Best of
Asia

2002

The Good Women of China: Hidden Voices


Xinran - 2002
    As an employee for the state radio system, she had long wanted to help improve the lives of Chinese women. But when she was given clearance to host a radio call-in show, she barely anticipated the enthusiasm it would quickly generate. Operating within the constraints imposed by government censors, “Words on the Night Breeze” sparked a tremendous outpouring, and the hours of tape on her answering machines were soon filled every night. Whether angry or muted, posing questions or simply relating experiences, these anonymous women bore witness to decades of civil strife, and of halting attempts at self-understanding in a painfully restrictive society. In this collection, by turns heartrending and inspiring, Xinran brings us the stories that affected her most, and offers a graphically detailed, altogether unprecedented work of oral history.

The Unwanted: A Memoir of Childhood


Kien Nguyen - 2002
    A story of hope, a story of survival, and an incredible journey of escape, 'The Unwanted' is the only memoir by an Amerasian who stayed behind in Vietnam after the fall of Saigon and who is now living in America.

Ruby's Wish


Shirin Yim Bridges - 2002
    Instead of aspiring to get married, Ruby is determined to attend university when she grows up, just like the boys in her family. Based upon the inspirational story of the author's grandmother and accompanied by richly detailed illustrations, Ruby's Wish is an engaging portrait of a young girl who strives for more and a family who rewards her hard work and courage.

The Rice Mother


Rani Manicka - 2002
    At fourteen, she finds herself traded in marriage to a stranger across the ocean in the fascinating land of Malaysia. Duped into thinking her new husband is wealthy, she instead finds herself struggling to raise a family with a man too impractical to face reality and a world that is, by turns, unyielding and amazing, brutal and beautiful. Giving birth to a child every year until she is nineteen, Lakshmi becomes a formidable matriarch, determined to wrest from the world a better life for her daughters and sons and to face every new challenge with almost mythic strength.By sheer willpower Lakshmi survives the nightmare of World War II and the Japanese occupation -- but not unscathed. The family bears deep scars on its back and in turn inflicts those wounds on the next generation. But it is not until Lakshmi's great-granddaughter, Nisha, pieces together the mosaic of her family history that the legacy of the Rice Mother bears fruit.

When My Name Was Keoko


Linda Sue Park - 2002
    Yet they live their lives under Japanese occupation. All students must read and write in Japanese and no one can fly the Korean flag. Hardest of all is when the Japanese Emperor forces all Koreans to take Japanese names. Sun-hee and Tae-yul become Keoko and Nobuo. Korea is torn apart by their Japanese invaders during World War II. Everyone must help with war preparations, but it doesn’t mean they are willing to defend Japan. Tae-yul is about to risk his life to help his family, while Sun-hee stays home guarding life-and-death secrets.

Smaller and Smaller Circles


F.H. Batacan - 2002
    When it won the Carlos Palanca Grand Prize for the English Novel in 1999, it proved that fiction can be both popular and literary.F.H. Batacan has a degree in Broadcast Communication and a master's degree in Art Studies, both from the University of the Philippines in Diliman. She has worked as a policy researcher, broadcast journalist, web designer, and musician, and is currently a journalist based in Singapore. She previously won a prize for her short story "Door 59" in the 1997 Palanca awards, and her work has appeared in local magazines, as well as in the online literary magazine Web del Sol.

A True Novel


Minae Mizumura - 2002
    Flashbacks and multilayered stories reveal his life: an impoverished upbringing as an orphan, his eventual rise to wealth and success—despite racial and class prejudice—and an obsession with a girl from an affluent family that has haunted him all his life. A True Novel then widens into an examination of Japan’s westernization and the emergence of a middle class.   The winner of Japan’s prestigious Yomiuri Literature Prize, Mizumura has written a beautiful novel, with love at its core, that reveals, above all, the power of storytelling.

From the Land of Green Ghosts: A Burmese Odyssey


Pascal Khoo Thwe - 2002
    Thwe was born a member of the Padaung tribe in Burma where political turmoil and poverty are ever-present realities.Thwe left school to join the student rebels during the great insurrection of 1988, but remained in touch with Casey. He was forced to flee the country. It was his connection to Casey that enabled him to emigrate to England where he was admitted to Cambridge University. Despite his humble beginnings and the oppression he faced, Pascal Khoo Thwe brings us into a world forgotten by the West, but one that readers will not soon forget.

The Flamboya Tree: Memories of a Family's War Time Courage


Clara Olink Kelly - 2002
    When innocent people are brought into that war because they happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, it becomes incomprehensible. Java, 1942, was such a place and time, and we were those innocent people.”Fifty years after the end of World War II, Clara Olink Kelly sat down to write a memoir that is both a fierce and enduring testament to a mother’s courage and a poignant record of an often overlooked chapter of the war.As the fighting in the Pacific spread, four-year-old Clara Olink and her family found their tranquil, pampered lives on the beautiful island of Java torn apart by the invasion of Japanese troops. Clara’s father was taken away, forced to work on the Burma railroad. For Clara, her mother, and her two brothers, the younger one only six weeks old, an insistent knock on the door ended all hope of escaping internment in a concentration camp. For nearly four years, they endured starvation, filth-ridden living conditions, sickness, and the danger of violence from their prison guards. Clara credits her mother with their survival: Even in the most perilous of situations, Clara’s mother never compromised her beliefs, never admitted defeat, and never lost her courage. Her resilience sustained her three children through their frightening years in the camp.Told through the eyes of a young Clara, who was eight at the end of her family’s ordeal, The Flamboya Tree portrays her mother’s tenacity, the power of hope and humor, and the buoyancy of a child’s spirit. A painting of a flamboya tree—a treasured possession of the family’s former life—miraculously survived the surprise searches by the often brutal Japanese soldiers and every last-minute flight. Just as her mother carried this painting through the years of imprisonment and the life that followed, so Clara carries her mother’s unvanquished spirit through all of her experiences and into the reader’s heart.

