Pakistan

Pakistan PDF Author: Pippa Virdee
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198847076
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 169

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Book Description
The history of Pakistan, created as a new nation state in 1947, placing it in the context of the region's four-thousand-year-old pre-colonial heritage. Also focus on Pakistan's religion and society, the state and the military, popular culture, language and literature, as well as its relationship with the rest of the world

Pakistan

Pakistan PDF Author: Pippa Virdee
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198847076
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 169

Get Book

Book Description
The history of Pakistan, created as a new nation state in 1947, placing it in the context of the region's four-thousand-year-old pre-colonial heritage. Also focus on Pakistan's religion and society, the state and the military, popular culture, language and literature, as well as its relationship with the rest of the world

Pakistan: A Very Short Introduction

Pakistan: A Very Short Introduction PDF Author: Pippa Virdee
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192586394
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 169

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Book Description
What is Pakistan? The name refers to a seventy-year-old post-colonial product of the bloodiest partition of territory and population that accompanied the end of British empire in South Asia. But the region of the Indus Valley has a four-thousand-year-old history, and was the site of one of the earliest and greatest riverine civilisations in the world. Although the modern nation of Pakistan as we know it was created as a homeland for the Muslims of British India, it is impossible to understand the complex tapestry of linguistic, ethnic, and cultural identities and tensions of the region without tracing its deep past. This Very Short Introduction looks at Pakistan as one of the two nation-states of the Indian sub-continent that emerged in 1947. Pippa Virdee reaches into the ancient past to demonstrate the influence of trajectories of human settlement and civilisation on Pakistan's contemporary political arena, and shows how the longer continuities between the land and its peoples are as important as the short-term changes in the political landscape. She considers Pakistan's religion and society, the state and the military, everyday life, popular culture, languages and literature, as well as Pakistan's relationship with the rest of the world. Virdee also looks to the challenges of the 21st century and the future of Pakistan. Very Short Introductions: Brilliant, Sharp, Inspiring ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

The Sovereign Lives of India and Pakistan

The Sovereign Lives of India and Pakistan PDF Author: Atul Mishra
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190993073
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 358

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Book Description
The Sovereign Lives of India and Pakistan explores what it has meant for the two countries to act as sovereign states entangled at birth by an unsatisfactory partition. Sovereignty is conventionally understood as a means to achieve the goals that states set for themselves. This book argues that for India and Pakistan, sovereignty has become an end in itself, and that its pursuit has aided majoritarianism, insecurity, and mutual estrangement. It examines the trajectory of three problems that the partition of 1947 bequeathed to the two states. It investigates the state–minority relations, national identity debates, and contestation over Kashmir to outline the parallel processes of minoritization, homogenization, and territorialization. It shows how these processes signify the two states' quest for sovereignty. The scholarship on India and Pakistan often privileges their bilateral relations. In contrast, the author carries out the deeper task of a single-frame analysis and critique of their intertwined statehoods. Ultimately, the book shows the inadequacy of the nation-state form as the basis for political community in the subcontinent. It concludes by pointing to the contemporary relevance of alternative ideas of sovereignty and political community in South Asia that were articulated during the first half of the 20th century.

Modern Art: A Very Short Introduction

Modern Art: A Very Short Introduction PDF Author: David Cottington
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191577820
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 169

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Book Description
As public interest in modern art continues to grow, as witnessed by the spectacular success of Tate Modern and the Bilbao Guggenheim, there is a real need for a book that will engage general readers, offering them not only information and ideas about modern art, but also explaining its contemporary relevance and history. This book achieves all this and focuses on interrogating the idea of 'modern' art by asking such questions as: What has made a work of art qualify as modern (or fail to)? How has this selection been made? What is the relationship between modern and contemporary art? Is 'postmodernist' art no longer modern, or just no longer modernist - in either case, why, and what does this claim mean, both for art and the idea of 'the modern'? Cottington examines many key aspects of this subject, including the issue of controversy in modern art, from Manet's Dejeuner sur L'Herbe (1863) to Picasso's Les Demoiselles, and Tracey Emin's Bed, (1999); and the role of the dealer from the main Cubist art dealer Kahnweiler to Charles Saatchi. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Pakistan

