Deep Roots

Deep Roots
Author: Edda L. Fields-Black
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2008-10-20
Genre: History
ISBN: 0253002966

Mangrove rice farming on West Africa's Rice Coast was the mirror image of tidewater rice plantations worked by enslaved Africans in 18th-century South Carolina and Georgia. This book reconstructs the development of rice-growing technology among the Baga and Nalu of coastal Guinea, beginning more than a millennium before the transatlantic slave trade. It reveals a picture of dynamic pre-colonial coastal societies, quite unlike the static, homogenous pre-modern Africa of previous scholarship. From its examination of inheritance, innovation, and borrowing, Deep Roots fashions a theory of cultural change that encompasses the diversity of communities, cultures, and forms of expression in Africa and the African diaspora.

Sustainable Development of Rice and Water Resources in Mainland Southeast Asia and Mekong River Basin

Sustainable Development of Rice and Water Resources in Mainland Southeast Asia and Mekong River Basin
Author: Tuyet L. Cosslett
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 155
Release: 2017-09-21
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9811056137

This book highlights rice and water resources security in Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam – countries that share the international Mekong River, which is a source of both regional cooperation and conflict. It discusses the topography, population, economy, rice production and rice trade of these four riparian countries, and analyses the impacts of climate change, El Nino and La Nina, and the construction of Mekong mainstream dams on water resources and rice productivity. Further, this publication assesses the role of the Mekong River Commission, a river basin organization responsible for the sustainable development and water resource management of the Mekong, and examines regional cooperation frameworks such as the Lower Mekong Initiative, and the Mekong-Japan Summit. The book then explores the emerging role of China in promoting the Lancang-Mekong cooperation between China and Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam in developing the Mekong River Basin, which could determine the future water and rice security of the region.

Black Rice

Black Rice
Author: Judith A. Carney
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2009-07-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0674029216

Few Americans identify slavery with the cultivation of rice, yet rice was a major plantation crop during the first three centuries of settlement in the Americas. Rice accompanied African slaves across the Middle Passage throughout the New World to Brazil, the Caribbean, and the southern United States. By the middle of the eighteenth century, rice plantations in South Carolina and the black slaves who worked them had created one of the most profitable economies in the world. Black Rice tells the story of the true provenance of rice in the Americas. It establishes, through agricultural and historical evidence, the vital significance of rice in West African society for a millennium before Europeans arrived and the slave trade began. The standard belief that Europeans introduced rice to West Africa and then brought the knowledge of its cultivation to the Americas is a fundamental fallacy, one which succeeds in effacing the origins of the crop and the role of Africans and African-American slaves in transferring the seed, the cultivation skills, and the cultural practices necessary for establishing it in the New World. In this vivid interpretation of rice and slaves in the Atlantic world, Judith Carney reveals how racism has shaped our historical memory and neglected this critical African contribution to the making of the Americas.

World History Encyclopedia [21 volumes]

World History Encyclopedia [21 volumes]
Author: Alfred J. Andrea Ph.D.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 8025
Release: 2011-03-23
Genre: History
ISBN: 1851099301

An unprecedented undertaking by academics reflecting an extraordinary vision of world history, this landmark multivolume encyclopedia focuses on specific themes of human development across cultures era by era, providing the most in-depth, expansive presentation available of the development of humanity from a global perspective. Well-known and widely respected historians worked together to create and guide the project in order to offer the most up-to-date visions available. A monumental undertaking. A stunning academic achievement. ABC-CLIO's World History Encyclopedia is the first comprehensive work to take a large-scale thematic look at the human species worldwide. Comprised of 21 volumes covering 9 eras, an introductory volume, and an index, it charts the extraordinary journey of humankind, revealing crucial connections among civilizations in different regions through the ages. Within each era, the encyclopedia highlights pivotal interactions and exchanges among cultures within eight broad thematic categories: population and environment, society and culture, migration and travel, politics and statecraft, economics and trade, conflict and cooperation, thought and religion, science and technology. Aligned to national history standards and packed with images, primary resources, current citations, and extensive teaching and learning support, the World History Encyclopedia gives students, educators, researchers, and interested general readers a means of navigating the broad sweep of history unlike any ever published.

Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence for Agricultural Economics

Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence for Agricultural Economics
Author: Chandrasekar Vuppalapati
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 611
Release: 2021-10-04
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 3030774856

This book discusses machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) for agricultural economics. It is written with a view towards bringing the benefits of advanced analytics and prognostics capabilities to small scale farmers worldwide. This volume provides data science and software engineering teams with the skills and tools to fully utilize economic models to develop the software capabilities necessary for creating lifesaving applications. The book introduces essential agricultural economic concepts from the perspective of full-scale software development with the emphasis on creating niche blue ocean products. Chapters detail several agricultural economic and AI reference architectures with a focus on data integration, algorithm development, regression, prognostics model development and mathematical optimization. Upgrading traditional AI software development paradigms to function in dynamic agricultural and economic markets, this volume will be of great use to researchers and students in agricultural economics, data science, engineering, and machine learning as well as engineers and industry professionals in the public and private sectors.

Routledge Handbook of Early Chinese History

Routledge Handbook of Early Chinese History
Author: Paul R. Goldin
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 726
Release: 2018-05-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 1317681916

The study of early China has been radically transformed over the past fifty years by archaeological discoveries, including both textual and non-textual artefacts. Excavations of settlements and tombs have demonstrated that most people did not lead their lives in accordance with ritual canons, while previously unknown documents have shown that most received histories were written retrospectively by victors and present a correspondingly anachronistic perspective. This handbook provides an authoritative survey of the major periods of Chinese history from the Neolithic era to the fall of the Latter Han Empire and the end of antiquity (AD 220). It is the first volume to include not only a comprehensive review of political history but also detailed treatments of topics that transcend particular historical periods, such as: Warfare and political thought Cities and agriculture Language and art Medicine and mathematics Providing a detailed analysis of the most up-to-date research by leading scholars in the field of early Chinese history, this book will be useful to students and scholars of Chinese history, Asian archaeology, and Chinese studies in general.

The Unquiet River

The Unquiet River
Author: Arupjyoti Saikia
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 498
Release: 2019-08-25
Genre: History
ISBN: 0190990406

The unruly Brahmaputra has always been an agent in shaping both the landscape of its valley and the livelihoods of its inhabitants. But how much do we know of this river’s rich past? Historian Arupjyoti Saikia’s biography of the Brahmaputra reimagines the layered history of Assam with the unquiet river at the centre. The book combines a range of disciplinary scholarship to unravel the geological forces as well as human endeavour which have shaped the river into what it is today. Wonderfully illuminated with archival detail and interwoven with narratives and striking connections, the book allows the reader to imagine the Brahmaputra’s course in history. This evocative and compelling book will be interesting reading for anyone trying to understand the past and the present of a river confronted by the twenty-first century’s ambitious infrastructural designs to further re-engineer the river and its landscape.

The Bronze Age of Southeast Asia

The Bronze Age of Southeast Asia
Author: Charles Higham
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 404
Release: 1996-06-13
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9780521565059

This book addresses the controversy over the origins of the Bronze Age of Southeast Asia. Charles Higham provides a systematic and regional presentation of the current evidence. He suggests that the adoption of metallurgy in the region followed a period of growing exchange with China. Higham then traces the development of Bronze Age cultures, identifying regionality and innovation, and suggesting how and why distinct cultures developed. This book is the first comprehensive study of the period, placed within a broader comparative framework.

Contact And Exchange in the Ancient World

Contact And Exchange in the Ancient World
Author: Victor H. Mair
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2006-01-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780824828844

Presents empirical evidence on a wide range of cultural phenomena in history, and thereby demonstrating the processes whereby cultural traits are acquired and modified - the dynamics of transmission and transformation. This book pays attention to biological organisms on the one hand and to developments spanning an entire continent on the other.

Ancient Complex Societies

Ancient Complex Societies
Author: Jennifer C. Ross
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 585
Release: 2017-01-06
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1315305615

Ancient Complex Societies examines the archaeological evidence for the rise and functioning of politically and socially “complex” cultures in antiquity. Particular focus is given to civilizations exhibiting positions of leadership, social and administrative hierarchies, emerging and already developed complex religious systems, and economic differentiation. Case studies are drawn from around the globe, including Asia, the Mediterranean region, and the American continents. Using case studies from Africa, Polynesia, and North America, discussion is dedicated to identifying what “complex” means and when it should be applied to ancient systems. Each chapter attempts to not only explore the sociopolitical and economic elements of ancient civilizations, but to also present an overview of what life was like for the later population within each system, sometimes drilling down to individual people living their daily lives. Throughout the chapters, the authors address problems with the idea of complexity, the incomparability of cultures, and the inconsistency of archaeological and historical evidence in reconstructing ancient cultures.