesca Fiaschetti, eds. 2020. Korean Translation of Along the Silk Roads in Mongol Eurasia: Generals, Merchants, Intellectuals. Berkely: University of California Press.Abstract
During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Chinggis Khan and his heirs established the largest contiguous empire in the history of the world, extending from Korea to Hungary and from Iraq, Tibet, and Burma to Siberia. Ruling over roughly two thirds of the Old World, the Mongol Empire enabled people, ideas, and objects to traverse immense geographical and cultural boundaries. Along the Silk Roads in Mongol Eurasia reveals the individual stories of three key groups of people—military commanders, merchants, and intellectuals—from across Eurasia. These annotated biographies bring to the fore a compelling picture of the Mongol Empire from a wide range of historical sources in multiple languages, providing important insights into a period unique for its rapid and far-reaching transformations.

Read together or separately, they offer the perfect starting point for any discussion of the Mongol Empire’s impact on China, the Muslim world, and the West and illustrate the scale, diversity, and creativity of the cross-cultural exchange along the continental and maritime Silk Roads.
Keywords in Chinese Culture: Thought and Literature
Pines, Yuri, and Wai-yee Li, eds. 2020. Keywords in Chinese Culture: Thought and Literature.Abstract

Like every major culture, Chinese has its set of keywords: pivotal terms of political, ethical, literary, and philosophical discourse. Tracing the origins, development, polysemy, and usages of keywords is one of the best ways to chart cultural and historical changes. This volume analyzes some of these keywords from different disciplinary and temporal perspectives, offering a new integrative study of their semantic richness, development trajectory, and distinct usages in Chinese culture.

The authors of the volume explore different keywords and focus on different periods and genres, ranging from philosophical and historical texts of the Warring States period (453–221 BCE) to late imperial (ca. 16th–18th centuries CE) literature and philosophy. They are guided by a similar set of questions: What elevates a mere word to the status of keyword? What sort of resonance and reverberations do we expect a keyword to have? How much does the semantic range of a keyword explain its significance? What kinds of arguments does it generate? What are the stories told to illustrate its meanings? What are political and intellectual implications of the keyword’s reevaluation? What does it mean to translate a keyword and map its meaning against other languages?

Throughout Chinese history, new ideas and new approaches often mean reinterpreting important words; rupture, continuities, and inflection points are inseparable from the linguistic history of specific terms. The premise of this book is that taking the long view and encompassing different disciplines yield new insights and unexpected connections. The authors, who come from the fields of history, philosophy, and literature, explore keywords in different genres and illuminate their multiple dimensions in various contexts. Moreover, despite their different temporal focus, they take into consideration the development of selected keywords from the Warring States to the late imperial period, sometimes adding excurses that extend to contemporary usage.

Zhou History Unearthed: The Bamboo Manuscript Xinian and Early Chinese Historiography
Pines, Yuri . 2020. Zhou History Unearthed: The Bamboo Manuscript Xinian and Early Chinese Historiography. New York: Columbia University Press.Abstract

There is a stark contrast between the overarching importance of history writing in imperial China and the meagerness of historical texts from the centuries preceding the imperial unification of 221 BCE. However, recently discovered bamboo manuscripts from the Warring States period (453–221 BCE) have changed this picture, leading to reappraisals of early Chinese historiography. These manuscripts shed new light on questions related to the production, circulation, and audience of historical texts in early China; their different political, ritual, and ideological usages; and their roles in the cultural and intellectual dynamics of China’s vibrant pre-imperial age.


Zhou History Unearthed offers both a novel understanding of early Chinese historiography and a fully annotated translation of Xinian (String of Years), the most notable historical manuscript from the state of Chu. Yuri Pines elucidates the importance of Xinian and other recently discovered texts for our understanding of history writing in Zhou China (1046–255 BCE), as well as major historical events and topics such as Chu’s cultural identity. Pines explores how Xinian challenges existing interpretations of the nature and reliability of canonical historical texts on the Zhou era, such as Zuo zhuan (Zuo Tradition/Commentary) and Records of the Historian (Shiji). A major work of scholarship and translation, Zhou History Unearthed sheds new light on early Chinese history and historiography, demonstrating how new archaeological findings are changing our knowledge of China’s pre-imperial days.