The Twentieth Wife


Indu Sundaresan - 2002
    As the daughter of starving refugees fleeing violent persecution in Persia, her fateful birth in a roadside tent sparked a miraculous reversal of family fortune, culminating in her father's introduction to the court of Emperor Akbar. She is called Mehrunnisa, the Sun of Women. This is her story.Growing up on the fringes of Emperor Akbar's opulent palace grounds, Mehrunnisa blossoms into a sapphire-eyed child blessed with a precocious intelligence, luminous beauty, and a powerful ambition far surpassing the bounds of her family's station. Mehrunnisa first encounters young Prince Salim on his wedding day. In that instant, even as a royal gala swirls around her in celebration of the future emperor's first marriage, Mehrunnisa foresees the path of her own destiny. One day, she decides with uncompromising surety, she too will become Salim's wife. She is all of eight years old -- and wholly unaware of the great price she and her family will pay for this dream.Skillfully blending the textures of historical reality with the rich and sensuous imaginings of a timeless fairy tale, The Twentieth Wife sweeps readers up in the emotional pageant of Salim and Mehrunnisa's embattled love. First-time novelist Indu Sundaresan charts her heroine's enthralling journey across the years, from an ill-fated first marriage through motherhood and into a dangerous maze of power struggles and political machinations. Through it all, Mehrunnisa and Salim long with fiery intensity for the true, redemptive love they've never known -- and their mutual quest ultimately takes them, and the vast empire that hangs in the balance, to places they never dreamed possible.Shot through with wonder and suspense, The Twentieth Wife is at once a fascinating portrait of one woman's convention-defying life behind the veil and a transporting saga of the astonishing potency of love.

Beauty Is a Wound


Eka Kurniawan - 2002
    The beautiful Indo prostitute Dewi Ayu and her four daughters are beset by incest, murder, bestiality, rape, insanity, monstrosity, and the often vengeful undead. Kurniawan's gleefully grotesque hyperbole functions as a scathing critique of his young nation's troubled past: the rapacious offhand greed of colonialism; the chaotic struggle for independence; the 1965 mass murders of perhaps a million "Communists," followed by three decades of Suharto's despotic rule.Beauty Is a Wound astonishes from its opening line: "One afternoon on a weekend in May, Dewi Ayu rose from her grave after being dead for twenty-one years…" Drawing on local sources—folk tales and the all-night shadow puppet plays, with their bawdy wit and epic scope—and inspired by Melville and Gogol, Kurniawan's distinctive voice brings something luscious yet astringent to contemporary literature.

When the Elephants Dance


Tess Uriza Holthe - 2002
    forces battle to possess the Philippine Islands, the Karangalan family hides with their neighbors in a cramped cellar, where they glean hope from the family stories and folktales they tell each other. These stories of love, survival, and family blend the supernatural with the rich, little known history of the Philippines, the centuries of Spanish colonization, the power of the Catholic church, and the colorful worlds of the Spanish, Mestizo, and Filipino cultures.As the villagers tell their stories in the darkened cellar below, Holthe masterfully weaves in the stories of three brave Filipinos--a teenage brother and sister and a guerilla fighter--as they become caught in the battle against the vicious Japanese forces above ground.Inspired by her father's firsthand accounts of this period, Tess Uriza Holthe brings to magical and terrifying life a story of the hope and courage needed to survive in wartime.

The Art of Hearing Heartbeats


Jan-Philipp Sendker - 2002
    Intent on solving the mystery and coming to terms with her father’s past, Julia decides to travel to the village where the woman lived. There she uncovers a tale of unimaginable hardship, resilience, and passion that will reaffirm the reader’s belief in the power of love to move mountains.

Family Matters


Rohinton Mistry - 2002
    At the age of seventy-nine, Nariman Vakeel, already suffering from Parkinson’s disease, breaks an ankle and finds himself wholly dependent on his family. His step-children, Coomy and Jal, have a spacious apartment (in the inaptly named Chateau Felicity), but are too squeamish and resentful to tend to his physical needs.Nariman must now turn to his younger daughter, Roxana, her husband, Yezad, and their two sons, who share a small, crowded home. Their decision will test not only their material resources but, in surprising ways, all their tolerance, compassion, integrity, and faith. Sweeping and intimate, tragic and mirthful, Family Matters is a work of enormous emotional power.

Shanghai Diary


Ursula Bacon - 2002
    As the holocaust approached, many Jewish families in Germany fled to one of the only open ports available to them: Shanghai. Once called "the armpit of the world," Shanghai ultimately served as the last resort for tens of thousands of Jews desperate to escape Hitler's "Final Solution." Against this backdrop, 11-year-old Ursula Bacon and her family made the difficult 8,000-mile voyage to Shanghai, with its promise of safety. But instead of a storybook China, they found overcrowded streets teeming with peddlers, beggars, opium dens, and prostitutes. Amid these abysmal conditions, Ursula learned of her own resourcefulness and found within herself the fierce determination to survive.

