Surrounded by the terraced hills of the Yangtze River valley, Fuling has long been a place of continuity, far from the bustling political centers of Beijing and Shanghai. But now Fuling is heading down a new path, and gradually, along with scores of other towns in this vast and ever-evolving country, it is becoming a place of change and vitality, tension and reform, disruption and growth. As the people of Fuling hold on to the China they know, they are also opening up and struggling to adapt to a world in which their fate is uncertain.Fuling's position at the crossroads came into remarkably sharp focus when Peter Hessler arrived as a Peace Corps volunteer in 1996, marking the first time in more than half a century that the city had an American resident. He found himself teaching English and American literature at the local college, discovering how Shakespeare and other classics look when seen through the eyes of students who have been raised in the Sichuan countryside and educated in Communist Party doctrine. His students, though, are the ones who taught him about the ways of Fuling — and about the complex process of understanding that takes place when one is immersed in a radically different society.As he learns the language and comes to know the people, Hessler begins to see that it is indeed a unique moment for Fuling. In its past is Communist China's troubled history — the struggles of land reform, the decades of misguided economic policies, and the unthinkable damage of the Cultural Revolution — and in the future is the Three Gorges Dam, which upon completion will partly flood thecity and force the resettlement of more than a million people. Making his way in the city and traveling by boat and train throughout Sichuan province and beyond, Hessler offers vivid descriptions of the people he meets, from priests to prostitutes and peasants to professors, and gives voice to their views. This is both an intimate personal story of his life in Fuling and a colorful, beautifully written account of the surrounding landscape and its history. Imaginative, poignant, funny, and utterly compelling, River Town is an unforgettable portrait of a city that, much like China itself, is seeking to understand both what it was and what it someday will be.

    Presents the most important 20th-century criticism on major works from The Odyssey through modern literature.The critical essays reflect a variety of schools of criticism.Contains critical biographies, notes on the contributing critics, a chronology of the author's life, and an index.Introductory essay by Harold Bloom.

    Her father, the son of missionaries, leads a charmed and secretive life, though his greatest joy is sharing his beloved city with his only daughter. Yet when Anna and her mother flee Japanese-occupied Shanghai to return to California, he stays behind, believing his connections and a little bit of luck will keep him safe.Through Anna's memories and her father's journals we learn of his fall from charismatic millionaire to tortured prisoner, in a story of betrayal and reconciliation that spans two continents. The Distant Land of My Father, a breathtaking and richly lyrical debut, unfolds to reveal an enduring family love through tragic circumstances.

    He was judged by his colleagues to be the best television reporter of the war, however, the traumatic stories Laurence covered became a personal burden that he carried long after the war was over. In this evocative, unflinching memoir, laced with humor, anger, love, and the unforgettable story of Mé a cat rescued from the battle of Hue, Laurence recalls coming of age during the war years as a journalist and as a man. Along the way, he clarifies the murky history of the war and the role that journalists played in altering its course.The Cat from Huéi> has earned passionate acclaim from many of the most renowned journalists and writers about the war, as well as from military officers and war veterans, book reviewers, and readers. This book will stand with Michael Herr's Dispatches, Philip Caputo's A Rumor of War, and Neil Sheehan's A Bright, Shining Lie as one of the best books ever written about Vietnam-and about war generally.

    In the ancient city of Bhopal, a cloud of toxic gas escaped from an American pesticide plant, killing and injuring thousands of people.

    Amid escalating nuclear tensions, Kim Jong-un and North Korea's other leaders have kept a tight grasp on their one-party state, quashing any nascent opposition movements and sending all suspected dissidents to its brutal concentration camps for "re-education." Kang Chol-Hwan is the first survivor of one of these camps to escape and tell his story to the world, documenting the extreme conditions in these gulags and providing a personal insight into life in North Korea. Sent to the notorious labor camp Yodok when he was nine years old, Kang observed frequent public executions and endured forced labor and near-starvation rations for ten years. In 1992, he escaped to South Korea, where he found God and now advocates for human rights in North Korea. Part horror story, part historical document, part memoir, part political tract, this book brings together unassailable firsthand experience, setting one young man's personal suffering in the wider context of modern history, giving eyewitness proof to the abuses perpetrated by the North Korean regime.

    After the men in her family joined the resistance, she fled with the women and children to the capital, Kabul, and so began a life of day-to-day struggle in her war-torn country. A life that includes a period living in the harsh conditions of a Pakistani refugee camp, being forced into a marriage to pay off her brother's gambling debts, selling her body and begging for the money to feed her growing family, an attempted suicide, and an unsuccessful endeavour to leave Afghanistan for Iran after the Taliban seized control of her country. Told truthfully and with unflinching detail to writer and documentary-maker Siba Shakib, and incorporating some of the shocking experiences of Shirin-Gol's friends and family members, this is the story of the fate of many of the women in Afghanistan. But it is also a story of great courage, the moving story of a proud woman, a woman who did not want to be banished to a life behind the walls of her house, or told how to dress, who wanted an education for her children so that they could have a chance of a future, to live their lives without fear and poverty. .

