State failure takes many forms. Somalia offers one extreme. A collapse of central authority as the outcome of a prolonged civil war, where authority descends into competing factions -- headed by warlords -- around the spoils of local commerce, power and international aid. At the other end of the...

"Slavery and Bonded Labor in Asia, 1250-1900 is the first collection of studies to focus on slavery and related forms of labor throughout Asia. The 15 chapters by an international group of scholars assess the current state of Asian slavery studies, discuss new research on slave systems in Asia,...