Japan is often imagined as a nation with a long history of whaling. In this innovative new study, Fynn Holm argues that for centuries some regions in early modern Japan did not engage in whaling. In fact, they were actively opposed to it, even resorting to violence when whales were killed. Resistance against whaling was widespread especially in the Northeast among the Japanese ...(展开全部)

Japan is often imagined as a nation with a long history of whaling. In this innovative new study, Fynn Holm argues that for centuries some regions in early modern Japan did not engage in whaling. In fact, they were actively opposed to it, even resorting to violence when whales were killed. Resistance against whaling was widespread especially in the Northeast among the Japanese ...(展开全部)

Today, Japan defends its controversial whaling expeditions by invoking tradition—but what was the historical reality? In examining the techniques and impacts of whaling during the Tokugawa period (1603–1868), Jakobina Arch shows that the organized, shore-based whaling that first developed during these years bore little resemblance to modern Japanese whaling. Drawing on a wide r...(展开全部)

In this “striking, brave[,] and often lyrical” (The Guardian) blend of nature writing, whale science, and memoir, Doreen Cunningham interweaves two stories: tracking the extraordinary northward migration of the grey whales with a mischievous toddler in tow and living with an Iñupiaq family in Alaska seven years earlier. A story of courage and resilience, Soundings is about the ...(展开全部)

From the lagoons of Mexico to Arctic glaciers, grey whale mothers are swimming with their calves, past predatory orcas, through a warming sea. For ten thousand miles, they endure one of the longest mammalian migrations on the planet. Following them, by bus, train and ferry, are Doreen Cunningham and her young son Max, in pursuit of a wild hope: that their family of two can find...(展开全部)

In the songs and bubble feeding of humpback whales; in young killer whales learning to knock a seal from an ice floe in the same way their mother does; and in the use of sea sponges by the dolphins of Shark Bay, Australia, to protect their beaks while foraging for fish, we find clear examples of the transmission of information among cetaceans. Just as human cultures pass on lan...(展开全部)

For millennia much of the world was ruled by emperors: a handful of individuals claimed no limit to the lands they could rule over and no limit to their authority. They operated beyond normal human constraint and indeed often claimed a superhuman or divine authority. In practice they ran the gamut from being some of the most remarkable men who ever lived, to being some of the w...(展开全部)

A dazzling account of the men (and occasional woman) who led the world’s empires, a book that probes the essence of leadership and power through the centuries and around the world. From the rise of Sargon of Akkad, who in the 3rd millenium BCE ruled what is now Iraq and Syria, to the collapse of the great European empires in the 20th century, the empire has been the dominant f...(展开全部)

In this detailed study of the development of the Japanese railroad industry during the Meiji period, Steven Ericson explores the economic role of government and the nature of state-business relations during Japan's modern transformation. Ericson challenges the tendency of current scholarship to minimize the roles of the Japanese government and commercial banks in Meiji industri...(展开全部)

In this detailed study of the development of the Japanese railroad industry during the Meiji period, Steven Ericson explores the economic role of government and the nature of state-business relations during Japan's modern transformation. Ericson challenges the tendency of current scholarship to minimize the roles of the Japanese government and commercial banks in Meiji industri...(展开全部)