2017 Book reviews

Ocean of Trade: South Asian Merchants, Africa and the Indian Ocean, c. 1750-1850. Pedro Machado. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. ISBN: 9781107070264

Reviewed by John Aerni-Flessner, Residential College in the Arts and Humanities (RCAH), Michigan State University

Edited by Birgit Schneider

© 2017 The Middle Ground Journal (ISSN: 2155-1103) Number 15, Fall 2017 http://TheMiddleGroundJournal.org.

See Submission Guidelines page for the journal’s not-for-profit educational open-access policy.

Beijing’s Power and China’s Borders: Twenty Neighbors in Asia. Bruce A. Elleman, Stephen Kotkin, and Clive Schofield, eds. Armonk, NY and London, England: Routledge, 2013. ISBN: 9780765627643.

Reviewed by Andrae Marak, Governors State University

Edited by Karen Rosenflanz

© 2017 The Middle Ground Journal (ISSN: 2155-1103) Number 15, Fall 2017 http://TheMiddleGroundJournal.org.

See Submission Guidelines page for the journal’s not-for-profit educational open-access policy.


The Indian Ocean: Oceanic Connections and the Creation of New Societies. Abdul Sheriff and Engseng Ho, eds. London: Hurst & Company, 2014. ISBN: 1849044260.

Reviewed by Thomas Anderson, Merrimack College

Edited by Martin Pflug

© 2017 The Middle Ground Journal (ISSN: 2155-1103) Number 15, Fall 2017 http://TheMiddleGroundJournal.org.

See Submission Guidelines page for the journal’s not-for-profit educational open-access policy.

Voices from the Shifting Russo-Japanese Border: Karafuto/Sakhalin. Svetlana Paichadze and Philip Seaton. (eds.) Abingdon: Routledge, 2015. ISBN: 9781138804784.

Reviewed by Steven Ivings, Heidelberg Centre of Transcultural Studies, Universität Heidelberg

Edited by Martin Pflug

© 2017 The Middle Ground Journal (ISSN: 2155-1103) Number 15, Fall 2017 http://TheMiddleGroundJournal.org.

See Submission Guidelines page for the journal’s not-for-profit educational open-access policy.

Africanizing Democracies: 1980-Present. Alicia Decker and Andrea Arrington. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015. ISBN: 9780199915392.

Reviewed by Jeremy Rich, Marywood University

Edited by Ashley Dressel

© 2017 The Middle Ground Journal (ISSN: 2155-1103) Number 15, Fall 2017 http://TheMiddleGroundJournal.org.

See Submission Guidelines page for the journal’s not-for-profit educational open-access policy.

European Slave Trading in the Indian Ocean, 1500-1850. Richard B. Allen. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2014. ISBN: 9780821421079.

Reviewed by Andrew Howard, Ohio University

Edited by Birgit Schneider

© 2017 The Middle Ground Journal (ISSN: 2155-1103) Number 15, Fall 2017 http://TheMiddleGroundJournal.org.

See Submission Guidelines page for the journal’s not-for-profit educational open-access policy.

Eurasian: Mixed Identities in the United States, China, and Hong Kong, 1842—1943. Emma Jinhua Teng. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013. ISBN: 9780520276277.

Reviewed by Masako Endo, Rowan University

Edited by Karen Rosenflanz

© 2017 The Middle Ground Journal (ISSN: 2155-1103) Number 15, Fall 2017 http://TheMiddleGroundJournal.org.

See Submission Guidelines page for the journal’s not-for-profit educational open-access policy.

Indian Voices: Listening to Native Americans. Alison Owings. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2012. ISBN: 9780813549651.

Reviewed by Alex Colvin, Ph.D. Candidate, Auburn University

Edited by Sarah R. Hamilton

© 2017 The Middle Ground Journal (ISSN: 2155-1103) Number 15, Fall 2017 http://TheMiddleGroundJournal.org.

See Submission Guidelines page for the journal’s not-for-profit educational open-access policy.

Being Nuclear: Africans and the Global Uranium Trade. Gabrielle Hecht. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2012. ISBN: 9780262017268.

Reviewed by John Mohr, Ph.D. Candidate, Auburn University

Edited by Sarah R. Hamilton

© 2017 The Middle Ground Journal (ISSN: 2155-1103) Number 14, Spring 2017 http://TheMiddleGroundJournal.org.

See Submission Guidelines page for the journal’s not-for-profit educational open-access policy.

