Résultats Éditeur "Charles River Editors" dans Asie

One of the most turbulent and romanticized eras in ancient Chinese history is that of the three kingdoms period. During the third century AD in China, warlords battled for supremacy. This turbulent and bloody era is known as the three kingdoms period. It's also one of the most romanticized eras in Chinese history; heroes and villains like Cao Cao, Liu Bei, and Zhuge Liang have served has inspiration for poetry, novels, opera, and song in China.

About 225 miles west of Ulaanbaatar, the present-day capital city of Mongolia, are the ruins of Karakorum, the ancient capital of the Mongol Empire. Located in the Orkhon River Valley, at the foot of the Khangai Mountain range, the city was founded by Genghis Khan in 1220 CE. Under his son and successor, Ögedei Khan, Karakorum grew into a thriving city, with high walls enclosing an urban landscape of brick-built structures and paved roads, divided into different districts with a palace, craft workshops, and marketplaces.

Constructed over a span of about 20 years in the mid-17th century as a mausoleum for the wife of Emperor Shah Jahan, the Taj Mahal is aptly described by UNESCO, which designated it a World Heritage site, as "the jewel of Muslim art in India and one of the universally admired masterpieces of the world's heritage".

China has always fascinated outsiders, much in the same way that distant light fascinates someone looking down a dark road. It is both familiar and mysterious, ancient and new, and fully understanding it seems to always remain just out of reach.

The British East India Company served as one of the key players in the formation of the British Empire. From its origins as a trading company struggling to keep up with its superior Dutch, Portuguese, and Spanish competitors to its tenure as the ruling authority of the Indian subcontinent to its eventual hubristic downfall, the East India Company serves as a lens through which to explore the much larger economic and social forces that shaped the formation of a global British Empire.

The American occupation of Japan holds a singular and problematic place in the histories both of Japan and of American foreign policy. For the Japanese, the occupation marked the transition from war to peace, from authoritarianism to democracy, and from privation to plenty, making it a passage from one of the darkest chapters in Japanese history to one of the brightest.

It's a sure sign of fame when a man is known simply by his first name, and Mao Zedong, often referred to simply as Mao or Chairman Mao, was one of the most influential men of the 20th century. He was also arguably the most controversial; as the founder of the People's Republic of China, Mao rose from being a communist revolutionary to successfully overthrowing a regime and transforming China into a communist powerhouse in Asia.

Mohenjo-daro was the largest city of the Indus Valley civilization, one of the most advanced civilizations ever to have existed, and the most ancient prehistoric urban site on the Indian subcontinent. It was a metropolis of great cultural, economic, and political importance that dates from the beginning of the 3rd millennium BCE. Although it flourished between approximately 2500 and 1500 BCE, the city had longer-lasting influences on the urbanization of the Indian subcontinent for centuries after its abandonment.

In 1933, British author James Hilton introduced the world to a new destination for journeys of the imagination: the hidden valley of Shangri-La. In doing so, Hilton built upon pre-existing fantasies, stereotypes and archetypes, many of which were centuries old, but Hilton also created something new in the form of a vision which captured the imagination of his contemporaries and has remained ever since.

Perhaps the most famous and most destructive eruption in modern history was the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa. Even without the instantaneous forms of communication that are now available, the world watched in wonder for new updates about a tiny South Pacific island. And though few of them would ever go there, Krakatoa remained a source of fascination for the much of the world for the next 50 years.

Of the numerous disasters, both natural and man-made, to strike Japan during the 20th century, the Great Kantō Earthquake was among the worst, and the most significant. The massive earthquake struck the Japanese capital region, including the cities of Tokyo and Yokohama, shortly before noon on Saturday, September 1, 1923, causing immense physical destruction.

Tiananmen Square, a large city square in the center of Beijing, can be said to represent the essence of Chinese culture, being the site of several important events in the country's history. It is characterized as being a vast open ground centered on and defined by a series of monuments constructed over a period of 500 years. Named after the Tiananmen gate, one that means the "Gate of Heavenly Peace", the square is located towards the north of the gate, separating it from the Forbidden City.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, or Mahatma Gandhi as he is more popularly known, is widely considered the father of India, the preeminent leader of the Indian struggle against British imperialism, and one of the most influential minds of the 20th century, Gandhi emerged to become one of the greatest advocates of peace and nonviolent resistance that the world has known. Gandhi became one of those rare leaders who preached through his own practices, motivating millions of people to follow his principles of freedom and peace.

During the last centuries of the first millennium BCE, most of the Mediterranean basin and the Near East were either directly or indirectly under the influence of Hellenism. The Greeks spread their ideas to Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Persia and attempted to unify all of the peoples of those regions under one government. Although some of the Hellenistic kingdoms proved to be powerful in their own rights -- especially Ptolemaic Egypt and the Seleucid Empire.

Though both Japan and China modernized at the start of the 20th century and China far outweighed Japan in terms of men and materiel potential, the Japanese handily won the first modern war between the two sides, decisively defeating the Chinese in the First Sino-Japanese War. The conflict resulted in Japan’s short-term gains in the wake of victory, and the long-term disaster for both sides’ new roles in Asia, for with the end of Chinese dominance in East Asia came a new era for the region as a whole, an era whose consequences and horrors would not be fully realized for several more decades.

Though it’s widely overlooked today, the U.S. has had a military presence in Asia for more than 200 years. The East Indies Squadron was formally established by President Andrew Jackson in 1835 to protect American property and trade in Asia, but U.S. warships were protecting American interests in Asia before then. In fact, American merchant vessels reached China as early as the 1780s.

Located in the Tarim Basin of Asia during the first few centuries CE, a people and a kingdom grew to prominence in medieval central and east Asian geopolitics. The people are known today as the Tocharians, and their primary kingdom was Kucha, but despite their longevity, this incredible kingdom and its people have been overlooked and misunderstood by modern societies and historians for centuries. The lack of in-depth studies on the Tocharians largely stems from the fact that they are relatively newcomers to the modern academic scene.