Afghanistan Seen by Others
Barnett R. Rubin
in Afghanistan: What Everyone Needs to Know®
Through much of the twentieth century Afghanistan seemed to be a distant concern in the United States. “Afghanistanism” used to be journalistic shorthand for stories about distant places, ...
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The British Raj and the Road to Independence
Mira Kamdar
in India in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know®
What was the East India Company?
On December 31, 1600, Queen Elizabeth I granted a royal charter giving a group of English adventurers a fifteen-year monopoly over England’s trade ...
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Civil War: Islamic State to Islamic Emirate
Barnett R. Rubin
in Afghanistan: What Everyone Needs to Know®
What set off the 1992–96 civil war?
Various actors maneuvered to fill the power vacuum in Kabul left by the Soviet withdrawal. After the failure of the offensive on Jalalabad, the ...
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Coda
David I. Steinberg
in Burma/Myanmar: What Everyone Needs to Know® (2 ed.)
This Coda was written in the summer of 2009. See chapter 9 for a reassessment.
The prognosis for early socioeconomic progress in Myanmar is not sanguine, and ...
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The Colonial Era’s Importance in Understanding Burma/Myanmar Today
David I. Steinberg
in Burma/Myanmar: What Everyone Needs to Know® (2 ed.)
The colonial period lasted a relatively short time in its domination of the whole country—only from 1885 to 1948. Its impact, however, has been of far greater significance than one might ...
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Communist Coup, Islamic Resistance
Barnett R. Rubin
in Afghanistan: What Everyone Needs to Know®
How did the war start?
Since 2001, the war in Afghanistan has entered a new phase, but it began on April 27, 1978, when military officers belonging to the PDPA overthrew President ...
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The Crises That Are Burma/Myanmar
David I. Steinberg
in Burma/Myanmar: What Everyone Needs to Know® (2 ed.)
This chapter and those that follow, all written before the change in government based on the elections in November 2010, are left intact to encourage the reader to reflect on how the state ...
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Economy
Mira Kamdar
in India in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know®
What is the size of India’s economy and how fast is it growing?
In terms of purchasing power parity, India’s $2.3 trillion economy ranked third in the world after the United States ...
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Economy
Steven Rood
in The Philippines: What Everyone Needs to Know®
At the turn of the millennium, a team of economists from the Australian National University and the University of the Philippines published The Philippine Economy: Development, Policies, ...
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The Economy
Patrick McEachern
in North Korea: What Everyone Needs to Know®
Is North Korea economically self-reliant?
North Korean leader Kim Il Sung first declared his emphasis on self-reliance in a 1955 speech. Encapsulating self-reliance of all forms ...
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Environment
Mira Kamdar
in India in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know®
How will climate change affect India?
With its large population, long coastlines, and location near the equator, India is particularly vulnerable to the negative effects of global ...
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From Mao to Now
Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom and Maura Elizabeth Cunningham
in China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know® (3 ed.)
Who was Deng Xiaoping?
Deng’s first revolutionary experiences were as a student in France in the 1920s, when he developed a lasting friendship with a fellow radical youth named ...
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The Future
Patrick McEachern
in North Korea: What Everyone Needs to Know®
What are the prospects for Korean unification?
The near-term prospects for Korean unification are dim, but unification remains a constitutionally derived, foundational idea of the ...
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The Future
Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom and Maura Elizabeth Cunningham
in China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know® (3 ed.)
Is China bent on world domination?
Although Americans perceived the Soviet Union as posing the greatest Cold War-era military challenge, they also periodically feared a “China ...
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Geography, Demography, and Climate
Steven Rood
in The Philippines: What Everyone Needs to Know®
How many islands does the Philippines have?
When at the 1994 Miss Universe pageant (being held in the Philippines), Philippine contestant Charlene Gonzales was asked, “How many ...
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Geopolitics
Mira Kamdar
in India in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know®
Who are India’s neighbors?
India is by far the largest economy in South Asia, dominating neighboring Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Myanmar, and Nepal, not to mention tiny Bhutan ...
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Geopolitics and the Future: The Philippines in the World
Steven Rood
in The Philippines: What Everyone Needs to Know®
For the Philippines, it seems that geography is often destiny. The islands’ location, rather than the resources they held, was what made them attractive to the Spanish imperial enterprise. ...
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Government and Governance
Steven Rood
in The Philippines: What Everyone Needs to Know®
How is the national legislature structured?
The bicameral Philippine Congress works in interesting ways. In fact, constitutional designers have been ambivalent about bicameralism ...
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History: “300 Years in a Convent, 50 Years in Hollywood,” Then on Its Own
Steven Rood
in The Philippines: What Everyone Needs to Know®
History wars in the Philippines seem never-ending. How should the nation view Spain, which created the concept of “the Philippines” and brought Christianity to its shores—at the same time ...
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Imperial China
Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom and Maura Elizabeth Cunningham
in China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know® (3 ed.)
What were the main early dynasties?
A standard way to break up Chinese history is to start with 221 b.c.e., the year that Qin Shi Huang transformed various small states into ...
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