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The Black Flags raided their way from southern China into northern Vietnam, competing during the second half of the nineteenth century against other armed migrants and uplands communities for the control of commerce, specifically opium, and natural resources, such as copper. At the edges of three empires (the Qing empire in China, the Vietnamese empire governed by the Nguyen dynasty, and, eventually, French Colonial Vietnam), the Black Flags and their rivals sustained networks of power and dominance through the framework of political regimes. This lively history demonstrates the plasticity of borderlines, the limits of imposed boundaries, and the flexible division between apolitical banditry and political rebellion in the borderlands of China and Vietnam. Imperial Bandits contributes to the ongoing reassessment of borderland areas as frontiers for state expansion, showing that, as a setting for many forms of human activity, borderlands continue to exist well after the establishment of formal boundaries.
Why did the main challenge to the Ottoman state come not in peasant or elite rebellions, but in endemic banditry? Karen Barkey shows how Turkish strategies of incorporating peasants and rotating elites kept both groups dependent on the state, unable and unwilling to rebel. Bandits, formerly mercenary soldiers, were not interested in rebellion but concentrated on trying to gain state resources, more as rogue clients than as primitive rebels. The state's ability to control and manipulate bandits—through deals, bargains and patronage—suggests imperial strength rather than weakness, she maintains. Bandits and Bureaucrats details, in a rich, archivally based analysis, state-society relations in the Ottoman empire during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Exploring current eurocentric theories of state building, the author illuminates a period often mischaracterized as one in which the state declined in power. Outlining the processes of imperial rule, Barkey relates the state political and military institutions to their socal foundations. She compares the Ottoman route with state centralization in the Chinese and Russian empires, and contrasts experiences of rebellion in France during the same period. Bandits and Bureaucrats thus develops a theoretical interpretation of imperial state centralization through incorporation and bargaining with social groups, and at the same time enriches our understanding of the dynamics of Ottoman history.
The book studies how the concept of the bandit was taken up and manipulated during the Late Roman Republic and early Empire (2nd c.BC - 3rd c. AD.)
On a spring afternoon in 1509 a local bandit found himself in the emperor's private quarters deep within the Forbidden City and in the presence of the Son of Heaven himself. This bizarre meeting was the doing of the eunuch Zhang Zhong, the emperor's personal servant and companion. In time court intrigue between competing palace eunuchs would lead to the death of this bandit-turned-rebel, setting off a massive uprising that resulted in China's largest rebellion of the sixteenth century. To understand how this extraordinary meeting came about requires a consideration of the economy of violence during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). Here, for the first time in any language, is a detailed look at the role of illicit violence during the Ming. Drawing on court annals, imperial law codes, administrative regulations, private writings, and local gazetteers, David Robinson recreates in vivid detail a world where heavily armed highwaymen and bandits raided the boulevards in and around the Ming capital, Beijing. He then convincingly traces the roots of this systemic mayhem to economic, ethnic, social, and institutional factors at work in local society.
To understand how this extraordinary meeting came about requires a consideration of the economy of violence during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). Here, for the first time in any language, is a detailed look at the role of illicit violence during the Ming.".
Tired of lying in wait, the exiled Noble Bandit seizes his chance at revenge. Meanwhile, as the birth of the Royal Twins nears, Peasant General Guarding Bear is repatriated by the Emperor. Fearing for the safety of his heirs, the emperor orders the general to lay siege to his enemy’s fortress. In preparation, the general recruits the aid of a powerful wizard and a skilled young healer – but none of them suspects a traitor in their midst. ​​​​​​​As loyalties are tested and new alliances made, who will rise above and claim victory as their own?
Patrick Kelley explores the limits of institutional knowledge regarding information gathering and knowledge in imperial political structures. The author explores how an empire's culture can shape the information it receives and its ability to process information. The book ranges across time to examine the achievements and failures of empires to use information as a tool of governance and domination.
Drawing on a wide variety of source material from art archaeology, administrative documents, Egyptian papyri, laws Jewish and Christian religious texts and ancient narratives this book provides a comprehensive overview of Roman imperial policing practices.
Major Kelley chooses three empires with which to compare our current intelligence circumstances. Each of these faced challenges in understanding peoples; Rome in the first and second centuries AD, the Ottomans in the 16th to 18th, and Britain in India in the 18th to early 20th. Kelley feels these warrant study in light of our need to deal with peoples whom we may seek to influence. The author also asks: ?If power shapes knowledge, does knowledge also shape power This is a delightful exercise in erudition in which key postmodern insights and reasoning are used to gain political understanding. Full of surprises and insights, Kelley takes his readers through an enchanted forest peopled by Foucalt, T.E. Lawrence, J.S. Bach, Borges, Idries Shah, Hobsbawm, Jung, Baudrillard, and many more. One hopes our educated, certified, and degreed military and intelligence leadership can penetrate a work this rich, deep, and ultimately useful. (Originally published in color by the NDIC Press)