    Sadako's determination to fold one thousand paper cranes and her courageous struggle with her illness inspired her classmates. After her death, they started a national campaign to build the Children's Peace Statue to remember Sadako and the many other children who were victims of the Hiroshima bombing. On top of the statue is a girl holding a large crane in her outstretched arms. Today in Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, this statue of Sadako is beautifully decorated with thousands of paper cranes given by people throughout the world.

    Against a broad historical canvas, the novel centers on the interplay between its female protagonist, Sun Meiniang, and the three paternal figures in her life. One of these men is her biological father, Sun Bing, an opera virtuoso and a leader of the Boxer Rebellion. As the bitter events surrounding the revolt unfold, we watch Sun Bing march toward his cruel fate, the gruesome “sandalwood punishment,” whose purpose, as in crucifixions, is to keep the condemned individual alive in mind-numbing pain as long as possible.Filled with the sensual imagery and lacerating expressions for which Mo Yan is so celebrated, Sandalwood Death brilliantly exhibits a range of artistic styles, from stylized arias and poetry to the antiquated idiom of late Imperial China to contemporary prose. Its starkly beautiful language is here masterfully rendered into English by renowned translator Howard Goldblatt.

    Near the end of the First World War, Ottoman soldier Kamal Moghrabi is imprisoned by his Turkish masters. Reunited with his family after being freed by British soldiers, he marries his childhood friend Haniya.But their happiness is short-lived as their homeland is ravaged by violence between the local Arab population and Jewish immigrants fleeing Europe. Any hope of an independent Palestine is shattered and the Moghrabis are forced to flee their home with its cherished olive groves.Based on a true story, this family saga is a universal depiction of Palestinian life and culture with a warm and engaging love story at its heart.Deborah Rohan met Hamzi Moghrabi in 1993. Over the course of several years and many interviews with Hamzi and his family, she wrote the story of one family’s experience of the turbulent events that have shaped today’s Middle East. She lives in Colorado, USA.More information about The Olive Grove can be found on her website www.theolivegrovebook.com.

    In the years that followed, under Emperor Hirohito, conformity was the norm and the Japanese psyche became one of selfless devotion to country and emperor; soon Japanese soldiers were to engage in mass murder, rape, and even cannibalization of their enemies. Horror in the East examines how this drastic change came about. On the basis of never-before-published interviews with both the victimizers and the victimized, and drawing on never-before-revealed or long-ignored archival records, Rees discloses the full horror of the war in the Pacific, probing the supposed Japanese belief in their own racial superiority, analyzing a military that believed suicide to be more honorable than surrender, and providing what the Guardian calls "a powerful, harrowing account of appalling inhumanity...impeccably researched."

    Now, before she succumbs to forgetfulness, LuLing gives Ruth some of her writings, which reveal a side of LuLing that Ruth has never known. . . .In a remote mountain village where ghosts and tradition rule, LuLing grows up in the care of her mute Precious Auntie as the family endures a curse laid upon a relative known as the bonesetter. When headstrong LuLing rejects the marriage proposal of the coffinmaker, a shocking series of events are set in motion–all of which lead back to Ruth and LuLing in modern San Francisco. The truth that Ruth learns from her mother’s past will forever change her perception of family, love, and forgiveness.

    One of this platoon’s section commanders was a 20-year old regular soldier called Bob Kearney, who led a series of deadly patrols, operating in isolation and extreme danger ahead of the main Australian forces.

    The fall of Malaya and Singapore and the bombing of Darwin—what looked like the invasion of Australia—ebb and crash over a man’s long search to find a home and a woman’s determination to keep hers, connected by old memories and new betrayals. It is a thriller and a romance, a story of earth and water, air and metal—an unforgettable ride through the most precarious time in our region's recent history. Garry Disher writes: ‘Past the Headlands came from the same World War 2 research as The Stencil Man. I was struck by the power of two documents. The first was a letter written by a woman alone on a cattle station near Broome in 1942, at the time the Japanese were overrunning Malaya and Singapore and bombing areas of northern Australia. One day she found herself giving shelter to Dutch colonial officers and their families, who were fleeing Sumatra and Java ahead of the Japanese advance (many people like them lost their lives when Japanese planes shot up their waiting seaplanes in Broome Harbour in March, 1942). This woman stuck in my head (the isolation, the danger, the efforts to communicate, her bravery, etc). The second document was a war diary written by an Australian army surgeon who escaped Singapore ahead of the Japanese and was stuck in Sumatra, trying to get out. Here he treated many of the civilians (and Australian Army deserters) fleeing from Singapore. He was captured by the Japanese, but survived the war. But his last few diary entries detail how he and a mate were waiting for a plane or a ship to take them out, then one day he wrote, “Davis [his mate] left last night without telling me”. So much for mateship. I spent years trying to find my way into their stories. At one stage I spent a year writing 40,000 words before realising it wouldn’t work. I put it aside, then realised one subplot didn’t belong, so extracted it and turned it into a separate novel The Divine Wind, which has sold 100,000 copies around the world, won a major award and been published as both a young adult and a general market novel. But cutting it out like that freed me up to write about the woman and the man betrayed by his mate, in Past the Headlands.’