Cloud of Sparrows


Takashi Matsuoka - 2002
    After two centuries of isolation, Japan has been forced to open its doors to the West, igniting a clash of cultures and generations. And as foreign ships threaten to rain destruction on the Shogun’s castle in Edo, a small group of American missionaries has chosen this time to spread the word of their God. Among them, Emily Gibson, a woman seeking redemption from a tormented past, and Matthew Stark, a cold-eyed killer with one more death on his mind. Neither realizes that their future in Japan has already been foreseen. For a young nobleman, Lord Genji, has dreamt that his life will be saved by an outsider in the New Year. Widely reviled as a dilettante, Lord Genji has one weapon with which to inspire awe. In his family, one in every generation is said to have the gift of prophecy. And what Lord Genji sees has struck fear in many around him. As the Shogun’s secret police chief plots Genji’s death--and the utter destruction of his entire clan--the young and untried lord must prove that he is more than the handsome womanizer of legend, famed lover of Edo’s most celebrated geisha, Lady Heiko, and that his prophetic powers are no mere fairy tale. Forced to escape from Edo and flee to his ancestral stronghold, the spectacular Cloud of Sparrows Castle, Genji joins his fate with Emily and Stark, unaware of the dark forces that drive them. Together with Genji’s uncle, Lord Shigeru, a legendary swordsman knee-deep in the blood of his own kin, and the enigmatic Lady Heiko, the unlikely band embarks on a harrowing journey through a landscape bristling with danger--to prepare for a final battle.Here, on a snowscape stained with blood, horror will mix with wonder, secrets will unravel, and love will duel with vengeance--as East and West, flesh and spirit, past and future, collide in ways no one--least of all Genji--could have imagined.

Silk Road Cooking: A Vegetarian Journey


Najmieh Batmanglij - 2002
    This book offers information derived from the author's research and her travels along the Silk Road.

Ten Green Bottles: The True Story of One Family's Journey from War-torn Austria to the Ghettos of Shanghai


Vivian Jeanette Kaplan - 2002
    Whether schussing down ski slopes or speaking of politics in coffee houses, she cherished the city of her birth. But in the 1930s an undercurrent of conflict and hate began to seize the former imperial capital. This struggle came to a head when Hitler took possession of neighboring Germany. Anti-Semitism, which Nini and her idealistic friends believed was impossible in the socially advanced world of Vienna, became widespread and virulent.The Karpel's Jewish identity suddenly made them foreigners in their own homeland. Tormented, disenfranchised, and with a broken heart, Nini and her family sought refuge in a land seven thousand miles across the world.Shanghai, China, one of the few countries accepting Jewish immigrants, became their new home and refuge. Stepping off the boat, the Karpel family found themselves in a land they could never have imagined. Shanghai presented an incongruent world of immense wealth and privilege for some and poverty for the masses, with opium dens and decadent clubs as well as rampant disease and a raging war between nations.Ten Green Bottles is the story of Nini Karpel's struggles as she told it to her daughter Vivian so many years ago. This true story depicts the fierce perseverance of one family, victims of the forces of evil, who overcame suffering of biblical proportion to survive. It was a time when ordinary people became heroes.

In the Absence of Sun: A Korean American Woman's Promise to Reunite Three Lost Generations of Her Family


Helie Lee - 2002
    As an adult, he was still living there under horrid conditions. When her grandmother began to ail, Helie became determined to reunite her with her eldest son, despite tremendous odds. Helie’s mission became even more urgent when she realized that her first book, the bestselling novel Still Life with Rice, about the family’s escape, might have angered the North Korean government and put her uncle in danger. Pushing through rivers and forests, fighting the cold, bribing and manipulating border guards, gangsters, and secret service agents, Helie and her father finally achieve their goal. But there are many hurdles. Her uncle is forced to make a harrowing choice: leave his North Korean family behind or continue to live in oppression and starvation away from his beloved mother. And Helie has to face her deep, sometimes ambivalent, emotions about her identity in the family and as a Korean American woman. Unmarried and outspoken, she struggles in Korea, where women marry early and keep silent, and writes eloquently about the landscape there, both literal and cultural. She comes through a heartbreaking love affair only to face an intense and confusing relationship with the Guide—the man who, despite being crude and macho, ultimately helps to save her uncle and eventually his extended family through several daring acts of heroism. In the Absence of Sun is a riveting adventure story and a powerful tale of family bonds and reunion.“An eerie fear crawled through my flesh as I stood on the Chinese side of the Yalu River, gazing across the murky water into one of the most closed-off and isolated countries in the world. I couldn’t believe it. Even as my boots sank into the doughy mud, I had trouble coming to terms with the fact that I was actually standing there. . . . I was not prepared for the kind of despair and insane fear I felt that day. My wizened old uncle looked nothing like the sweet-faced teenager in the faded photograph that Halmoni kept pressed between the pages of her Bible. That day, at the Yalu River, staring helplessly into his terrorized face, I hadn’t fully realized what a dangerous thing I had done the year before. I had placed him and his family in danger. By including details of my uncle’s life in a book, I had alerted North Korea’s enigmatic leadership to the identity of my relatives in a nation where it was better to remain invisible.” —From In the Absence of SunFrom the Hardcover edition.

The Emperor's Silent Army: Terracotta Warriors of Ancient China


Jane O'Connor - 2002
    Describes the archaeological discovery of thousands of life-sized terracotta warrior statues in northern China in 1974, and discusses the emperor who had them created and placed near his tomb.

The Heart of Dogen's Shobogenzo


Dōgen - 2002
    This book is centered around those essays that generations have regarded as containing the essence of Dogen's teaching. These translations, revised from those that first appeared in the 1970s, clarify and enrich the understanding of Dogen's religious thought and his basic ideas about Zen practice and doctrine. Dogen's uncommon intellectual gifts, combined with a profound religious attainment and an extraordinary ability to articulate it, make Sho�bo�genzo� unique even in the vast literature the Zen school has produced over the centuries, securing it a special place in the history of world religious literature.

Sounds of the River: A Young Man's University Days in Beijing


Da Chen - 2002
    He soon faces a host of ghastly challenges, including poor living conditions, lack of food, and suicidal roommates. Undaunted by these hurdles, and armed with a dogged determination to learn English and "all things Western," he competes to win a chance to study in America—a chance that rests in the shrewd and corrupt hands of the almighty professors.Poetic, hilarious, and heartbreaking, Sounds of the River is a gloriously written coming-of-age saga that chronicles a remarkable journey—a travelogue of the heart.