Rice: Global Networks and New Histories. Bray, Francesca, Peter A. Coclanis, Edda L. Fields-Black, and Dagmar Schäfer, eds. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015. ISBN: 9781107044395.

Reviewed by Melinda S. Landeck, Austin College

Edited by Jill Gaeta

© 2017 The Middle Ground Journal (ISSN: 2155-1103) Number 14, Spring 2017 http://TheMiddleGroundJournal.org.

See Submission Guidelines page for the journal’s not-for-profit educational open-access policy.

The World Hunt: An Environmental History of the Commodification of Animals. John F. Richards. Berkeley: The University of California Press, 2014. ISBN: 9780520282537.

Reviewed by Carey McCormack, Washington State University, Vancouver

Edited by Birgit Schneider

© 2017 The Middle Ground Journal (ISSN: 2155-1103) Number 14, Spring 2017 http://TheMiddleGroundJournal.org.

See Submission Guidelines page for the journal’s not-for-profit educational open-access policy.

Chinese and Japanese Films on the Second World War. Edited by King-fai Tam, Timothy Y. Tsu, and Sandra Wilson. Oxon and NY: Routledge, 2015. ISBN: 9781138791039.

Reviewed by Lianying Shan, Gustavus Adolphus College

Edited by Ashley Dressel

© 2017 The Middle Ground Journal (ISSN: 2155-1103) Number 14, Spring 2017 http://TheMiddleGroundJournal.org.

See Submission Guidelines page for the journal’s not-for-profit educational open-access policy.

Crude Reality: Petroleum in World History. Brian C. Black. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2012. ISBN: 9780742556333.

Reviewed by Erika Cornelius Smith, Nichols College

Edited by Mariona Lloret

© 2017 The Middle Ground Journal (ISSN: 2155-1103) Number 14, Spring 2017 http://TheMiddleGroundJournal.org. See Submission Guidelines page for the journal’s not-for-profit educational open-access policy.

A Global History of War: From Assyria to the Twenty-First Century. Gérard Chaliand. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014. ISBN: 9780520283619

Reviewed by James Bonk, College of Wooster

Edited byAshley Dressel

© 2017 The Middle Ground Journal (ISSN: 2155-1103) Number 14, Spring 2017 http://TheMiddleGroundJournal.org. See Submission Guidelines page for the journal’s not-for-profit educational open-access policy.

From Development to Dictatorship: Bolivia and the Alliance for Progress in the Kennedy Era. Thomas Field, Jr. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2014. ISBN: 9780801452604.

Reviewed by David Grantham, National Center for Policy Analysis

Edited by Mariona Lloret

© 2017 The Middle Ground Journal (ISSN: 2155-1103) Number 14, Spring 2017 http://TheMiddleGroundJournal.org. See Submission Guidelines page for the journal’s not-for-profit educational open-access policy.

Migration and New Media: Transnational Families and Polymedia. Mirca Madianou and Daniel Miller. Oxon, UK: Routledge, 2012. ISBN: 9780415679282.

Reviewed by Eleanor M. Huntington, University of Southern California

Edited by Martin Pflug

© 2017 The Middle Ground Journal (ISSN: 2155-1103) Number 14, Spring 2017 http://TheMiddleGroundJournal.org. See Submission Guidelines page for the journal’s not-for-profit educational open-access policy.

Empires of Coal: Fueling China’s Entry into the Modern World Order, 1860-1920. Shellen Xiao Wu. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2015. ISBN: 9780804792844.

Reviewed by Xiaolin Duan, Elon University

© 2017 The Middle Ground Journal (ISSN: 2155-1103) Number 14, Spring 2017 http://TheMiddleGroundJournal.org. See Submission Guidelines page for the journal’s not-for-profit educational open-access policy.

The Third Asiatic Invasion: Empire and Migration in Filipino America, 1898-1946. Rick Baldoz. New York: New York University Press, 2010. ISBN: 9780841791097

Reviewed by Mark Reeves, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Edited by Ashley Dressel

© 2017 The Middle Ground Journal (ISSN: 2155-1103) Number 14, Spring 2017 http://TheMiddleGroundJournal.org. See Submission Guidelines page for the journal’s not-for-profit educational open-access policy.

Migration: A World History. Michael Fisher. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. ISBN: 9780199764334

Reviewed by Lisa Lillie, Washington University, St. Louis

Edited by Karen Rosenflanz

© 2017 The Middle Ground Journal (ISSN: 2155-1103) Number 14, Spring 2017 http://TheMiddleGroundJournal.org. See Submission Guidelines page for the journal’s not-for-profit educational open-access policy.