    The stories range from the light-hearted to the sombre. Many are laced with Manoj Das' characteristic irony. Told with humour and compassion, wit and sensitivity, this collection brings together the best of the works of one of India's most mature and rewarding writers.

    Television screens across the world filled with searing images from Tiananmen Square of protesters thronging the streets, massive hunger strikes, tanks set ablaze, and survivors tending to the dead and wounded after a swift and brutal government crackdown.Dingxin Zhao's award-winning The Power of Tiananmen is the definitive treatment of these historic events. Along with grassroots tales and interviews with the young men and women who launched the demonstrations, Zhao carries out a penetrating analysis of the many parallel changes in China's state-society relations during the 1980s. Such changes prepared an alienated academy, gave rise to ecology-based student mobilization, restricted government policy choices, and shaped student emotions and public opinion, all of which, Zhao argues, account for the tragic events in Tiananmen.

    The reader is caught up in the day-to-day lives of women like Sharifa, Latifa and Marzia, sharing their problems, dramas, the tears and the laughter: whether enjoying a good gossip over tea and fresh nan, dealing with a husband’s desertion, battling to save the life of a one-year-old opium addict or learning how to deliver babies safely. Mary Smith spent several years in Afghanistan working on a health project for women and children in both remote rural areas and in the city of Mazar-i-Sharif. Given the opportunity to participate more fully than most other foreigners in the lives of the women, many of whom became close friends, she has been able to present this unique portrayal of Afghan women – a portrayal very different from the one most often presented by the media.

    For the next ten years, he studied with many teachers. Using his newfound knowledge, Crow opened a clinic in Kathmandu and another in a small mountain village, where he treated beggars from the street as well as high abbots of monasteries. This colorful and captivating story interweaves medical teachings with insights into Tibetan Buddhism, evoking the beauty and wonder of a faraway land.

    Her wonderful designs have been skillfully adapted for cross stitching by American kit company Design Works Crafts. While some of the featured designs are already available as kits, many are exclusive to this book. Three of the most beautiful designs portray women in kimonos Grace, Beauty and Wisdom - echoing the art of the Japanese print. While these may offer a challenge to the more experienced stitcher, there are plenty of smaller designs from which to choose. The beautifully finished projects include a greetings card collection, pot lids, towel borders, scented sachet, a pillow, drawstring bag, and a silk-backed wall hanging.

    "Savoring India" is a beautiful book filled with lovely watercolor illustrations and stunning scenic and food photography.

    Journalists Levy and Scott-Clark risked their lives to reach the remote "Lost Valley of Capelan" in Burma, where jadeite is still being mined. They tell a tragic story about miners held there, dying in horrifying numbers of AIDS, because they have been paid in the form of heroin. They weave this shocking contemporary story with the mythology and obsessive secret history of this unusual gem -- going back to the Burmese Court.

    Born in eastern Tibet, Jamyang Sakya married into the powerful Sakya family, spiritual advisers of Kublai Khan and for years rulers of much of Central Asia. Her engaging personal story evokes a rich vision of Tibet's traditional culture, customs, and religious practices. Jamyang Sakya tells of being the only girls in a monastic private school, of dreams and divinations interpreted by high lamas, of long pilgrimages to sacred Buddhist sites, and of her life as a high lady of Sakya. Her narrative reveals a multifaceted picture, from the intricacies of managing a palace household to the political takeover by the Chinese Communists, who destroyed much of Tibet's religious heritage. It climaxes with the Sakya family's harrowing walk through the Himalayas to freedom, during which they were hotly pursued by the Chinese. After a year in India, they immigrated to the United States, one of the first Tibetan families to do so.

    Here, people describe the present age, beginning with the Great Leap Famine of 1958-1960 and continuing through the 1990s, as "the age of wild ghosts." Their stories of this age converge on a dream of community—a bad dream, embodied in the life, death, and reawakening of a single institution: a rotating headman-ship system that expired violently under the Maoist regime. Displaying a sensitive understanding of both Chinese and the Tibeto-Burman language spoken in this region, Mueggler explores memories of this institution, including the rituals and poetics that once surrounded it and the bitter conflicts that now haunt it.To exorcise "wild ghosts," he shows, is nothing less than to imagine the state and its power, to trace the responsibility for violence to its morally ambiguous origins, and to enunciate calls for justice and articulate longings for reconciliation.

    And so begins another life journey along the spiritual path of one of our favorite authors. Larkin's account is by turns hilarious, heartbreaking, exasperating, and exhilarating, and is told with her usual charm and grace. Part travelogue, part spiritual journey, First You Shave Your Head is a lighthearted collection of Buddhist practices and principles that won't fail to inspire and amuse.Author Biography: Geri Larkin lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where she is an ordained dharma teacher and runs the Right Livelihood Seed Capital Fund, which helps fund Buddhist-based ventures.

    Working under the auspices of the Wildlife Conservation Society, his goal was to establish a wildlife research and conservation programme and to survey the country's wildlife. He succeeded beyond all expectations, not only discovering a species of primitive deer completely new to science but also playing a vital role in the creation of Hkakabo Razi National Park, now one of Southeast Asia's largest protected areas.

