Author Archives: Middle Ground Journal

The Streets where the Dragons Dance: The Street Life of Calcutta’s Chinatowns

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“The trials and tribulations surrounding the evolution and erosion of the Chinese streets of Calcutta have hardly received importance in the popular historical narrative of the city, irrespective of the sustained curiosity regarding the lives of the Chinatowns. A street’s role in constructing a spatial identity often separates a locality from another, but it certainly serves as an arena where interaction, adaptation, and formulation of a syncretic identity take place.”

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Review of Outcaste Bombay by Juned Shaikh

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“Outcaste Bombay is successful in broadening the scope of histories from below by expanding its enquiry into the worlds of the lumpen-proletariat, the petty bourgeois shop keepers, and the sex workers. It offers a glimpse of Bombay as it is lived, reshaped, and appro¬priated by its Dalit inhabitants, and makes a great contribution to the bourgeoning scholarship on Dalit labor and Bombay city.”

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Review Essay of Two Books on Burma and Military History

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The 1945 Burma Campaign and the Transformation of the British Indian Army. Raymond A. Callahan and Daniel Marston. Kansas University Press, 2021. ISBN: 9780700630417.   A War of Empires: Japan, India, Burma & Britain, 1941-45. Robert Lyman. Oxford: Osprey, 2021. ISBN: 9781472847140. Reviewed by George Wilton, independent scholar, Member of British Commission for Military History, Managing Editor of British Journal for

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Review of Colonial Transactions by Florence Bernault

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“Colonial Transactions expands our knowledge and refines our understanding of the two themes that stand at its center – witchcraft and colonialism. The book historicizes witchcraft, arguing that history can enhance our understanding of the obsessions and modes of power of modern witchcraft in Africa. It brings closer the allegedly contradictory ideas of the European colonizers and the colonized Africans and discusses them in the same realm.”

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Review of Colonialism in Global Perspective by Kris Manjapra

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Colonialism in Global Perspective. Kris Manjapra. Cambridge University Press, 2020. ISBN-13: 9781108441360. Reviewed by Joseph Snyder, Southeast Missouri State University Edited by Julie Tanaka © 2022 The Middle Ground Journal (ISSN: 2155-1103) Number 23, Spring 2022. http://TheMiddleGroundJournal.org See Submission Guidelines page for the journal’s not-for-profit educational open-access policy.

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Review of Between Fitness and Death: Disability and Slavery in the Caribbean by Stefanie Hunt-Kennedy

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Between Fitness and Death: Disability and Slavery in the Caribbean. Stefanie Hunt-Kennedy. University of Illinois Press, 2020. ISBN-13: 9780252085062. Reviewed by Zach Sell, Drexel University (now Brown University) Edited by Julie Tanaka © 2022 The Middle Ground Journal (ISSN: 2155-1103) Number 23, Spring 2022. http://TheMiddleGroundJournal.org See Submission Guidelines page for the journal’s not-for-profit educational open-access policy.

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Review of Imperial Peripheries in the Neo-Assyrian Period edited by Craig W. Tyson and Virginia R. Hermann

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Imperial Peripheries in the Neo-Assyrian Period. Edited by Craig W. Tyson and Virginia R. Hermann. University Press of Colorado, 2019. ISBN: 9781607328223. Reviewed by Alexander Johannes Edmonds, University of Tübingen Edited by Julie Tanaka and Sarah Pesola © 2021 The Middle Ground Journal (ISSN: 2155-1103) Number 22, Fall 2021. http://TheMiddleGroundJournal.org See Submission Guidelines page for the journal’s not-for-profit educational open-access

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Review of Lisbon: A Biography by Magda Pinheiro

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Lisbon: A Biography. Magda Pinheiro. Translated by Mario Pereira. Dartmouth, MA: Tagus Press, 2019. ISBN: 9781933227757. Reviewed by Ernst Pijning, Minot State University Edited by Julie Tanaka © 2021 The Middle Ground Journal (ISSN: 2155-1103) Number 22, Fall 2021. http://TheMiddleGroundJournal.org See Submission Guidelines page for the journal’s not-for-profit educational open-access policy.

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Review of Seeds of Control: Japan’s Empire of Forestry in Colonial Korea by David Fedman

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Seeds of Control: Japan’s Empire of Forestry in Colonial Korea. David Fedman. University of Washington Press, 2020. ISBN: 9780295747453. Reviewed by Steven Ivings, Graduate School of Economics, Kyoto University Edited by Birgit Schneider © 2021 The Middle Ground Journal (ISSN: 2155-1103) Number 22, Fall 2021. http://TheMiddleGroundJournal.org See Submission Guidelines page for the journal’s not-for-profit educational open-access policy.