2019
Contentious Belonging: The Place of Minorities in Indonesia
Ricci, Ronit, and Greg Fealy, eds. 2019. Contentious Belonging: The Place of Minorities in Indonesia. Cambridge: ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute.
Banishment and Belonging: Exile and Diaspora in Sarandib, Lanka and Ceylon
Ricci, Ronit . 2019. Banishment and Belonging: Exile and Diaspora in Sarandib, Lanka and Ceylon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Abstract
Lanka, Ceylon, Sarandib: merely three disparate names for a single island? Perhaps. Yet the three diverge in the historical echoes, literary cultures, maps and memories they evoke. Names that have intersected and overlapped - in a treatise, a poem, a document - only to go their own ways. But despite different trajectories, all three are tied to narratives of banishment and exile. Ronit Ricci suggests that the island served as a concrete exilic site as well as a metaphor for imagining exile across religions, languages, space and time: Sarandib, where Adam was banished from Paradise; Lanka, where Sita languished in captivity; and Ceylon, faraway island of exile for Indonesian royalty under colonialism. Utilising Malay manuscripts and documents from Sri Lanka, Javanese chronicles, and Dutch and British sources, Ricci explores histories and imaginings of displacement related to the island through a study of the Sri Lankan Malays and their connections to an exilic past.
Biran, Michal et al. 2019. Animals and Human Society in Asia: Historical, Cultural and Ethical Perspectives. London: Palgrave Macmillan.Abstract
This book offers a comprehensive overview of the different aspects of human-animal interactions in Asia throughout history. With twelve thematically-arranged chapters, it examines the diverse roles that beasts, livestock, and fish ― real and metaphorical--have played in Asian history, society, and culture.
Ranging from prehistory to the present day, the authors address a wealth of topics including the domestication of animals, dietary practices and sacrifice, hunting, the use of animals in war, and the representation of animals in literature and art. Providing a unique perspective on human interaction with the environment, this volume is cross-disciplinary in its reach, offering enriching insights to the fields of animal ethics, Asian studies, world history and more.
An Eye to India
Bronner, Yigal, and David Shulman. 2019. An Eye to India. Jerusalem, Israel: Magnes and Yediot Sfarim.Abstract

For the first time in Hebrew, "An Eye to India" presents a thorough introduction to the history and culture of the Indian sub-continent, from its prehistorical origins to the 21st century. 

For further info/ To purchase the book click HERE.

Yang., Shang . 2019. The Book of Lord Shang: Apologetics of State Power in Early China. ed. Edited Yuri and translated by Pines. New York: Columbia University Press.Abstract

Compiled in China in the fourth–third centuries B.C.E., The Book of Lord Shang argues for a new powerful government to penetrate society and turn every man into a diligent tiller and valiant soldier. Creating a "rich state and a strong army" will be the first step toward unification of "All-under-Heaven." These ideas served the state of Qin that eventually created the first imperial polity on Chinese soil. In this new translation, The Book of Lord Shang's intellectual boldness and surprisingly modern-looking ideas shine through, underscoring the text's vibrant contribution to global political thought.

The Book of Lord Shang is attributed to the political theorist Shang Yang and his followers. It epitomizes the ideology of China's so-called Legalist School of thought. In the ninety years since the work's previous translation, major breakthroughs in studies of the book's dating and context have recast our understanding of its messages. This edition applies these advances to a whole new reading of the text's content and function in the sociopolitical life of its times and subsequent centuries. This fully annotated translation is ideal for newcomers to the book while also guiding early Chinese scholars and comparatists in placing the work within a timeline of influence. It highlights the text's practical success and its impact on the political thought and political practice in traditional and modern China.

 

2016
Children in China (China Today)
Naftali, Orna . 2016. Children in China (China Today). Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.Abstract
Chinese childhood is undergoing a major transformation. This book explores how government policies introduced in China over the last few decades and processes of social and economic change are reshaping the lives of children and the meanings of childhood in complex, contradictory ways.

Drawing on a broad range of literature and original ethnographic research, Naftali explores the rise of new ideas of child-care, child-vulnerability and child-agency; the impact of the One-Child Policy; and the emergence of children as independent consumers in the new market economy. She shows that Chinese boys and increasingly girls, too are enjoying a new empowerment, a development that has met with ambiguity and resistance from both caregivers and the state. She also demonstrates how economic restructuring and the recent waves of rural/urban migration have produced starkly unequal conditions for children’s education and development both in the countryside and in the cities.