    More than three hundred images chronicle the events of December 7, 1941, when Japan launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, drawing the United States into World War II.

    As Climbing Leader of the famed 1996 Everest IMAX expedition led by David Breashears, Jamling Norgay was able to follow in the footsteps of his legendary mountaineer father, Tenzing Norgay, who with Sir Edmund Hillary was the first to reach the summit of Mount Everest, in 1953. Jamling Norgay interweaves the story of his own ascent during the infamous May 1996 Mount Everest disaster with little-known stories from his father's historic climb and the spiritual life of the Sherpas, revealing a fascinating and profound world that few -- even many who have made it to the top -- have ever seen.

    Spanning the years 1945 to 1975, it is the definitive story of the well-meaning, but often misguided, American political leaders whose unquestioning adherence to the crusading, anti-Communist Cold War dogma of the 1950's and 1960's led the nation into its tragic misadventure in Vietnam.At the center of this narrative are seven political leaders-Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, J. William Fulbright, Mike Mansfield, and George McGovern. During their careers, each occupied center-stage in the nation's debate over U.S. policy in Vietnam.This is a piercing analysis of political currents and an epic tragedy filled with fascinating characters and antagonisms and beliefs that divided the nation.

    In a sophisticated and much-needed account, the author argues that many aspects of contemporary Burmese society are the creations of the nineteenth century when Burma fought the British and tried to modernize the country. The book will be an important resource for students and policymakers as a basis for understanding contemporary politics and the challenges of the modern state, as well as for historians interested in British colonial expansion during the period.

    This dynamic collection includes impressionistic essays about the Tibetan leader by Diki Tsering, his mother; China scholar and journalist Orville Schell; and travel writer Pico lyer; as well as an interview with His Holiness by famed monologist Spalding Gray. A Simple Monk is published in cooperation with New York's Tibet House, which will receive a portion of the proceeds.

    The starting point for Ang's discussion is the experience of visiting Taiwan. Ang, a person of Chinese descent, born in Indonesia and raised in the Netherlands, found herself faced with an almost insurmountable difficulty - surrounded by people who expected her to speak to them in Chinese. She writes: It was the beginning of an almost decade-long engagement with the predicaments of `Chineseness' in diaspora. In Taiwan I was different because I couldn't speak Chinese; in the West I was different because I looked Chinese. From this autobiographical beginning, Ang goes on to reflect upon tensions between `Asia' and `the West' at a national and global level, and to consider the disparate meanings of `Chineseness' in the contemporary world. She offers a critique of the increasingly aggressive construction of a global Chineseness, and challenges Western tendencies to equate `Chinese' with `Asian' identity. Ang then turns to `the West', exploring the paradox of Australia's identity as a `Western' country in the Asian region, and tracing Australia's uneasy relationship with its Asian neighbours, from the White Australia policy to contemporary multicultural society. Finally, Ang draws together her discussion of `Asia' and `the West' to consider the social and intellectual space of the `in-between', arguing for a theorising not of `difference' but of `togetherness' in contemporary societies.

    Free of cholesterol and salt and low in calories and fat, this natural food is inexpensive, easy to use, and delicious. The Book of Tofu contains everyday recipes, easy to follow instructions for making tofu at home, and an updated list of national and international tofu manufacturers.Sure to delight those interested in tasty, healthy foods, The Book of Tofu is the definitive guide to tofu.

    Contributors examine white feminist theology's misappropriations of Native North American women, Chinese footbinding, and veiling by Muslim women, as well as the Jewish emancipation in France, the symbolic dismemberment of black women by rap and sermons, and the potential to rewrite and reclaim canonical stories.

     At the time Gilmour went to the field, Mongolia embraced that vast territory between China proper and Siberia, stretching from the Sea of Japan on the east to Turkestan on the west, and from Asiatic Russia on the north to the Great Wall of China on the south. In the center is the great Gobi Desert. To carry the Gospel to the nomadic bands of this land, Gilmour of necessity adopted a roving life and puts up with its hardships. In 1882 the Gilmours took furlough to England. While home he published "Among the Mongols". One critic wrote, "Robinson Crusoe has turned missionary, lived years in Mongolia, and wrote a book about it." THIS book is a record not many journeys; not a few weeks passed in scouring Mongolia, but of long years spent in unusually intimate intercourse with its people. The writer introduces his readers to a people of whom very little beyond the name is known. In fact, the all-pervading quality of this book is its freshness, and this quality manifests itself in style, incidents, things and scenes described, and, not the least, in the object and end for which the travels narrated have been undertaken. Every page of this book testifies that the writer goes about with eye and ear open; and as he also possesses the gift of narrating in interesting and lifelike style what he sees and hears, his book possesses the charm which attaches to all true pictures of human life. With many good qualities, and with almost a superabundance of religion, the Mongols have no love of truth, and are wont to despise a man who cannot meet the stress of daily events by an apt lie. Gilmour possesses in a high degree the power of graphic description. The book abounds in passages that could be adduced in support of this statement, notably his account of a journey across the desert of Gobi, and a visit to Lake Baikal in midwinter. No one can read these pages without feeling that to Gilmour has been given by the Master in a very high degree the true missionary spirit. He thinks it a small thing to cut himself off from the comforts of civilization; he wanders about for months at a time living in smoky Mongol tents and striving to win the affection of darkened Mongol hearts; he has laid it down as a fundamental principle 'never to take offence at the conduct of a heathen, however bad it might be ;' and he has learnt that in this as in other fields the work of God is accomplished slowly, though he doubts not that it will be done in His own good time and way. No one can carefully read this volume without feeling that it is the work of a man who is possessed by that love for souls ; and that in the accomplishment of the aim of his life, the conversion of the Mongols, there is no sacrifice he would not make, there is no toil he would not endure. No one can read this book without pleasure and benefit. The reader can hardly open at any page without finding something fresh, human, and interesting. CONTENTS. I. FIEST ACQUAINTANCE WITH MONGOLIA. II. PICKING UP MONGOLIAN. III. THE BAIKAL IN WINTER. IV. TRACES OF THE OLD BURIAT MISSION. V. LEARNING TO RIDE. VI. A NIGHT IN A MONGOL'S TENT. VII. BUYING EXPERIENCE. VIII. HOW TO TRAVEL IN MONGOLIA. IX. DINING WITH A MONGOL. X. APPEAL TO A MONGOL MANDARIN. XI. LAMA MIAO. XII. UKGA. XIII. WU T'AI SHAN.

