This book, first published in 1960 and revised in 1986, is an important analysis of the under-studied Northern frontier of the British Indian Empire. It considers British relations across the Himalayas, looking at encounters with Bhutan, Sikkim, Nepal and Tibet.
This is the first book of its kind to draw together information on the major events in Russian history from 1695 to 1917 - covering the eventful period from the accession of Peter the Great to the fall of Nicholas II. Not only is a vast amount of material on key events and topics brought together, but the book also contains fascinating background material to convey the reality of life in the period.
The Compendium of World Sovereigns series contains three volumes: Ancient, Medieval, and Early Modern. These volumes provide students with easy-to-access ‘who’s who’ with details on the identities and dates, ages and wives, where known, of heads of government in any given state at any time within the framework of reference. The relevant original and secondary sources are also listed in a comprehensive bibliography. Providing a clear reference guide for students, to who was who and when they ruled in the dynasties and other ruler-lists for the Ancient, Medieval, and Early Modern worlds – primarily European and Middle Eastern but including available information on Africa and Asia and the pre-Columbian Americas. The trilogy accesses and interprets the original data plus any modern controversies and disputes over names and dating, reflecting on the shifts and widening of focus in student and academic studies. Each volume contains league tables of rulers’ ‘records’, and an extensive bibliographical guide to the relevant personnel and dynasties, plus any controversies, so readers can consult these for extra details and know exactly where to go for which information. All relevant information is collected and provided as a one-stop-shop for students wishing to check the known information about a world Sovereign. The Early Modern volume begins with Eastern and Western Europe and moves through the Ottoman Empire, South and East Asia, Africa, and ends in Central and South America. Compendium of World Sovereigns: Volume III Early Modern provides students and scholars with the perfect reference guide to support their studies and to fact check dates, people, and places.
This book is a historical reinterpretation of the Cold War in the broadest sense from the viewpoint of the late 1980s. Dukes contends that the rivalry of the USA and Soviet Union, like the Great Game between Britain and Imperial Russia, can be understood only by analysing their relationship over centuries. He adopts the explanatory model of French historian Fernand Braudel - the concepts of event, conjuncture and structure – and examines the super-power relationship in an historical context stretching back to the medieval period. He argues that the political and cultural gaps between Western and Soviet approaches at key events have stemmed from widely different experiences of these events, as well as from long-embedded traditions.
Inner Asia - in premodern times the little-known land of nomads and semi-nomads - has moved to the world's front page in the 20th century as the complex struggles for the future of Afghanistan, Soviet Central Asia, Tibet and other territories make clear. But because Inner Asia as a whole is divided among several states politically and among area specialists academically, broad perspectives on recent events are difficult to find. This work treats the region as a single unit, providing both an account of the region's past and an analysis of its present and its prospects in a thematic, rather than a strictly country-by-country manner.
The Joint Afghan Boundary Commission - an Anglo-Russian venture whose task it was to delineate the frontier between Northern Afghanistan and Russia’s Central Asian territories, scientifically and permanently, thus replacing the 1873 line drawn from vague and inaccurate maps - was to rendezvous at Sarakhs, on the modern border of Iran and Turkmenistan, in October 1884. Presented as a series of letters written at different times from the commission, and published in connected form, Yate’s Northern Afghanistan describes in detail the year-long progress of the commission. Included are valuable notes on Herat and its extant buildings, before the strategic destruction of a number of these for defensive purposes, together with descriptions of Mazar-i-Sharif, the Oxus, and the Hindu Kush mountains. This is a fascinating, first-hand account of Afghanistan’s political demarcation - many features of which, such as the Wakhan Corridor, remain with us today - and of travel through an area whose potential for destability persists to the present day. This edition maintains all the material from the original 1888 edition, including the plan of Balkh. Only the maps have been reduced in scale.
This book provides a unique insight into the Russian explorers and officials in the nineteenth and early twentieth century who came into contact with Iran as a part of the Great Game.