The Carpet Wars: From Kabul to Baghdad: A Ten-Year Journey Along Ancient Trade Routes


Christopher Kremmer - 2002
    While rugs are found in most Western homes, the story of religious, political, and tribal strife behind their creation is virtually unknown. In "The Carpet Wars, award-winning journalist Christopher Kremmer chronicles his fascinating ten-year journey along the ancient carpet trade routes that run through the world's most misunderstood and volatile regions -- Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, India, Pakistan, and the former Soviet republics of Central Asia.Christopher Kremmer's odyssey through the crescent of Islamic nations began in the early 1990s, when he arrived in Afghanistan to meet the communist-backed president, Mohammed Najibullah. On the outskirts of Kabul, mujahideen rebels were massing while the carpet dealers of the old city continued to ply their timeless trade. Kremmer was in Kabul when the mujahideen turned their guns on one another after ridding the country of the hated communists. He was there when the Taliban came and the army of religious students -- aided by the wealthy Arab radical Osama bin Laden -- emerged from the scorched earth to implement their vision of "a pure Islamic state."Traveling through these territories, Kremmer chronicles Islamic societies as they were convulsed by dictatorship and greed and as refugees sought asylum in the West. He cemented lifelong friendships and met an unforgettable cast of characters, from nomads toiling on portable handlooms to shady merchants and leaders of the syndicates that control the bazaars. In the remote Hindu Kush, he celebrated Eid with the late Afghan guerrilla legend Ahmad Shah Massoud. In Kandahar, he took tea with Taliban leaders and went hunting for Osamabin Laden. He watched as a new generation questioned the power of the mullahs in Iran, while in Iraq the populace chafed under the weight of sanctions and Saddam Hussein's cult of personality."The Carpet Wars takes readers into a world where even the simplest motif on a rug can be filled with religious, tribal, and political significance, places where life bustles with bargaining and gossip in bazaars and teahouses, while nations crumble, leaders fall, and the final confrontation between freedom and terror looms.An edge-of-the-chair travel memoir, "The Carpet Wars offers a personal, vivid, and revealing look at Islam's human face, wracked by turmoil but sustained by friendship, industry, and humor. It is also a historical snapshot of countries at the center of global confrontation that exploded onto the homefront on September 11, 2001.

My Master's Robe: Memories of a Novice Monk


Thich Nhat Hanh - 2002
    The simplicity and clarity of monastic life provides the background against which characters are lovingly presented: the elderly cook, the Master who sews by lamplight, the lizard who dares to eat rice offered for the Buddha, the young French soldier seeking understanding, and others.

Searching for Vedic India


Devamrita Swami - 2002
    Included in the book are not only the truths of Vedic India, but how they are again coming to be.

National Geographic Family Reference Atlas of the World


National Geographic Society - 2002
    Fully indexed for ease of accessibility, this comprehensive, up-to-date family reference atlas encompasses more than 450 full-color political, physical, and thematic maps, as well as photographs and illustrations, that provide a wealth of information on the nations of the world, climate and weather.

400 Million Customers


Carl Crow - 2002
    Probably the best selling book on doing in business in China ever – and undoubtedly the best ever written – 400 Million Customers is both amusing and informed. First published in 1937, it is the distillation of the experiences of one of the most successful foreign businessmen ever to wash up on the China coast. Crow brilliantly explains the eternal truths about doing business in the Middle Kingdom.

The Wonder That Is Sanskrit


Sampadananda Mishra - 2002
    From here it moves on to some examples of its charm, beauty and musicality and then to Sanskrit as a language of enlightenment, a repository of wisdom and values. Finally, it looks at Sanskrit as a sacred medium for expressing the highest spiritual truths and experiences. It ends by trying to understand the importance of Sanskrit for India and the world, and why it is called the language of India's soul.

Travels with Tarra


Carol Buckley - 2002
    Notable Books for Children, 2002 - Smithsonian On the ballot for the Louisiana Young Readers' Choice Award, 2005

Gujarat: The Making of a Tragedy


Siddharth Varadarajan - 2002
    For the sheer brutality, persistence and widespread nature of the violence, especially against women and children, the complicity of the State, the ghettoization of communities, and the indifference of civil society, Gujarat has surpassed anything we have experienced in recent times. That this happened in one of India's most 'well off' and 'progressive' states, the home of the Mahatma, is all the more alarming. This book is intended to be a permanent public archive of the tragedy that is Gujarat. Drawing upon eyewitness reports from the English, Hindi and regional media, citizens' and official fact-finding commissions - and articles by leading public figures and intellectuals - it provides a chilling account of how and why the state was allowed to burn. With an overview by the editor, the reader covers the circumstances leading up to Godhra and the violence in Ahmedabad, Baroda and rural Gujarat. Separate sections deal with the role of the police, bureaucracy, Sangh Parivar, media and the tribals, the economic and international implications of the violence, the problems of relief and rehabilitation of the victims, and, above all, their quest for justice. The picture that emerges is deeply disturbing, for Gujarat has exposed the ease with which the rights of citizens, and especially minorities, can be violated with official sanction. The lessons of the violence ought to be heeded and acted upon by the public. For, in the absence of this, can another Gujarat be prevented from happening elsewhere?

Escape from China: The Long Journey From Tiananmen to Freedom


Zhang Boli - 2002
    After two years as a fugitive, Zhang -- the only leader to elude capture -- knew that he must bid his beloved country, as well as his wife and baby daughter, farewell. Traveling across the frozen terrain of the former Soviet Union, where peasants rescued him, and through the deserted lands of China's precarious borders, Zhang had only his extraordinary will to propel him toward freedom. As told in Escape from China -- a work of great historical resonance -- his story will renew your faith in the human spirit.

The New-Year Sacrifice and Other Stories


Lu Xun - 2002
    This collection contains 13 of his stories, including: A Madman's Diary; Medicine; Storm in a Teacup; My Old Home; Village Opera; A Happy Family; The Misanthrope; Regret for the Past; and Forging the Swords.