    An adamant idealist and a courageous thinker, Gandhi identified himself with the struggles of the common people. He became the sole voice of the downtrodden and the exploited and believed fervently in the notion that "hatred can only be overcome by love." He vowed to instigate social and political change through nonviolent means and succeeded in changing India's prejudicial caste system and winning India's independence from British rule.Gandhi's teachings inspired Martin Luther King's nonviolent civil rights movement in the United States and Nelson Mandela's anti-apartheid movement in South Africa. Gandhi's philosophies of nonviolence and peaceful protest continue to inspire people around the world.In beautiful language and exquisite illustrations inspired by Gandhi's own belief in the simplicity and truth of life, Demi captures the spirit that was Mahatma Gandhi and pays homage to this great man.

    Covering every imaginable subject these charts are found throughout India. Intended primarily as educational material, they also act as guides to morality and correct social behaviour and offer marvellous cautionary tales. Wonderfully unclassifiable, echoing naive art and kitsch, Ideal Boy presents an hilariously random carnival of information.

    In this city lives a seven-year-old girl named Mimiko. Here you can follow a year’s worth of fun, food, and festivities in Mimiko’s life, month by month. You’ll learn about the Doll’s Festival, riding the bullet train, the right way to put on a kimono, and Mimiko’s top ten favorite meals—just try not to eat the pages displaying the delicious wagashi! Mari Takabayashi evokes the flurry and enchantment of daily life in Tokyo with exquisitely detailed illustrations and descriptions. Her love for the city of her birth blooms in every last glowing vignette.

    From these parents the Vietnamese people were born. With power, humor, and grace, Sherry Garland shares six of her favorite folktales of Vietnam. Passed down through the ages, these colorful stories depict the rich history, tribal customs, explanations of natural phenomena, and values so important to the Vietnamese people. Award-winning illustrator Trina Schart Hyman brings these magically entertaining and vividly detailed stories to life in an introduction to the folktales of Vietnam that is nothing less than masterful.

    Drawing on a wide range of scholarship, Reason's Traces reflects current work in philosophical analysis and hermeneutics, inviting readers to explore in a Buddhist context the relationship between philosophy and traditions of spiritual exercise.

    Through Naikan we develop a natural and profound sense of gratitude for blessings bestowed on us by others, blessings that were always there but went unnoticed. This collection of introductory essays, parables, and inspirations explains what Naikan is and how it can be applied to life and celebrations throughout the year.Gregg Krech is Executive Director of the ToDo Institute, a Naikan education and retreat center near Middlebury, Vermont.

    illustrated by pictures from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present with full commentary by a visitor who met the last survivors of the vanquished past. The Last Filipino Headhunters brigs to light beliefs and a way of life that survived for millennia before a being eradicated by colonial powers.

    Picturing Chinatown contains more than 160 photographs and paintings, some well known and many never reproduced before, to illustrate how this famous district has acted on the photographic and painterly imagination. Bringing together art history and the social and political history of San Francisco, this vividly detailed study unravels the complex cultural encounter that occurred between the women and men living in Chinatown and the artists who walked its streets, observed its commerce, and visited its nightclubs. Artistic representations of San Francisco's Chinatown include the work of some of the city's most gifted artists, among them the photographers Laura Adams Armer, Arnold Genthe, Dorothea Lange, Eadweard Muybridge, and Carleton Watkins and the painters Edwin Deakin, Yun Gee, Theodore Wores, and the members of the Chinese Revolutionary Artists' Club. Looking at the work of these artists and many others, Anthony Lee shows how their experiences in the district helped encourage, and even structured, some of their most ambitious experiments with brush and lens. In addition to discussing important developments in modern art history, Lee highlights the social and political context behind these striking images. He demonstrates the value of seeing paintings and photographs as cultural documents, and in so doing, opens a fascinating new perspective on San Francisco's Chinatown.

