A Faustian Foreign Policy from Woodrow Wilson to George W. Bush critiques U.S. foreign policy during this period by showing how moralistic diplomacy has increasingly assumed Faustian overtones, especially during the Cold War and following September 11. The ideological components of American diplomacy, originating in the late 18th and 19th centuries, evolved through the 20th century as U.S. econ…
This rich dynastic study examines the political histories of Iran's last two monarchical dynasties, the Qajars and the Pahlavis. Tracing the rise and fall of both dynasties, Mehran Kamrava addresses essential questions about how and why they rose to power; what domestic and international forces impacted them; how they ruled; and how they met their end. Exploring over two hundred years of politi…
A brilliant linguist, Sir Ernest Satow (1843–1929) was recruited into the British consular service as a student interpreter in 1861. The following year he arrived in Japan, where he witnessed the overthrow of the Tokugawa Shogunate and the Meiji restoration of imperial rule. Drafted in the 1880s while he was consul-general in Bangkok, this 1921 account is based on the voluminous diaries Satow…
An honorary professor of Sanskrit and Hindu law at Fort William College in Calcutta, and a key figure in the foundation of the Royal Asiatic Society, Henry Thomas Colebrooke (1765–1837) became Britain's foremost orientalist during the early nineteenth century. Taking up the reins of Sanskrit scholarship following the death of Sir William Jones (1746–94), Colebrooke made several substantial …
Johan Ludwig Krapf (1810–81), a German-born member of the Church Missionary Society in East Africa, is regarded as the founder of Swahili studies in Europe. Having pursued an interest in Oriental culture from an early age, he first went to Abyssinia (Ethiopia) as a missionary. During his travels in Africa, he became the first European to see Mount Kenya; but he also considered the potential o…
Published in 1801, this work is largely based on the first Malay–English dictionary, published 100 years earlier by Thomas Bowrey. A member of the Asiatic Society, although not recognised as a Malay scholar, James Howison seems to have lent his name to this version, produced in order to fill the gap caused by the scarcity of copies of the earlier dictionary. Since the British East India Compa…
Marathi, an official language of Maharashtra and Goa, is among the twenty most widely spoken languages in the world. The southernmost Indo-Aryan language, it is also spoken in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, and Daman and Diu, and is believed to be over 1,300 years old, with its origins in Sanskrit. First published in 1810, this dictionary of Marathi (then known as Mahratta) was compiled by…
This is the 1826 edition of the Burmese–English dictionary compiled from a grammar and other manuscripts written by the American Baptist missionary Adoniram Judson (1788–1850), with additional content by fellow missionaries Felix Carey and James Coleman. Prepared by the Baptist Mission Press while Judson was imprisoned on suspicion of spying in Ava, it is the fruit of his work towards makin…
The language of Bangladesh, West Bengal and parts of Tripura and Assam, Bengali is the sixth most spoken language in the world. A member of the Indo-Aryan family, with its origins in Sanskrit, it has over 230 million speakers. Published in 1825, this is the third volume of a revised three-part dictionary of Bengali, compiled by the Baptist missionary William Carey (1761–1834) during his time …
The language of Bangladesh, West Bengal and parts of Tripura and Assam, Bengali is the sixth most spoken language in the world. A member of the Indo-Aryan family, with its origins in Sanskrit, it has over 230 million speakers. Published in 1825, this is the first volume of a revised three-part dictionary of Bengali, compiled by the Baptist missionary William Carey (1761–1834) during his time …