The Lady and the Tigers: Remembering the Flying Tigers of World War II


Olga Greenlaw - 2002
    Returning to the United States in 1942, she wrote The Lady and the Tigers, which war correspondent Leland Stowe hailed as "an authoritative and true to life story of the AVG." Out of print for more than half a century, her book has now been brought up to date by Daniel Ford, author of Flying Tigers: Claire Chennault and His American Volunteers, 1941-1942. What's more, Ford explains for the first time where Olga and Harvey Greenlaw came from, how they became caught up in the saga of the Flying Tigers, and what happened to them after their tumultuous year with the AVG. Black and white photographs--many never published before--round out the text.

Race and Resistance: Literature and Politics in Asian America


Viet Thanh Nguyen - 2002
    This idealization of Asian America means that Asian American intellectuals can neither grapple with their culture's ideological diversity nor recognize their own involvement with capitalist practices such as the selling of racial identity. Making his case through the example of literature, which remains a critical arena of cultural production for Asian Americans, Nguyen demonstrates that literature embodies the complexities, conflicts, and potential future options of Asian American culture.

Memory on Cloth: Shibori Now


Yoshiko Iwamoto Wada - 2002
    Shaped-resist dyeing techniques have been done for centuries in every corner of the world. Yet more than half of the known techniques-in which cloth is in some way tied, clamped, folded, or held back during dyeing, to keep some areas from taking color - originated in Japan.Shibori can be used not only to create patterns on cloth but to turn fabric from a two-dimensional into a three-dimensional object. The word is used here to refer to any process that leaves a "memory on cloth" -a permanent record, whether of patterning or texture, of the particular forms of resist done. In addition to traditional methods it encompasses high-tech processes like heat-set on polyester (made famous by Issey Miyake's revolutionary pleated clothing), melt-off on metallic fabric, the fulling and felting that make it possible to turn all-natural fabrics into three-dimensional shapes, weaving resist (in which, for instance, a warp thread can be pulled to gather the cloth to resist dye), and devoree, in which just one part of a mixed fabric is dissolved with chemicals.Author Yoshiko Iwamoto Wada has been teaching shibori around the world for nearly thirty years, and helped to establish the World Shibori Network and the International Shibori Symposium. She coauthored in 1983 the authoritative Shibori: The Inventive Art of Japanese Shaped-Resist Dyeing, which in turn inspired many artists to add shibori processes to their repertoire.The range of vibrant modern art covered in Memory on Cloth is remarkable, and includes work by artists from Africa, South America, Europe, India, Japan, China, Korea, the United States, and Australia in more than 325 stunning photos and illustrations. It encompasses fabric design, wearable art and fashion, and textile art or various sculptural forms. The work of more than seventy innovative designers including Issey Miyake, Yohji Yamamoto, Jurgen Lehl, Jun'ichi Arai, Helene Soubeyran, Genevieve Dion, Asha Sarabhai, Junco Sato Pollack, Ana Lisa Hedstrom, Marian Clayden, and Carter Smith is presented, and each artist shares details on the processes that they themselves have created, making this an invaluable reference for artists in every field. A number of innovative artists who combine shibori techniques with knitting, weaving, or quilting are also included, suggesting new ways to combine innovation with more traditional forms. A final section on modern techniques gives extremely detailed information, including dye recipes, on various high-tech processes and the particular methods that individual artists use to achieve certain effects.As informative as it is inspirational, Memory on Cloth will take its place alongside Wada's earlier work, Shibori, as a definitive text that will help keep shaped-resist dyeing processes a vibrant and important form of modern art.Features* More than 325 stunning photos and illustrations * Encompasses fabric design, wearable art and fashion, and textile art or various sculptural forms * Covers more than seventy innovative designers * Includes works by artists from Africa, South America, Europe, India, Japan, China, Korea, the United States, and Australia * Each artist shares details on the processes that they themselves have createdPraise for Shibori (co-authored by Yoshiko Wada):"In this age of hyperbole there is great risk in declaring a singular event. Nonetheless one has occurred with the long anticipated publication of Shibori: The Inventive Art of Japanese Shaped Resist Dyeing. Word of this book has long circulated in the inner and outer sanctums of the textile world with excitement and expectation building. This combination of bilingual, scholarly, creative and resourceful authors has brought us a classic volume . . . A masterful blend of historical material that puts Japanese textiles in context, clearly described and illustrated techniques along with information and illustrations of contemporary work from Japan and the West make this book an essential acquisition for anyone who proclaims a serious interest in textile dyeing, design, or historic textiles." ?Glen Kaufman, in Surface Design Journal"Well researched, well written, well organized and well illustrated." ?Crafts Magazine

The Trouser People: A Story of Burma in the Shadow of the Empire


Andrew Marshall - 2002
    Part travelogue, part history, part reportage, The Trouser People recounts the story of George Scott, the eccentric British explorer, photographer, adventurer, and later Colonial Administrator of Burma, who introduced the Empire's best game (soccer!) to Burmese natives and to the forbidden Wa state of headhunters, who were similarly enthusiastic about it. The second, contrasting journey is Marshall's own, taking the same dangerous path one hundred years later in a country now devastated by colonial incompetence, war, and totalitarianism. Wonderfully observed, mordantly funny, and skillfully recounted, this is journalistic travel writing at its best.

Memories of Wind and Waves: A Self-Portrait of Lakeside Japan


Junichi Saga - 2002
    Filled with interesting characters, this book reads like a collection of short stories.