    This fascinating environmental history of Japan examines how traditions and practices in several industries--from raising silkworms to mining lead and coal to refining petroleum--have affected the health of workers and those who have lived in these toxic landscapes.

    The fifty-four images -- illustrating one chapter each -- date from the mid-seventeenth century and shimmer with uncommon beauty and delicacy.

    Outside Europe, however, it has continued to flourish throughout the 20th century. Covering Turkey, Iran, Abkhazia, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, this study reveals the counter-forces unleashed by the project of nationalist modernization, and the stimulation of identity politics as the result of ruthless repression of minority languages, culture, traditions, and religion--the life-blood of minority ethnicity. The study examines how these policies have strengthened identity politics and the movements for opting out of the nation.

    This was the law in Japan in the early 1800s. When fourteen-year-old Manjiro, working on a fishing boat to help support his family, was shipwrecked three hundred miles away from his homeland, he was heartbroken to think that he would never again be able to go home. So when an American whaling boat rescued him, Manjiro decided to do what no other Japanese person had ever done: He went to America, where he received an education and took part in events that eventually made him a hero in the Land of the Rising Sun.NOTE: Blumberg's "Commodore Perry in the land of the Shogun" is a companion volume.

    With an international scope of compassion and escalating tension, Maggie Helwig uses the voices and stories of a strong and varied cast of characters to shape a world in which it’s far too “easy to lose people.” A book about disappearance and surveillance, Where She Was Standing contrasts involuntary and overtly political tragedies with the dirty little secrets of our big cities, the deliberate invisibility of society’s dangerous fringe and the emotional unavailability of scarred and scared individuals.  The murder of Lisa James, a young black Canadian photographer, in Indonesian-occupied East Timor, unifies everyone; the presence of her absence, her life, memory, and principles guide both her mother and boyfriend, as well as a journalist, a doctor, and a human rights activist she has never met, through fragile and subterranean explorations of the heart and soul. Their quest is simple, their quest is impossible: their quest is the truth. With both its poetry and its treacherous political landscape, Where She Was Standing is as suspenseful as it is breath-taking. This rare combination has led Helwig to produce something rarer still: an utterly essential page-turner.

    He was continuously thwarted in his quest--"a misunderstood innocent who became unwittingly entangled in the games of imperial intrigue and espionage that were rife in Central Asia at the time. Today, as Edward Fox so deftly illustrates, we have Csoma de Kőrös to thank for much of what we know about Tibetan culture. Fate eventually brought him to the Himalayas, where, in the freezing cells of Buddhist monasteries, he uncovered a vast ancient civilization hitherto unknown to the West. His was a sublimely strange life, a heroic example of scholarly masochism and obsession.

    McMahon, University of Florida"Kux's study is, to my knowledge, the first full-dress, comprehensive, and authoritative study of U.S.-Pakistan relations. Focused primarily on formal diplomacy between these two countries, it systematically chronicles the major events, deftly handles the primary issues, and sympathetically considers the key political and diplomatic figures on both sides."–Robert Wirsing, University of South CarolinaU.S.-Pakistan relations have been extraordinarily volatile, largely a function of the twists and turns of the Cold War. An intimate partnership prevailed in the Eisenhower, Nixon, and Reagan years, and friction during the Kennedy, Johnson, and Carter presidencies. Since the Cold War ended, the partnership has shriveled. The blunt talking to delivered by President Clinton to Pakistan's military dictator during Clinton's March 25, 2000, stopover in Pakistan highlighted U.S.-Pakistani differences. But the Clinton visit also underscored important U.S. interests in Pakistan.The first comprehensive account of this roller coaster relationship, this book is a companion volume to Kux's Estranged Democracies, recently called "the definitive history of Pakistani-American relations" in the New York Times.

    This stunning collection of photographs presents not only breathtaking mountain landscapes, but also the flora, fauna, and culture of the highest mountain range in the world. More than 150 photographs -- taken during Wolfe's many travels through Pakistan, India, Nepal, Tibet, and China -- provide us an inside look at the people, architecture, religious icons, plants, and mountain vistas of these countries. With the skill and artistry for which he is renowned, Wolfe brings the Himalaya to life.Complementing his spectacular images are Peter Potterfield's interviews with a select group of world-class climbers. Reinhold Messner, Doug Scott, and Ed Viesturs share their thoughts on the Himalaya as a natural world, a social and cultural world, and a climbers' world. Their personal insights, paired with the diversity of Wolfe's images, set this book apart from all others.Award-winning photographer Art Wolfe is an internationally respected nature photographer. He has published more than forty books, including Photography Outdoors (page 19). A Seattle resident, he travels all over the world to capture his photographs. Wolfe performs many slide shows and lectures of his work each year. In April 2000 Wolfe was awarded the coveted Alfred Eisenstaedt Magazine Photography Award. In 1998 he was named Outstanding Nature Photographer of the Year and was recognized bythe National Audobon Society with the first-ever Rachel Carson award. Peter Potterfield is the author of In the Zone (page 29) and Selected Climbs in the Cascades, Volumes I and II (page 24). Norbu Tenzing Norgay is a world-class climber, the Director of Development for the American Himalayan Foundation in San Francisco, and the son of Tenzing Norgay, who summited Mount Everest with Sir Edmund HIllary in 1953.

    Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Childs Frick, and a host of other wall Street titans, the Central Asiatic Expeditions (1922-1930) comprised the most ambitious scientific venture ever launched from the United States. Under the auspices of the American Museum of Natural History, Andrews conducted five expeditions to the last uncharted corner of the world: the Gobi Desert of Outer and Inner Mongolia. Using automobiles supported by camel caravans, Andrews' expeditions stumbled upon unimagined scientific wonders: the Flaming Cliffs, dinosaur egges, the first skeleton of Velociraptor, and a treasure trove of other dinosaurs and extinct mammals. In Dragon Hunter, Charles Gallenkamp vividly recounts these extraordinary discoveries and the unforgettable advantures that attended them. Filled with astonishing tales of Andrews and his team braving raging sandstorms and murderous bandits, enduring civil wars and political intrigue, and reveling in the fascinating world of Peking's foreign colony, Dragon Hunter also traces the religious controversy over evolution and the anti-imperialist conflicts involving China, Mongolia and the United States that were sparked by Andrews' expeditions. Gallemkamp tells Andrews' incredible life story - from his beginnings as a floor sweeper at the American Museumm to his international fame as one of the century's mot acclaimed explorers. The result - lavishly illustrated with original photographs from the expeditions - is a thrilling page-turner, an epic search for fossils cloaked in a sweeping historical narrative.

    Although many Asian cultures borrow the language of the West when discussing queerness, the attitudes, relationships, and roles described are quite different. Gay and Lesbian Asia discusses cultural issues as well as the unique political position of gays in Asian societies. For example, the Thai concept of phet--eroticized gender--is quite different from the Western view that classifies people by the sex of the partners they desire, not by their level of masculine or feminine traits. Similarly, some gay and lesbian Chinese people "come home" rather than "come out." By bringing their partners into the extended family, they can maintain the filial relationships that define them while being able to love whom they choose. The essays in Gay and Lesbian Asia cover a broad range of approaches and subjects:globalization theory exploring the political and cultural ramifications of the Western gay identity movement Foucauldian discourse on sexuality and sharply distinct erotic cultures political and cultural analyses of gay and lesbian comradeship and filial relationships in Chinese societies research on the "T" and "po" lesbians (similar to butch and femme) in Malaysian bars the formation of gay cybercommunities in Asia the effects of class distinctions on Jakarta lesbians studies of local historical forms of homoeroticism and transgenderismGay and Lesbian Asia continues Haworth's landmark series of books on gay and lesbian issues in Asia and Australia. Along with Tongzhi: Politics of Same-Sex Eroticism in Chinese Societies; Queer Asian Cinema; Multicultural Queer: Australian Narratives; Gays and Lesbians in Asia and the Pacific; and Lady Boys, Tom Boys, Rent Boys: Male and Female Homosexualities in Contemporary Thailand, this book presents some of the most original, powerful current thought available on cultural, political, sexual, and gender issues for queer subcultures within Asian cultures.

    evil. Rimau, "Menga-Rajah-Segala-Harimau-Great Ruler of all Tigers," the young son of Chief Feermin, is the central character. He is faced with a compelling set of circumstances which includes firsthand knowledge of Gadoh's revenge. "Koosta, Koosta" (leprosy), a curse cast upon the young Rimau by the witch doctor, is only one of the many obstacles facing our young hero. As the story unfolds, Rimau's special relationship with Tigers is explored. Possessing the "magic of the tigers" in his blood is Rimau's secret weapon.

    It is a journey in time where the visitor is a guest in old Japan. The picture of a world long thought lost is offered with only a few compromises to the modern age into which the visitor is immersed freed from the banality of everyday life. Thus a ryokan is a combination of Japanese art and culture of bygone centuries. The reader will find: architecture, painting, color woodblock printing, ceramics, lacquer work, ike-bana, sho, everyday utensils, traditional clothing and exquisite cuisine. Additionally, the reader will learn about the traditional rituals, ceremonies and pleasures such as the Way of Tea, no theater, the martial arts, seasonal festivals, The Way of the Samurai as well as legends and customs. This publication brings to life and gives insight into the history, traditions, and arts of Japan.

    James, the charismatic founder; Charles, the astute administrator; and Vyner, the irresponsible hedonist, are the principal players in this incredible family saga. This richly illustrated book of colour photographs relives the heady mix of exoticism, violence, courage and romance of this extraordinary adventure.

