Author: John Holt
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 0822349825
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 791
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Book Description
Fifty-four images and more than ninety classic and contemporary texts introduce Sri Lankas recorded history of more than two and a half millennia.
Author: K M de Silva
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 9351182398
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 666
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Book Description
Sri Lanka is an ancient civilization, shaped and thrust into the modern globalizing world by its colonial experience. With its own unique problems, many of them historical legacies, it is a nation trying to maintain a democratic, pluralistic state structure while struggling to come to terms with separatist aspirations. This is a complex story, and there is perhaps no better person to present it in reasoned, scholarly terms than K.M. de Silva, Sri Lanka’s most distinguished and prolific historian. A History of Sri Lanka, first published in 1981, has established itself as the standard work on the subject. This fully revised edition, in light of the most recent research, brings the story right up to the early years of the twenty-first century. The book provides comprehensive coverage of all aspects of Sri Lanka’s development—from a classical Buddhist society and irrigation economy, to its emergence as a tropical colony producing some of the world’s most important cash crops, such as cinnamon, tea, rubber and coconut, and finally as an Asian democracy. It is a study of the political vicissitudes of Sri Lanka’s ancient civilization and the successive phases of Portuguese, Dutch and British colonial rule. The unfortunate consequences of becoming a centre of ethnic tension and Sri Lanka’s long-standing relationship with India are also discussed. Exhaustively researched and analytical, this book is an invaluable reference source for students of ancient, colonial and post-colonial societies, ethnic conflict and democratic transitions, as well as for all those who simply want to get a feel of the rich and varied texture of Sri Lanka’s long history.
Author: John Holt
Publisher:
ISBN: 0195107578
Category : Buddhism
Languages : en
Pages : 188
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Book Description
This inderdisciplinary inquiry seeks to uncover how Buddhism was expressed during the waning years of indigenous political power in Asia's oldest continuing Buddhist culture. It focuses on King Kirti Sri Rajasinha and how he successfully revised Sinhalese Theravada Buddhism.
Author: Jonathan Spencer
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134949790
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 262
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Book Description
In the past decade, Sri Lanka has been engulfed by political tragedy as successive governments have failed to settle the grievances of the Tamil minority in a way acceptable to the majority Sinhala population. The new Premadasa presidency faces huge economic and political problems with large sections of the island under the control of the Indian Peace-Keeping Force (IPKF) and militant separatist Tamil groups operating in the north and south. This book is not a conventional political history of Sri Lanka. Instead, it attempts to shed fresh light on the historical roots of the ethnic crisis and uses a combination of historical and anthropologial evidence to challenge the widely-held belief that the conflict in Sri Lanka is simply the continuation of centuries of animosity between the Sinhalese and the Tamils. The authors show how modern ethnic identities have been made and re-made since the colonial period with the war between Tamils and the Sinhala-dominant government accompanied by rhetorical wars over archeological sites and place-name etymologies, and the political use of the national past. The book is also one of the first attempts to focus on local perceptions of the crisis and draws on a broad range of sources, from village fieldwork to newspaper controversies. Its interest extends beyond contemporary politics to history, anthropology and development studies.
Author: Patrick Peebles
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313024715
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 247
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Book Description
Sri Lanka—an island nation located in the Indian Ocean— has a population of approximately 19 million. Despite its diminuative size, however, Sri Lanka has a long and complex history. The diversity of its people has led to ethnic, religious, and political conflicts that continue to exist. Peebles describes the experiences of the country, from its earliest settlers, to civil war, to its current state, allowing readers to better understand this often misunderstood country. With an emphasis on the 20th century, chapters discuss the economy, religion, culture, and government of Sri Lanka. A timeline outlines key events in Sri Lankan history, as well as biographies of notable people, and a bibliographic essay.
Author: Cherry Briggs
Publisher: Summersdale
ISBN: 085765926X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 291
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Book Description
The Teardrop Island follows in the footsteps of the eccentric Victorian James Emerson Tennent, along a route which takes Cherry to pilgrimage trails, tea estates, and rural regions inhabited by indigenous tribes, and through areas of the former warzone, delving under the surface of the contemporary culture via cricket matches and fortune tellers.
Author: Charles A. Gunawardena
Publisher: Sterling Publishers Pvt. Ltd
ISBN: 9781932705485
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 432
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Book Description
Over 1,100 alphabetically arranged entries examine the history, geography, people, government, economy, art, and religions of Sri Lanka.
Author: William McGowan
Publisher: Trans-Atlantic Publications
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 424
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Book Description
A journalist's account of his extensive travels in Sri Lanka and portrayal of the Sri Lankans who carry on in the midst of conflict and strife between warring factions of Sinhalese Buddhists and Tamils.
Author: Mark Salter
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 1849045747
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 566
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Book Description
A fascinating inside look at what it takes to bring irreconcilable foes to the conference table and the pressures of brokering peace in an ethnically riven society at war with itself
Author: Adele Marie Barker
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 0822346486
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 793
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Book Description
An introduction to the history, culture, and politics of the worlds largest country, from the earliest written accounts of the Russian people to today.