Subhas Chandra Bose: A Biography


Marshall J. Getz - 2002
    He made headlines worldwide as the extremist leader of the Provisional Government of Free India after its establishment by the Axis powers during World War II and was viewed as sort of an Asian Hitler or Quisling, but when the Allies crushed Bose's Indian National army, the world seemed quickly to forget him. This work is a biography of Bose, the self-proclaimed Netaji, or revered leader, who sought to bring down the British Raj by making alliances with Rome, Berlin, and Tokyo during World War II and by helping India thrive economically and politically as a free socialist nation. It details his political activities, including radio broadcasts in which he attempted to sway his countrymen with pro-Axis propaganda and predicted a bloody end to imperialism at the hands of Axis powers, and his commanding of two liberation armies, one under Nazi authority and the other under Tokyo's auspices, made up of rehabilitated and coerced prisoners of war. Bose is noted for having unified his country's multiethnic population and enlisting the support of Indians overseas, all the while incurring the wrath of the Allies, who crushed his armies and his hopes of transforming India into a socialist nation. A discussion of his mysterious death in a plane crash while en route to an unknown location in 1945 concludes the book.

Amy Carmichael Rescuing the Children


Renee Taft Meloche - 2002
    As she grew up, Amy kept her promise to help others, ultimately rescuing hundreds of women and children from the hopelessness of poverty, oppression, and life without Christ. First in the slums of Northern Ireland and later in far-away India, Amy reached out to others in love, faith and compassion. Now Heroes for Young Readers makes Amy Carmichael's remarkable story available in this picture book all ages will treasure. (1867-1951)

The Sound of Two Hands Clapping: The Education of a Tibetan Buddhist Monk


Georges B.J. Dreyfus - 2002
    Georges B. J. Dreyfus, the first Westerner to complete the famous Ge-luk curriculum and achieve the distinguished title of geshe, weaves together eloquent and moving autobiographical reflections with a historical overview of Tibetan Buddhism and insights into its teachings.

Making Sense of Japanese Grammar


Zeljko Cipris - 2002
    Students--irrespective of proficiency level and linguistic training--will find clarification on matters of grammar that often seem idiosyncratic and Japanese-specific, such as avoiding the use of certain pronouns, employing the same word order for questions, hidden subjects, polite and direct forms.Organized for easy access and readability, Making Sense of Japanese Grammar consists of short units, each focused on explaining a distinct problem and illustrated with a wealth of examples. To further enhance their usefulness, the units are cross-referenced and contain brief comprehension exercises to test and apply newly acquired knowledge. A glossary and keys to the exercises are at the back of the book.This volume may be used as a supplementary classroom reading or a helpful reference for students of all levels. Both students and instructors, even those trained in linguistics, will find its accessible explanations of grammatical concepts helpful.Grounded in sound scholarship and extensive teaching experience, Making Sense of Japanese Grammar brings a fresh and liberating perspective to the study of Japanese.

Thai: An Essential Grammar


David Smyth - 2002
    Grammatical forms are explained in clear, jargon-free style and illustrated by examples, given in both Thai script and romanization. As well as grammar, it includes guidance on pronunciation, speech conventions and the beautiful Thai writing system.

Buddha in the Garden


David Bouchard - 2002
    In this radiant retelling of an ancient legend, a boy who tends the garden at a Buddhist temple discovers enlightenment right outside his door

The People's Emperor: Democracy and the Japanese Monarchy, 1945-1995


Kenneth J. Ruoff - 2002
    The monarchy, which is also a family, has been significant both as a political and as a cultural institution. This comprehensive study analyzes numerous issues, including the role of individual emperors in shaping the institution, the manner in which the emperor's constitutional position as symbol has been interpreted, the emperor's intersection with politics through ministerial briefings, memories of Hirohito's wartime role, nationalistic movements in support of Foundation Day and the reign-name system, and the remaking of the once sacrosanct throne into a monarchy of the masses embedded in the postwar culture of democracy. The author stresses the monarchy's postwarness, rather than its traditionality.

Burden of Ashes


Justin Chin - 2002
    With wild grace, Chin bounds through actual events and imagined outcomes-in a place where killing snakes, stern discipline, family pets, and childhood vacations share equal time with unrequited love, the mournful specters of ex-lovers, imagined passions, and the enigmatic power of a good kiss-reconciling what is lost, taken away, denied, outgrown, left behind, survived, remembered, and reclaimed.Marketing Plans: Advance Reader CopiesAuthor Appearances in San Francisco and New YorkJustin Chin is the author of "Mongrel: Essays, Diatribes and Pranks ""and Bite Hard." His writings have appeared in "American Poetry: The Next Generation, The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry, "and "Chick for a Day." He has created eight full-length solo performance works and several shorter works that have been presented nationally and abroad. Born in Malaysia and raised in Singapore, he currently lives in San Francisco.

Ho Chi Minh: The Missing Years 1919-1941


Sophie Quinn-Judge - 2002
    Using previously untapped sources from Comintern and French intelligence archives, Sophie Quinn-Judge examines Ho's life in the light of two interconnecting themes--the origins and institutional development of the Indochinese Communist Party, and the impact on early Vietnamese communism of political developments in China and the Soviet Union.

Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History


Rozina Visram - 2002
    A groundbreaking, comprehensive history of Asian settlement in Britain from 1700 to the present day.

The World's 100 Greatest People Audio Collection


InteliQuest Learning Systems - 2002
    The World's 100 Greatest People Audio Collection on 50 CD's.

