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Utilising archives in mainland China, Taiwan, Japan and the USA, Nagatomi Hirayama examines the pivotal role of the Chinese Youth Party in China in the transformative years 1918-51. Tracing the party's birth in 1923 during the May Fourth movement, its revolutionary path to the late 1930s, and its de-radicalization in the 1940s, Hirayama discusses the emergence of the Chinese Youth Party as a robust revolutionary movement on the right, characterized by its cultural conservatism, political intellectualism, and national socialism. Although its history is relatively unknown, Hirayama argues that the Chinese Youth Party represented a serious competitor to the Chinese Communist Party and Guomindang, and proved to be of particular significance during World War II and China's Civil War. Shedding light on the ideas and practices of the Chinese Youth Party provides a significant lens through which to view the Chinese radical right in the first half of the twentieth century.
This open access book offers a fresh perspective on the history of Chinese Christianity, retelling it through the lens of Pentecost (Acts 2) to illuminate the rise of Pentecostal and charismatic Christianity in China from the 20th century onward.Parting from traditional academic studies of Chinese Pentecostalism, the author departs from beginning with the early 20th-century introduction of the Pentecostal movement to China, and instead examines the deeper historical and theological roots of Chinese Christianity. In identifying this gap, the author argues that China’s rich religious and cultural context—shaped by a pantheon of spirits and ghosts—provided a fertile ground for the acceptance and flourishing of modern Pentecostal thought and practice. Through this innovative analysis, the book connects Pentecostalism’s global emergence with the unique spiritual landscape of China, offering new insights into both Chinese and Pentecostal Christian history. It is an important read for scholars of religious history and theology.
In Describing the City, Describing the State Sandra Toffolo presents a comprehensive analysis of descriptions of the city of Venice and the Venetian Terraferma in the Renaissance, when the Venetian mainland state was being created. Working with an extensive variety of descriptions, the book demonstrates that no one narrative of Venice prevailed in the early modern European imagination, and that authors continuously adapted geographical descriptions to changing political circumstances. This in turn illustrates the importance of studying geographical representation and early modern state formation together. Moreover, it challenges the long-standing concept of the myth of Venice, by showing that Renaissance observers never saw the city of Venice and the Venetian Terraferma in a monolithic way.
A Catholic Classic -- UPDATED AND EXPANDED! For 2,000 years, Catholicism—the largest religion in the world and in the United States—has shaped global history on a scale unequaled by any other institution. Triumph offers an accessible, affirmative, and exciting entry into that history. Inside, you'll discover the spectacular story of the Church from Biblical times and the early days of St. Peter—the first pope—to Pope John Paul the Great (already a saint), Pope Benedict XVI (a master theologian), and the controversies surrounding Pope Francis. It is a sweeping drama of Roman legions, great crusades, epic battles, toppled empires, heroic saints, and enduring faith, as well as Dark Age skullduggery, the Inquisition, the Renaissance popes, and the Protestant Revolt. A classic for twenty years -- now updated and expanded -- Triumph is a brawling, colorful history full of inspiring pageantry and spirited polemic that will exhilarate, amuse, and infuriate as it extols the power and the glory the Catholic Church and the gripping stories of some of its greatest men and women.
This open access book examines the first modern diplomatic contact between Europe and East Asia: the 1517 Portuguese embassy to China. The experience did not end well, for in 1521, the Ming Court decided to cut off relations, and a battle broke out between the Guangdong and Portuguese fleets. This work seeks to explain why this happened. Making extensive use of both Chinese and Western archival sources, it proposes a new interpretation—one that breaks with the traditional “clash of civilizations” viewpoint and focuses instead on the diversity of actors and the complex relationships between them.
James Cook’s voyages of exploration are a turning point not only in the history of the British Empire, but also in the history of science and exploration of the Pacific. The last decades have seen a wide-ranging scholarly interest in Cook’s voyages, focusing on their impact on European and Polynesian societies, their scientific results, and their protagonists, such as Cook himself or the nobleman Joseph Banks who took part in Cook’s first voyage of exploration. This book examines the hitherto underestimated role of the German scholar Johann Reinhold Forster who, together with his son Georg Forster, accompanied Cook on his second voyage of exploration (1772–1775) as a principal natura...
This open access book provides an analysis of human actors and their capacity to explore and conceptualise their own agency by being curious, gathering knowledge, and shaping identities in their travel reflections on Asia. Thus, the actors open windows across time to present a profound overview of diverse descriptions and constructions of Asia. It is demonstrated that international and transnational history contributes to and benefits from analyses of national and local contexts that in turn enrich our understanding of transcultural encounters and experiences across time. The book proposes an actor-centred contextual approach to travel writing to recount meaningful constructions of Asia’s physical, political and spiritual landscapes. It offers comparative reflections on the patterns of encounter across Eurasia, where from the late medieval period an idea of civilisation was transculturally shared yet also constantly questioned and reframed. Tailored for academic and public discussions alike, this volume will be invaluable for both scholars of Global History and interested audiences to stimulate further discussions on the nature of global encounters in Asia.
This book investigates the economic, intellectual and political history of late medieval and early modern Genoa and the historical origins of the Genoese presence in the Spanish Atlantic. Salonia describes Genoa’s late medieval economic expansion and commercial networks through several case studies, from the Black Sea to southern England, and briefly compares it to the state-run military expansion of Venice’s empire. The author links the adaptability and entrepreneurial skills of Genoese merchants and businessmen to the constitutional history of the Genoese commune and to the specific idea of freedom progressively protected by its constitutions and embodied by institutions like the Bank ...