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Review of Soldiers, Saints, and Shamans: Indigenous Communities and the Revolutionary State in Mexico’s Gran Nayar, 1910-1940 by Nathaniel Morris

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Soldiers, Saints, and Shamans: Indigenous Communities and the Revolutionary State in Mexico’s Gran Nayar, 1910-1940. Nathanial Morris. University of Arizona Press, 2021. ISBN: 9780816541027. Reviewed by Joshua Simon, Columbia University Edited by Jeanne E. Grant and Sarah Pesola © 2021 The Middle Ground Journal (ISSN: 2155-1103) Number 22, Fall 2021. http://TheMiddleGroundJournal.org See Submission Guidelines page for the journal’s not-for-profit educational

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Review of The Crown and the Capitalists: The Ethnic Chinese and the Founding of the Thai Nation by Wasana Wongsurawat

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The Crown and the Capitalists: The Ethnic Chinese and the Founding of the Thai Nation. Wasana Wongsurawat. University of Washington Press, 2019. ISBN: 9780295746241. Reviewed by Fabrizio Martino, Chulalongkorn University-Bangkok Edited by Birgit Schneider and Sarah Pesola © 2021 The Middle Ground Journal (ISSN: 2155-1103) Number 22, Fall 2021. http://TheMiddleGroundJournal.org See Submission Guidelines page for the journal’s not-for-profit educational open-access

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Review Essay of Two Holocaust Memoirs

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I Want You to Know We’re Still Here: A Post-Holocaust Memoir. Esther Safran Foer. Random House, 2020. ISBN: 9780525575986.   Inge’s War: A German Woman’s Story of Family, Secrets, and Survival under Hitler. Svenja O’Donnell. Viking, 2020. ISBN: 9781984880215. Reviewed by Laura J. Hilton, Muskingum University Edited by Jeanne E. Grant and Sarah Pesola © 2021 The Middle Ground Journal

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Review of Gendered Power: Educated Women of the Meiji Empress’ Court by Mamiko C. Suzuki

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Photo of tree with yellow leaves on its branches and all around it on the ground, Pamplona Campus, Spain.

Gendered Power: Educated Women of the Meiji Empress’ Court. Mamiko C. Suzuki. University of Michigan Press, 2021. ISBN: 9780807174302. Reviewed by Daniel Barish, Baylor University Edited by Birgit Schneider © 2021 The Middle Ground Journal (ISSN: 2155-1103) Number 22, Fall 2021. http://TheMiddleGroundJournal.org See Submission Guidelines page for the journal’s not-for-profit educational open-access policy.

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Review of Chow Chop Suey: Food and the Chinese American Journey by Anne Mendelson

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Chow Chop Suey: Food and the Chinese American Journey. Anne Mendelson. Columbia University Press, 2016. ISBN: 9780231541299. Reviewed by Elizabeth Fuhan Mason, M.A. student, San Francisco State University Edited by Julie Tanaka © 2021 The Middle Ground Journal (ISSN: 2155-1103) Number 22, Fall 2021. http://TheMiddleGroundJournal.org See Submission Guidelines page for the journal’s not-for-profit educational open-access policy.

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Review of Sweet Land of Liberty: America in the Mind of the French Left, 1848-1871 by Tom Sancton

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Sweet Land of Liberty: America in the Mind of the French Left, 1848-1871. Tom Sancton. Louisiana State University Press, 2021. ISBN: 9780807174302. Reviewed by Michael Clinton, Gwynedd Mercy University Edited by Julie Tanaka © 2021 The Middle Ground Journal (ISSN: 2155-1103) Number 22, Fall 2021. http://TheMiddleGroundJournal.org See Submission Guidelines page for the journal’s not-for-profit educational open-access policy.

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Review of In a Sea of Empires: Networks and Crossings in the Revolutionary Caribbean by Jeppe Mulich

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In a Sea of Empires: Networks and Crossings in the Revolutionary Caribbean. Jeppe Mulich. Cambridge University Press, 2020. ISBN: 9781108489720. Reviewed by Christopher Marshall, University of Wisconsin-Stout Edited by Jeanne E. Grant and Sarah Pesola (c) 2021 The Middle Ground Journal, Number 22, Fall 2021. http://TheMiddleGroundJournal.org See Submission Guidelines page for the journal’s not-for-profit educational open-access policy.

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Review of The Ages of Globalization: Geography, Technology, and Institutions by Jeffrey D. Sachs

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The Ages of Globalization: Geography, Technology, and Institutions. Jeffrey D. Sachs. Columbia University Press, 2020. ISBN: 9780231193740. Reviewed by J. Justin Castro, Arkansas State University Edited by Birgit Schneider © 2021 The Middle Ground Journal (ISSN: 2155-1103) Number 22, Fall 2021. http://TheMiddleGroundJournal.org See Submission Guidelines page for the journal’s not-for-profit educational open-access policy.

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Review of The Global Bourgeoisie: The Rise of the Middle Class in the Age of Empire by Christof Dejung, David Motadel, and Jürgen Osterhammel, eds.

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Orange bicycle license plate from 1968.

The Global Bourgeoisie: The Rise of the Middle Class in the Age of Empire. Christof Dejung, David Motadel, and Jürgen Osterhammel, eds. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019. ISBN: 9780691195834. Reviewed by Steven Ivings, Graduate School of Economics, Kyoto University Edited by Justin Quinn Olmstead and Sarah Pesola © 2021 The Middle Ground Journal (ISSN: 2155-1103) Number 22, Fall 2021. http://TheMiddleGroundJournal.org See

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Review of Asian Place, Filipino Nation: A Global Intellectual History of the Philippine Revolution, 1887-1912 by Nicole CuUnjieng Aboitiz

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Asian Place, Filipino Nation: A Global Intellectual History of the Philippine Revolution, 1887-1912. Nicole CuUnjieng Aboitiz. Columbia University Press, 2020. ISBN: 9780231192156. Reviewed by Tristan Miguel Osteria, University of Santo Tomas Edited by Birgit Schneider © 2021 The Middle Ground Journal (ISSN: 2155-1103) Number 22, Fall 2021. http://TheMiddleGroundJournal.org See Submission Guidelines page for the journal’s not-for-profit educational open-access policy.

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