Vestiges of War: The Philippine-American War and the Aftermath of an Imperial Dream 1899-1999


Angel Velasco Shaw - 2002
    intervention in the Philippines began with the little-known 1899 Philippine-American War. Using the war as its departure point in analyzing U.S.-Philippine relations, Vestiges of War retrieves this willfully forgotten event and places it where it properly belongs--as the catalyst that led to increasing U.S. interventionism and expansionism in the Asia Pacific region. This seminal, multidisciplinary anthology examines the official American nationalist story of benevolent assimilation and fraternal tutelage in its half century of colonial occupation of the Philippines. Integrating critical and visual art essays, archival and contemporary photographs, dramatic plays, and poetry to address the complex Philippine and U.S. perspectives and experiences, the essayists compellingly recount the consequences of American colonialism in the Philippines. Vestiges of War will force readers to reshape their views on what has been a deliberately obscure but significant phase in the histories of both countries, one which continues to haunt the present. Contributors include: Genara Banzon, Santiago Bose, Ben Cabrera, Renato Constantino, Doreen Fernandez, Eric Gamalinda, Guillermo Gomez-Pena, Jessica Hagedorn, Reynaldo Ileto, Yong Soon Min, Manuel Ocampo, Paul Pfeiffer, Christina Quisumbing, Vicente Rafael, Daniel Boone Schirmer, Kidlat Tahimik, Mark Twain, and Jim Zwick.

Korea Between Empires, 1895-1919


André Schmid - 2002
    It focuses on two critical periods in Korean history and asks how key concepts and symbols were created and integrated into political programs to create an original Korean understanding of national identity, the nation-state, and nationalism. Looking at the often-ignored questions of representation, narrative, and rhetoric in the construction of public sentiment, Andre Schmid traces the genealogies of cultural assumptions and linguistic turns evident in Korea's major newspapers during the social and political upheavals of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.Newspapers were the primary location for the re-imagining of the nation, enabling readers to move away from the conceptual framework inherited from a Confucian and dynastic past toward a nationalist vision that was deeply rooted in global ideologies of capitalist modernity. As producers and disseminators of knowledge about the nation, newspapers mediated perceptions of Korea's precarious place amid Chinese and Japanese colonial ambitions and were vitally important to the rise of a nationalist movement in Korea.

Nobodies to Somebodies: The Rise of the Colonial Bourgeoisie in Sri Lanka


Kumari Jayawardena - 2002
    Here, Kumari Jayawardena traces the evolution of the bourgeoisie from a feudal society and mercantilist economy, to the age of plantations. She assigns primacy to class over caste, and details the rise of the new-rich Nobodies of many castes, ethnicities and religions into the ranks of the Somebodies. She discusses the links between capital accumulation, religious revivalism, ethnic identity and political movements, and highlights the obsession of the bourgeoisie with land acquisition and social status.

Balibo


Jill Jolliffe - 2002
    Chronicling how the reporters died as well as the eventual execution of a sixth reporter who attempted to investigate their fate, this gripping depiction also documents the personal narratives behind the families of the victims and their heartbreaking struggle for the truth. Contending that the Australian government was always aware of the circumstances of the killings, this argument maintains that their cover-up was a key factor in Indonesia's decision to invade and occupy East Timor. With a striking collection of photographs from its thrilling companion film, this searing recollection is as much an investigation of the Indonesian occupation of East Timor as it is a case study of the Balibo killings.

Thai-English English-Thai Dictionary With Transliteration For Non-Thai Speakers


Benjawan Poomsan Becker - 2002
    Most Thai-English dictionaries either use Thai script exclusively for the Thai entries (making them difficult for westerners to use) or use only phonetic transliteration (making it impossible to look up a word in Thai script). This dictionary solves these problems by dividing the entries into three sections: Section One [English-Phonetic-Thai], Section Two [Phonetic-Thai-English] and Section Three [Thai-Phonetic-English]. The transliteration system is the same as that used in Paiboon Publishing's other books. You will find most of the vocabulary you are likely to need in everyday life, including basic medical, cultural, political and scientific terms.

The First Great Political Realist: Kautilya and His Arthashastra


Roger Boesche - 2002
    Kautilya's treatise Arthashastra stands as one of the great political books of the ancient world, its ideas on the science of politics strikingly similar to those of Thucydides, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Clausewitz, and even Sun Tsu. Roger Boesche's excellent commentary on Kautilya's voluminous text draws out the essential realist arguments for modern political analysis and demonstrates the continued relevance of Kautilya's work to modern Indian strategic thinking and our understanding of the relationship between politics and economics. Striking a balance between textual analysis and secondary scholarship, Boesche's work will be an enduring contribution to the study of ancient Indian history, Eastern political thought, and international relations.

Chi Gung: Chinese Healing, Energy and Natural Magick


L.V. Carnie - 2002
    With it you can harness the magickal power of the universe. How do you do it? By learning the ancient Chinese art of breath, posture, and sensory awareness as explained in Chi Gung by L. V. Carnie.As you learn this system to direct your flow of chi, you will be able to achieve ultimate health and things you have only dreamed of:Look and feel younger Add healthy years to your life Progress faster in martial arts training Develop different types of psychic ability: heal at a distance, talk with spirits, move objects with your mind Increase your fitness level Help damaged tissue heal more quickly Improve sexual performance Learn to control your body temperature Bond with your pets or with animals in the wildChi Gung is filled with simple but effective exercises for mind, body, and spirit that will open your flow of chi as they open you to a whole new world of possibilities. No other chi gung self help book covers such a broad range of material or presents the actual training techniques for mastering the more advanced skills.The exercises include simple stretches and slow movements with creative visualization and breathwork. One technique that is fully explained is called the small circulation, or the microcosmic cycle. It will teach you to circulate your chi around your body and head without having it enter your arms or legs. Another technique, the grand circulation or heavenly cycle, teaches you to move chi throughout your entire body. It's not difficult, and you can do it no matter your current level of health or fitness.The powerful techniques here can be used alone or within any spiritual or magical system. Add them to what you are doing today!