Pakistan PDF Author: Anatol Lieven
Publisher: PublicAffairs
ISBN: 1610391624
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 608

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Book Description
In the past decade Pakistan has become a country of immense importance to its region, the United States, and the world. With almost 200 million people, a 500,000-man army, nuclear weapons, and a large diaspora in Britain and North America, Pakistan is central to the hopes of jihadis and the fears of their enemies. Yet the greatest short-term threat to Pakistan is not Islamist insurgency as such, but the actions of the United States, and the greatest longterm threat is ecological change. Anatol Lieven's book is a magisterial investigation of this highly complex and often poorly understood country. Engagingly written, combining history and profound analysis with reportage from Lieven's extensive travels as a journalist and academic, Pakistan: A Hard Country is both utterly compelling and deeply revealing.

The Cold War: a Very Short Introduction

The Cold War: a Very Short Introduction PDF Author: Robert J. McMahon
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0198859546
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 201

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Book Description
Vividly written and based on up-to-date scholarship, this title provides an interpretive overview of the international history of the Cold War.

Borders

Borders PDF Author: Alexander C. Diener
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197549608
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 169

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Book Description
This second edition of Borders: A Very Short Introduction challenges the perception of borders as passive lines on a map, revealing them instead to be integral forces in the economic, social, political, and environmental processes that shape our lives.

Fighting to the End

Fighting to the End PDF Author: C. Christine Fair
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199892709
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
The Pakistan Army is poised for perpetual conflict with India which it cannot win militarily or politically. What explains Pakistan's persistent revisionism despite increasing costs and decreasing likelihood of success? This book argues that an understanding of the army's strategic culture explains its willingness to fight to the end

The Silk Road: A Very Short Introduction

The Silk Road: A Very Short Introduction PDF Author: James A. Millward
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199323852
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 168

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Book Description
The phrase "silk road" evokes vivid scenes of merchants leading camel caravans across vast stretches to trade exotic goods in glittering Oriental bazaars, of pilgrims braving bandits and frozen mountain passes to spread their faith across Asia. Looking at the reality behind these images, this Very Short Introduction illuminates the historical background against which the silk road flourished, shedding light on the importance of old-world cultural exchange to Eurasian and world history. On the one hand, historian James A. Millward treats the silk road broadly, to stand in for the cross-cultural communication between peoples across the Eurasian continent since at least the Neolithic era. On the other, he highlights specific examples of goods and ideas exchanged between the Mediterranean, Persia, India, and China, along with the significance of these exchanges. While including silks, spices, and travelers' tales of colorful locales, the book explains the dynamics of Central Eurasian history that promoted Silk Road interactions--especially the role of nomad empires--highlighting the importance of the biological, technological, artistic, intellectual, and religious interchanges across the continent. Millward shows that these exchanges had a profound effect on the old world that was akin to, if not on the scale of, modern globalization. He also disputes the idea that the silk road declined after the collapse of the Mongol empire or the opening of direct sea routes from Europe to Asia, showing how silk road phenomena continued through the early modern and modern expansion of the Russian and Chinese states across Central Asia. Millward concludes that the idea of the silk road has remained powerful, not only as a popular name for boutiques and restaurants, but also in modern politics and diplomacy, such as U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton's "Silk Road Initiative" for India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.

Plague: A Very Short Introduction

Plague: A Very Short Introduction PDF Author: Paul Slack
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191623962
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 161

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Book Description
Throughout history plague has been the cause of many major catastrophes. It was responsible for the Black Death of 1348 and the Great Plague of London in 1665, and for devastating epidemics much earlier and much later, in the Mediterranean in the sixth century, and in China and India between the 1890s and 1920s. Today, it has become a metaphor for other epidemic disasters which appear to threaten us, but plague itself has never been eradicated. In this Very Short Introduction, Paul Slack explores the historical impact of plague over the centuries, looking at the ways in which it has been interpreted, and the powerful images it has left behind in art and literature. Examining what plague meant for those who suffered from it, and how governments began to fight against it, he demonstrates the impact plague has had on modern notions of public health and how it has shaped our history. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.