    It deals briefly with the ancestors and successor (Ogodei, reign 1228-1241) of Chinggis Khan and in more detail with the life of Chinggis Khan, who was founder of the Mongol Empire. The empire during Khubilai Khan's reign was expanded from Mongolia and China to the western edge of Russia. It was the most extensive empire ever established on horseback (about 700 years later, the British empire was built on ships). The History has been translated into many foreign languages: Hungarian, Turkish, Polish, Chinese, Russian, French, German, Japanese and English, but the integral text has never before been translated by a native Mongol scholar, using mainly the Mongolian sources to explicate the meaning of previous unknown words in it. As the translator and annotator says in his introduction, the History is the winners' history. The losers' version might well have been different. Chinggis Khan with his 129,000 Mongol cavalrymen never lost a battle. He was the best strategist the world has ever produced. In his article "Chingis Khan and the Mongol Conquest", the late Professor Owen Lattimore said "As a military genius, able to take over new techniques and improve them, Chingis stands above Alexander the Great, Hannibal, Caesar, Atilla and Napoleon" (See Scientific American, August 1963, p. 66).

    By focusing on the role of the poor in caste, religious and national politics, the author demonstrates how they emerged as a major social factor in South Asia during the interwar period. The empirical material provides compelling insights into what it meant to be poor and how the impoverished dealt with their predicament. In this way, the book contributes to some of the most crucial debates on the nature of subaltern politics and consciousness.

    As a result of enforced, neo-liberal reforms the fledgling republics were exposed to the familiar effects of globalised capital. Focusing on Kazakhstan, where violence and corruption are now facts of everyday life, Joma Nazpary examines the impact of the new capitalism on the people of Central Asia. Using in-depth interviews and material gathered over more than a year's fieldwork, Nazpary explores the responses of the dispossessed to their dispossession. He uncovers the construction of 'imagined communities', grounded in Soviet nostalgia, which serve to resist the economic order, as well as the more practical survival strategies, especially of women, often forced into prostitution where they are subject to violence and stigma. By revealing the extent to which Kazakh society has disintegrated and the cultural responses to it, Nazpary argues that dispossession has been a stronger unifying force than even ethnicity or religion. Comparing the effects of neo-liberal reforms in Kazakhstan with those in other regions, he concludes that causes, forms and consequences of dispossession in Kazakhstan are particular instances of a much wider global trend.

    It is a unique blend of Asian and African culture and is well known as the home of some of the world's most unusual and most endangered flora and fauna, from lemurs to giant tortoises. Although so close to the east coast of Africa, where traces of human existence go back hundreds of thousands of years, Madagascar was uninhabited until about two thousand years ago. How it came to be inhabited by seafaring peoples from present-day Indonesia is just one of the many fascinating aspects of this book. A History of Madagascar examines the origins of the Malagasy, the early contacts with Europeans and the struggle for influence in the nineteenth century between the British and the French. It also covers the colonial period from 1896 to 1960, the recovery of independence and subsequent history up to the early 1990s.

    

    Full color.

    The in-depth introduction outlines the development of modern poetry in the unique historical and cultural context of Taiwan.

    Preliminary details about the geisha world and life of Ichimaru are presented, followed by information on kimono design, manufacture, and types, and the

    Illustrated in full and in detail, these richly decorated items--costumes and household textiles--will provide designers at all levels with inspiration for new and unexpected ways of using color and pattern in their own work.In her fascinating introduction the author brings the pieces to life by setting them within their social and cultural context, including information ont he protective and talismanic roles of embroidery and the tribal variations in stitch, pattern, and color. In addition, brief commentaries highlight the design features and a technical glossary supports the main text so you can rely on the book for eye-catching patterns as well as refer to it for specific information.

    It is written by a noted scholar who visited the area over many years while conducting research for her doctoral thesis on Arakan. Off the Bay of Bengal, in the northwest corner of Burma lie the splendid capital cites of ancient Arakan; Dhanyaawadi, Vesali and Mrauk-U (Myohaung) being the largest. Mentioned in Ptolemy's Geographia (2nd century), Arakan was from earliest times a cosmopolitan state with a vigorous and mixed culture. Indian Brahmins conducted the royal ceremonials, Buddhist monks spread their teachings, traders came and went, and artists and architects used Indian models for inspiration. Through Buddhism, Arakan came into contact with other remote countries, including Sri Lanka, Nepal, Tibet, and China. To the east were the many early empires of Southeast Asia: Burman, Siamese, and Khmer, while later came influences from the Islamic courts of Bengal and Delhi. This is the first comprehensive study on the history, art, and culture of Arakan. It also serves as an excellent introduction to the hitherto almost unknown bronze and stone art of Arakan.

    Navy's role in the Korean conflict to be written for the general public.

    Hope rests upon the outcome of a pilgrimage to find the Kotaishi: he alone can unite the feuding kingdoms of Tonogato before they are destroyed, one by one. A young apprentice unexpectedly finds himself a member of the pilgrimage, marching beneath the light of a sacred Hikari lantern. As the pilgrims journey through Tonogato he soon finds himself thrust into play as the pawn of unseen forces, both good and evil; a struggle that will dictate the fate of every living being across the land. Amidst this clash of colossal powers, a Princess finds her heart leading her on a dangerous journey in pursuit of the pilgrimage, until she finds instead a destiny unlike any she had ever imagined. And neither apprentice nor Princess can be prepared for what awaits them on the far

    This Elibron Classics book is a facsimile reprint of a 1895 edition by Longmans, Green, and Co., London and New York.