In 1995, the People’s Republic of China resurrected a Qing-era law mandating that the reincarnations of prominent Tibetan Buddhist monks be identified by drawing lots from a golden urn. The Chinese Communist Party hoped to limit the ability of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government-in-exile to independently identify reincarnations. In so doing, they elevated a long-forgotten ceremony into a controversial symbol of Chinese sovereignty in Tibet. In Forging the Golden Urn, Max Oidtmann ventures into the polyglot world of the Qing empire in search of the origins of the golden urn tradition. He seeks to understand the relationship between the Qing state and its most powerful partner in Inner Asia—the Geluk school of Tibetan Buddhism. Why did the Qianlong emperor invent the golden urn lottery in 1792? What ability did the Qing state have to alter Tibetan religious and political traditions? What did this law mean to Qing rulers, their advisors, and Tibetan Buddhists? Working with both the Manchu-language archives of the empire’s colonial bureaucracy and the chronicles of Tibetan elites, Oidtmann traces how a Chinese bureaucratic technology—a lottery for assigning administrative posts—was exported to the Tibetan and Mongolian regions of the Qing empire and transformed into a ritual for identifying and authenticating reincarnations. Forging the Golden Urn sheds new light on how the empire’s frontier officers grappled with matters of sovereignty, faith, and law and reveals the role that Tibetan elites played in the production of new religious traditions in the context of Qing rule.

The greatest economic challenge facing China in the post-Deng era is the reform of unprofitable, state-owned enterprises (SOEs) which threaten to drag down the rest of the economy. Despite an array of well-intentioned, market-oriented reform measures, these firms have never truly been forced to face the pressure of a bottom line, or the threat of bankruptcy. Forging Reform in China explains how and why these measures have not been sweepingly successful to date, and what it would take to achieve meaningful reform. The author investigates firm-level processes, including case studies of China's steel industry giants, revealing institutional and systemic barriers to market-oriented performance. This book makes a compelling argument that private ownership cannot work in China's current system until governance over complex economic factors has been established, that is, until credit is tightened and market selection processes made to work.

Democracy in Europe has been a recent phenomenon. Only in the wake of World War II were democratic frameworks secured, and, even then, it was decades before democracy truly blanketed the continent. Neither given nor granted, democracy requires conflict, often violent confrontations, and challenges to the established political order. In Europe, Geoff Eley convincingly shows, democracy did not evolve organically out of a natural consensus, the achievement of prosperity, or the negative cement of the Cold War. Rather, it was painstakingly crafted, continually expanded, and doggedly defended by varying constellations of socialist, feminist, Communist, and other radical movements that originally blossomed in the later nineteenth century. Parties of the Left championed democracy in the revolutionary crisis after World War I, salvaged it against the threat of fascism, and renewed its growth after 1945. They organized civil societies rooted in egalitarian ideals which came to form the very fiber of Europe's current democratic traditions. The trajectories of European democracy and the history of the European Left are thus inextricably bound together. Geoff Eley has given us the first truly comprehensive history of the European Left--its successes and failures; its high watermarks and its low tides; its accomplishments, insufficiencies, and excesses; and, most importantly, its formative, lasting influence on the European political landscape. At a time when the Left's influence and legitimacy are frequently called into question, Forging Democracy passionately upholds its vital contribution.

The decade 2004-14- when the two United Progressive Alliance (UPA) governments, led by prime minister Manmohan Singh, were in office- was a remarkable milestone in the history of India's diplomacy. The period saw a significant transformation in the way India deals with the external world. Under the quiet and active leadership of prime minister Manmohan Singh, India established important strategic partnerships, managed key security challenges, carved out a position of influence in core domains of global governance, and fostered the economic development and socio-political stability of its neighbourhood. The ten years of UPA rule has been a crucial passage in the evolution of India's foreign policy, and yet this period has been-until now-curiously understudied. This book bridges this puzzling gap in the literature. In this book, seventeen eminent scholars of international relations, drawn from leading universities around the world, examine and debate India's diplomacy during this period. This is the first comprehensive assessment of the transformations brought by the UPA governments in India's foreign policy. It offers a wide-ranging analysis of India's bilateral relations and engagements with important geographic regions, as well as insight into India's diplomacy on major issue areas such as international trade, nuclear policy, maritime security, energy, and UN Security Council reform.

From Mexico to Vietnam, from Nicaragua to Lebanon, and more recently to Kosovo, East Timor and now Iraq, the United States has intervened in the affairs of other nations. Yet American leaders continue to promote the myth that America is benevolent and peace-loving, and involves itself in conflicts only to defend the rights of others; excesses and cruelties, though sometimes admitted, usually are regarded as momentary aberrations.This classic book is the first truly comprehensive history of American imperialism. Now fully updated, and featuring a new introduction by Howard Zinn, it is a must-read for all students and scholars of American history. Renowned author Sidney Lens shows how the United States, from the time it gained its own independence, has used every available means - political, economic, and military - to dominate other nations.Lens presents a powerful argument, meticulously pieced together from a huge array of sources, to prove that imperialism is an inevitable consequence of the U.S. economic system. Surveying the pressures, external and internal, on the United States today, he concludes that like any other empire, the reign of the U.S. will end -- and he examines how this time of reckoning may come about.

""A fascinating study of the manipulation of the media in the former Yugoslavia."" -- The New York Times This study of the political manipulation of the media in Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, and Herzegovina before and during the war argues that political struggles for media control are early warnings of war and a form of preparation for it.