On The Edge Of Empire

Perry examines the efforts of a loosely connected group of reformers to transform a colonial environment into one that more closely adhered to the practices of respectable, middle-class European society.

In this imaginative book, Maya Jasanoff uncovers the extraordinary stories of collectors who lived on the frontiers of the British Empire in India and Egypt, tracing their exploits to tell an intimate history of imperialism. Jasanoff delves beneath the grand narratives of power, exploitation, and resistance to look at the British Empire through the eyes of the people caught up in it. Written and researched on four continents, Edge of Empire enters a world where people lived, loved, mingled, and identified with one another in ways richer and more complex than previous accounts have led us to believe were possible. And as this book demonstrates, traces of that world remain tangible—and topical—today. An innovative, persuasive, and provocative work of history.

During the 17th century, the Western border region of North America which existed just beyond the British imperial reach became an area of opportunity, intrigue and conflict for the diverse peoples - Europeans and Indians alike - who lived there. This book examines the complex society there.

“This book’s power comes from Wong’s broad sense of the patterns of Chinese history, reflected in the lives of a father and son, and from his ability to toggle effortlessly between the epic and the intimate.” —Gal Beckerman, The Atlantic “Edward Wong’s exquisite family chronicle achieves a level of humane illumination that only one of America’s finest reporters on China could deliver. In tracing his father’s journey—from Hong Kong to Xinjiang to America—Wong gives us a profound story of modern China itself. Anyone who once was absorbed by the power of Wild Swans will savor this meditation on memory, history, and belonging.” —Evan Osnos, author of Age of Ambition, winner of the National Book Award One of Foreign Policy’s Most Anticipated Books of 2024 An epic story of modern China that weaves a riveting family memoir with vital reporting by the New York Times diplomatic correspondent The son of Chinese immigrants in Washington, DC, Edward Wong grew up among family secrets. His father toiled in Chinese restaurants and rarely spoke of his native land or his years in the People’s Liberation Army under Mao. Yook Kearn Wong came of age during the Japanese occupation in World War II and the Communist revolution, when he fell under the spell of Mao’s promise of a powerful China. His astonishing journey as a soldier took him from Manchuria during the Korean War to Xinjiang on the Central Asian frontier. In 1962, disillusioned with the Communist Party, he made plans for a desperate escape to Hong Kong. When Edward Wong became the Beijing bureau chief for The New York Times, he investigated his father’s mysterious past while assessing for himself the dream of a resurgent China. He met the citizens driving the nation’s astounding economic boom and global expansion—and grappling with the vortex of nationalistic rule under Xi Jinping, the most powerful leader since Mao. Following in his father’s footsteps, he witnessed ethnic struggles in Xinjiang and Tibet and pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. And he had an insider’s view of the world’s two superpowers meeting at a perilous crossroads. Wong tells a moving chronicle of a family and a nation that spans decades of momentous change and gives profound insight into a new authoritarian age transforming the world. A groundbreaking book, At the Edge of Empire is the essential work for understanding China today.

"Fantasy Flight Games is proud to announce Far Horizons, a sourcebook for Colonists making their living at the galaxys fringes in Star Wars: Edge of the Empire. Far Horizons offers new options for Colonists, along with new gear, spaceships, and species that all players (and GMs) will find useful." -- Publisher website.

In the first decades of the 1800s, after almost three centuries of Iberian rule, former Spanish territories fragmented into more than a dozen new polities. Edge of Empire analyzes the emergence of Montevideo as a hot spot of Atlantic trade and regional center of power, often opposing Buenos Aires. By focusing on commercial and social networks in the Rio de la Plata region, the book examines how Montevideo merchant elites used transimperial connections to expand their influence and how their trade offered crucial support to Montevideo’s autonomist projects. These transimperial networks offered different political, social, and economic options to local societies and shaped the politics that emerged in the region, including the formation of Uruguay. Connecting South America to the broader Atlantic World, this book provides an excellent case study for examining the significance of cross-border interactions in shaping independence processes and political identities.

This volume explores the relationship between people and material culture in the south-west peninsula from the first century BC to the fifth century AD. This area has often been ignored in the narratives of Britannia and the application of traditional theoretical models to the archaeology of the region has perpetuated the idea that it was largely 'un-Romanised'. In recent years new theoretical concepts have been developed which recognise that interactions in the provinces were far more complex than the simplistic dichotomy of Roman versus Native. More emphasis is also being placed on artefacts and their use in the creation of identity. This work builds on this and explores the relationship between material culture and the creation of identity.