Nabataean echoes in al-Ḥarrah: New evidence in light of recent field work†

ABSTRACT

During a survey conducted by the authors in the eastern part of al-?arrah in Jordan in 2017,¹1. The term al-?arrah is used to refer to the basalt steppe-desert located in northern Jordan and southern Syria. a number of new Safaitic and Nabataean texts were found. Some of them mention events dated during the reigns of ?r?t and rb?l, others refer to the revolt of dm?y. Other Safaitic texts contain references to the Nabataeans. Three Nabataean graffiti were also found and are presented here. These sixteen new texts constitute a remarkable addition to the corpus of Safaitic and Nabatean texts found in this region.     

‘United by blood’: race and transnationalism during the Belle Époque

The Belle Époque, often thought to be a period defined by nationalism, also saw the remarkable global proliferation of transnational affinities – especially those centred on race. Across Europe and its settler territories, notions of pan‐racial affinity spread alongside imperial nationalism, in the context of technological advancement that permitted novel imaginative possibilities. Meanwhile, texts of political imagination in Africa and Asia during this period – particularly those of pan‐Africanism and pan‐Islamism – demonstrate not only an awareness of the significance of racial thinking for Europe but a theorisation of the connections between Europe's racial imagination and its policies in the colonised world. The same advances in the fields of communication and travel that opened the door for new imaginative possibilities in Europe also enabled disparate communities in the colonised world to conceive of themselves, often for the first time, as collectively racialised subjects of a European world order.     

Book reviews

? General

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James J. Fox and Clifford Sather, editors. Origins, Ancestry and Alliance: Explorations in Austronesian Ethnography. Canberra: Department of Anthropology, Comparative Austronesian Project, 1996. viii, 336 pp. Introduction, contents, acknowledgments, figures, tables, maps, references, index. Npg, paper.

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Richard Robison, editor. Pathways to Asia: The Politics of Engagement. St. Leonards, NSW: Allen and Unwin, 1996. 270 pp. A$24.95, paper.

Eileen H. Tamura. Americanization, Acculturation, and Ethnic Identify: The Nissei Generation in Hawaii. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1994. xx, 326 pp. US19.95, paper.

Nancy Viviani. The Indochinese in Australia, 1975–1995: From Burnt Boats to Barbecues. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1996. xvi, 208 pp. Tables and figures, abbreviations, appendix, bibliography, index. A$24.95, paper.

? Northeast Asia

James Cahill. The Lyric Journey: Poetic Painting in China and Japan. Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England: Harvard University Press, 1996. x, 251 pp. Preface, glossary, bibliography, index. US$45.00, hardcover.

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Norman Eder. Poisoned Prosperity: Development, Modernization, and the Environment in South Korea. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1996. xiv, 192 pp. Two maps, bibliography, index. US$21.95, paper.

JaHyun Kim Haboush, translator. The Memoirs of Lady Hyegyong: The Autobiographical Writings of a Crown Princess of Eighteenth‐Century Korea. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996. xii, 372 pp. Illustrations, glossary, index. Npg, paper.

Donald Keene. The Blue‐Eyed Tarôkaja: A Donald Keene Anthology. Edited by J. Thomas Rimer. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996. ix, 290 pp. Contents, editor's preface, index. US$24.50, paper.

Rikki Kersten. Democracy in Postwar Japan: Maruyama Masao and the Search for Autonomy. London and New York: Routledge, 1996. xiv, 289 pp. Series editor's preface, acknowledgments, index. US$74.95, hardcover.

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Fumie Kumagai with Donna Keyser. Unmasking Japan Today: The Impact of Traditional Values on Modern Japanese Society. Westport and London: Praeger, 1996. 192 pp. Preface, bibliography, index. US$39.95, hardcover.

Robert M. Marsh. The Great Transformation: Social Change in Taipei, Taiwan since the 1960s. Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 1996. An East Gate Book. 418 pp. Maps, glossary, appendix, bibliography, photographs, index. US$62.95, hardcover; US$27.95, paper.

Joe Moore, editor. The Other Japan: Conflict, Compromise, and Resistance since 1945. New Edition. New York and London: M.E. Sharpe, 1997, for the Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars. xvi, 406 pp. Introduction, index. US$24.95, paper.

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Ikko Shimizu. The Dark Side of Japanese Business: Three “Industry Novels” — Silver Sanctuary, The Ibis Cage, Keiretsu. Translated and edited by Tamae K. Prindle. New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1996. 277 pp. US$50.00, hardcover; US$17.95, paper.

Yoshio Sugimoto. An Introduction to Japanese Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. 285 pp. US$90.00, hardcover; US$29.95, paper.

Shih‐shan Henry Tsai. The Eunuchs in the Ming Dynasty. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996. 290 pp. Introduction, appendices, notes, bibliography, index. US$18.95, paper.

? South Asia

Ludwig W. Adamec. Dictionary of Afghan Wars, Revolutions, and Insurgencies. Metuchen, NJ, and London: The Scarecrow Press, 1996. xvii, 364 pp. US$48.00, hardcover.

Sudhir Kakar. The Colors Of Violence: Cultural Identities, Religion and Conflict. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996. xiii, 217 pp. Notes, index. US$14.95, paper.

Stanley N. Kurtz. All the Mothers are One: Hindu India and the Cultural Reshaping of Psychoanalysis. New York: Columbia University Press, 1992. xv, 306 pp. Foreword by S.J. Thambiah, illustrations, index. US$49.50, hardcover; US$18.00, paper.

? Southeast Asia

H.S. Barlow. Swettenham. Kuala Lumpur: Southdene Sdn Bhd, 1995. xviii, 783 pp. Foreword, abbreviations, bibliography, plates, index. Npg, hardcover.

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Peter Rogers. Northeast Thailand from Prehistoric to Modern Times. Bangkok: Duang Kamol, 1966. 259 pp. Npg.

James Niel Sneddon. Indonesian Reference Grammar. Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1996. xxvii, 387 pp. A$29.95, paper.

N.P. van den Berg. Currency and the Economy of Netherlands India, 1870–1995. (Reprint of The Financial and Economical Condition of Netherlands India since 1870 and the Effect of the Present Currency System with introduction by Pierre van der Eng.) Singapore: Sources for the Economic History of Southeast Asia Data Paper Series No. 5, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1996. xxx, 120 pp. Tables. S$29.00/US$24.00, paper.

Pierre van der Eng. Agricultural Growth in Indonesia: Productivity Change and Policy Impact since 1880. Studies in the Economies of East and South‐East Asia. Basingstoke: Macmillan Press; New York: St Martin's Press, 1996. xiii, 375 pp. Abbreviations and acronyms, preface, tables, figures, notes and references, appendices, bibliography, index. US79.95, hardcover.

Michael Vatikiotis. Political Change in Southeast Asia: Trimming the Banyan Tree. London and New York: Routledge, 1996. xiv, 230 pp. Foreword. US$13.99, paper.