Children in China is essential reading for students and scholars seeking a deeper understanding of what it means to be a child in contemporary China, as well as for those concerned with the changing relationship between children, the state and the family in the global era.
2015
The Archaeology of Early China
Shelach-Lavi, Gideon . 2015. The Archaeology of Early China. Cambridge University Press.Abstract

This volume aims to satisfy a pressing need for an updated account of Chinese archaeology. It covers an extended time period from the earliest peopling of China to the unification of the Chinese Empire some two thousand years ago. The geographical coverage includes the traditional focus on the Yellow River basin but also covers China's many other regions. Among the topics covered are the emergence of agricultural communities; the establishment of a sedentary way of life; the development of sociopolitical complexity; advances in lithic technology, ceramics, and metallurgy; and the appearance of writing, large-scale public works, cities, and states. Particular emphasis is placed on the great cultural variations that existed among the different regions and the development of interregional contacts among those societies.

Ideology of Power and Power of Ideology in Early China
Pines, Yuri, Paul R. Goldin, and Martin Kern, eds. 2015. Ideology of Power and Power of Ideology in Early China. Bilingual Edition. Leiden: Brill Academic Pub.Abstract

Ideology of Power and Power of Ideology in Early China explores ancient Chinese political thought during the centuries surrounding the formation of the empire in 221 BCE. The individual chapters examine the ideology and practices of legitimation, views of rulership, conceptualizations of ruler-minister relations, economic thought, and the bureaucratic administration of commoners.

The contributors analyze the formation of power relations from various angles, ranging from artistic expression to religious ideas, political rhetoric, and administrative action. They demonstrate the interrelatedness of historiography and political ideology and show how the same text served both to strengthen the ruler’s authority and moderate his excesses. Together, the chapters highlight the immense complexity of ancient Chinese
political thought, and the deep tensions running within it.

2014
Pines, Yuri et al., eds. 2014. Birth of an Empire: The State of Qin revisited (New Perspectives on Chinese Culture and Society). Berkeley: University of California Press.Abstract
In 221 BCE the state of Qin vanquished its rivals and established the first empire on Chinese soil, starting a millennium-long imperial age in Chinese history. Hailed by some and maligned by many, Qin has long been an enigma. In this pathbreaking study, the authors integrate textual sources with newly available archeological and paleographic materials, providing a boldly novel picture of Qin’s cultural and political trajectory, its evolving institutions and its religion, its place in China’s history, and the reasons for its success and for its ultimate collapse.
Children, Rights and Modernity in China: Raising Self-Governing Citizens
Naftali, Orna . 2014. Children, Rights and Modernity in China: Raising Self-Governing Citizens. Palgrave Macmillan.Abstract

A timely, original study of the emergence of a new type of thinking about children and their rights in contemporary urban China, which draws on diverse evidence from Chinese government, academic, media, and pedagogic publications, as well as on participant observation and interviews in two primary schools and among elite and middle class families in Shanghai, China. Drawing on rich, ethnographic data, this book debunks many popular and scholarly stereotypes about the predominance of Confucian ideas of parental authority in China or about the indifference to individual human rights in the political and public culture of the PRC. This book also recognizes the complexities and conflicts that exist in Chinese discourses about and practices toward children, as older ideas of filiality, neoliberal ideologies, and the new awareness of children's right to privacy, to expressing their views, and to protection against violence compete and collude in complicated, often contradictory ways.

Innovations and Turning Points: Toward a History of Kavya Literature
Bronner, Yigal, David Shulman, and Gary Tubb. 2014. Innovations and Turning Points: Toward a History of Kavya Literature. 1st ed. New Delhi, India: Oxford University Press.
Israel's Foreign Relations: Selected Documents, - Primary Source Edition
Medzini, Meron . 2014. Israel's Foreign Relations: Selected Documents, - Primary Source Edition. Nabu Press.
Japan's Multilayered Democracy
Ben-Rafael Galanti, Sigal, Nissim Kadosh Otmazgin, and Alon Levkowitz. 2014. Japan's Multilayered Democracy. Lanham: Lexington Books.