Search

A Sense of Place and Belonging examines a marginalized society, Chiang Tung (Keng Tung) in the Eastern Shan State of Myanmar, between the dominant cultures of the Burmese, Chinese, and Siamese/Thai. Chiang Tung sits at the historic borderland known as the Golden Triangle, an area marked by drug trade, human trafficking, and civil war. Hiding a glorious literary and visual cultural tradition from the fourteenth century, Chiang Tung is remarkable for how well it has maintained its Buddhist culture in the turbulent history of war and forced resettlement that formed northern Southeast Asia. Klemens Karlsson examines the connection between the Buddhist traditions, the ancient cult of territory spirits—a cult of the earth, place, and village that forms a kind of religious map—and the monsoon culture of wet rice irrigation. Tying together myths and memories told by local people and written in local chronicles with the unique performance of the Songkran festival, which dramatizes a symbolic agreement between Tai Khuen people and the indigenous Lua/Lawa people, A Sense of Place and Belonging presents a historical, political, religious, and cultural context connecting the present with the past, the local with the global, and tradition with change and transformation.

Myanmar's generals didn't expect the nation to rise up against the coup they staged in February 2021. But after decades of stifling, direct military rule, the Burmese people had become used to another way of life during the relative openness of 2011-21. The army has been unable to suppress anti-coup protests as it did in 1962 and 1988; and, three years after sending tanks into Yangon, Naypyitaw and other cities, the army has yet to establish a functioning administration. For the first time since the 1970s, armed resistance is not confined to traditionally strife-torn frontier areas, where ethnic insurgents like the Karen National Union and Kachin Independence Army have been active for decades--it has spread to the majority-Burmese heartland, in the shape of the People's Defence Forces. But the anti-junta forces are insufficiently well-equipped to defeat the much more heavily armed Myanmar army, which itself is stretched too thin, on several fronts, to crush the resistance. And, despite foreign observers'assurances, there is no unity, common command or synchronized strategy among the various ethnic-minority and ethnic-Burmese resistance groups. This is a war that neither side can win. Caught in the middle, and bound to suffer most, are civilians.

This work examines the development of the Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces as a national institution; explores the historical origins of the political warfare system; and assesses that system's nurturing of military morale, popular support, and ways to weaken enemy resolve. North Vietnam in the 1940s and South Vietnam in the 1960s embraced the system of political control over the military that was developed in Soviet Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution and in Republican China in the 1920s where it influenced both the Nationalist and Communist movements. The book discusses the overall effectiveness of political warfare activities in the Republic of Vietnam's army, the advice and support offered by the U.S. military to the South Vietnamese political warfare establishment, and the consequences of the war's end for the members of the Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces who served in the political warfare system.

It's the end of April, 1975.Saigon is about to fall, as the situation goes from severely bad to completely fucked-up.The Snake is faced with a difficult decision: he can fade into the noise of history, slowly obscured by the haze and comfort of innocent love. Or he can follow his instincts into the violent depths of human nature, along a transnational path of conflict paved by drugs and weapons smugglers, from the ricefields of Vietnam to the jungles of El Salvador and Nicaragua. Hardly a choice. Power & Snake explores the implausible and yet highly probable story of how The Snake has found himself in this situation - and what he does about it. Using the historical events we are aware of as stepping stones in the dangerous swamps of twentieth century conflicts, The Snake brings the reader into the heart of darkness and shows us how to both respect and laugh at the creatures that call it their home.

The 12th edition of International Management: Culture, Strategy, and Behavior takes a user-friendly, well-balanced approach in covering all the critical dimensions and the interdependencies between them. This edition covers environment and OB/HRM over three chapters each, along with Culture and Strategy getting their own four chapters. The text also emphasizes a balance of research and application. The 12th edition has been updated to reflect how the COVID-19 pandemic has challenged the fundamental assumptions about how international business is conducted. The authors also incorporated coverage of emerging markets that are facing a high level of stress and how the development of new technology, such as artificial intelligence and robotics, will result in fundamental changes to the global job market. This edition also marks the addition of a new author, Ajai Gaur, a Professor of Strategy and International Business at Rutgers University. Ajai brings subject expertise in global business strategy, emerging markets, institutions, and a range of other topics. He also has deep ties and links to East and South Asia and helps to further'globalize'the book.

Stalemate reveals the history and contemporary politics of the United Wa State Army (UWSA), Asia's strongest insurgent army on Myanmar's border with China. This ethnographic tale recounts how a highland group, often dismissed as rebels or narcotraffickers, maintains a relational autonomy between two powerful lowland states. The Wa polity engages rather than evades these surrounding states, yet struggles to fit into their registers of sovereignty and statehood. Andrew Ong examines political culture among Wa elites and people, UWSA external relations, and capital flows with neighboring China, showing how Wa autonomy is enacted through careful navigation of complex borderland geopolitics and the shadow economy. He analyzes the seeming stalemate between the Myanmar state and the UWSA as one of tactical dissonance—adopting simultaneous postures of authority and subordination and creating disruptions and connections. Stalemate illuminates how seemingly ambiguous and disorderly practices of political signaling, economic regulation, and military governance produce relative stability, challenging our assumptions about state-like processes at the peripheries.

Khmer Nationalist is a political history of Cambodia from World War II until 1975, examining the central role of Sõn Ngọc Thành. It is a story of nationalistic independence movements, political intrigue, coup attempts, war, and American intelligence. The rise of Cambodian nationalism, the brief period of Japanese dominance, the fight for independence from France, and the establishment of ties with the United States that kept Sihanouk on edge until his downfall—in all of these, as Matthew Jagel shows, Thành was fundamental.Khmer Nationalist reveals how Cambodian nationalism grew during the twilight of French colonialism and faced new geopolitical challenges during the Cold War. Thành's story brings greater understanding to the end of French colonialism in Cambodia, nationalism in post-colonial societies, Cold War realities for countries caught between competing powers, and how the United States responded while the Vietnam War intensified.