Early Cultures Of Mainland Southeast Asia


Charles F.W. Higham - 2002
    This new synthesis begins with the early hunters and gatherers, and concludes with the early states, with particular reference to Angkor. It reflects the new maturity of our understanding of Southeast Asia's past, moving well beyond the claims of extraordinary early agriculture, bronze and iron that bedevilled the discipline in the 1970s. New ideas and interpretations abound. The hunter-gatherer sequence now stretched back over 10,000 years, and continues to the present day. Where formerly the transition to rice cultivation was sought locally, it is now documented first in the Yangzi Valley whence, the author suggests, farming communities expanded southwards along the major river valleys into a new, tropical world. The first knowledge of copper and bronze casting is seen as the southward extension of a process of diffusion that began in the Near East. Crossing the steppes, metallurgy came to Gansu and the Yellow River Valley before spreading into Southeast Asia. In conjunction with his own excavations in Northeast Thailand, Higham has reviewed the widespread evidence for deep-seated cultural changes with the Iron Age that heralded the transition to early states. This allows for a deeper understanding of the strong local cultural currents found in the civilizations of Angkor, Champa and Dvaravati. This book stands as the only up to date systhesis of the early cultures of a huge area. Richly illustrated with many previously unpublished color images, it is a unique compendium essential for all those interested in this region.

Parthia


George Rawlinson - 2002
    Aided by a wealth of maps and illustrations, Rawlinson documents the ebb and flow of empire, providing vivid accounts of the Parthians' battles with Rome and a window into a civilization that lasted five centuries. Appointed proctor of Canterbury in the late 19th century, British scholar and historian GEORGE RAWLINSON (1812-1902) wrote a variety of historical works, including The Five Great Monarchies of the Ancient Eastern World, Manual of Ancient History, The Origin of Nations, and History of Ancient Egypt.

Infinite Tropics: An Alfred Russel Wallace Anthology


Andrew Berry - 2002
    Andrew Berry’s anthology rescue’s Wallace’s legacy, showing Wallace to be far more than just the co-discoverer of natural selection. Wallace was a brilliant and wide-ranging scientist, a passionate social reformer and a gifted writer. The eloquence that has made his The Malay Archipelago a classic of travel writing is a prominent feature too of his extraordinarily forward-thinking writing on socialism, imperialism and pacifism. Wallace’s opinions on women’s suffrage, on land reform, on the roles of the church and aristocracy in a parliamentary democracy, on publicly funded education—to name a few of the issues he addressed—remain as fresh and as topical today as they were when they were written.

Kuala Lumpur Sketchbook


Kon Yit Chin - 2002
    However, with artist Chin Kon Yit and architect Chen Voon Fee as guides, this book reminds citizens of the riches that remain, helps visitors to appreciate the city's unique character and serves as a poignant memento. Watercolour paintings and sketches depict the city's grandest buildings, humblest shophouses and typical street scenes.

The Columbia History of the Vietnam War


David L. AndersonGary R. Hess - 2002
    Laying the chronological and critical foundations for the volume, David L. Anderson opens with an essay on the Vietnam War's major moments and enduring relevance. Mark Philip Bradley follows with a reexamination of Vietnamese revolutionary nationalism and the Vietminh-led war against French colonialism. Richard H. Immerman revisits Eisenhower's and Kennedy's efforts at nation building in South Vietnam, and Gary R. Hess reviews America's military commitment under Kennedy and Johnson. Lloyd C. Gardner investigates the motivations behind Johnson's escalation of force, and Robert J. McMahon focuses on the pivotal period before and after the Tet Offensive. Jeffrey P. Kimball then makes sense of Nixon's paradoxical decision to end U.S. intervention while pursuing a destructive air war.John Prados and Eric Bergerud devote essays to America's military strategy, while Helen E. Anderson and Robert K. Brigham explore the war's impact on Vietnamese women and urban culture. Melvin Small recounts the domestic tensions created by America's involvement in Vietnam, and Kenton Clymer traces the spread of the war to Laos and Cambodia. Concluding essays by Robert D. Schulzinger and George C. Herring account for the legacy of the war within Vietnamese and American contexts and diagnose the symptoms of the "Vietnam syndrome" evident in later debates about U.S. foreign policy. America's experience in Vietnam continues to figure prominently in discussions about strategy and defense, not to mention within discourse on the identity of the United States as a nation. Anderson's expert collection is therefore essential to understanding America's entanglement in the Vietnam War and the conflict's influence on the nation's future interests abroad.

The Boy Who Catches Wasps: Selected Poetry of Duo Duo


Duo Duo - 2002
    He was obliged to write clandestinely, never imagining he would have readers. He continued to write throughout the 1980s, publishing in samizdat publications, and then more openly as the authorities relaxed their grip. Duo Duo left China for a reading tour of England June 4th 1989, the morning after the Tiananmen massacre that he had witnessed.Duo Duo’s poetic vision embraces a historical and political vision that is much more diverse, more global than that circumscribed by the confines of the last third of China’s twentieth century. The context of China, Duo Duo’s lived experience, is necessarily present in the poet’s imaginary, but it is diffused in a world-view that embraces all of modern humanity’s dilemmas, our increasing separation from nature, and our alienation from one another. The exile, like the hybrid and other "in between" subjects, writes of China with the benefit of critical distance, but also writes with an exceptional perspective of wherever he finds himself.Before leaving China, Duo Duo worked as a journalist. His writing has been widely translated and published throughout the world, including two small selections of his work—in English—published in the UK and Canada. Generally associated with the other menglong (ambiguist) poets, such as Bei Dao and Yang Lian. Duo Duo currently lives and teaches in the Netherlands.Gregory Lee currently lives in France and teaches at l’Université Jean Moulin Lyon III. He has also taught at the Universities of Cambridge, London, Chicago and Hong Kong. His translations of Duo Duo and other Chinese poets have appeared in numerous publications, including Fissures: Chinese Writing Today (Zephyr Press), and Abandoned Wine (Wellsweep Press).Also availableFissures: Chinese Writing TodayTP $14.95, 0-939010-59-3 • CUSA

National Geographic Traveler: Hong Kong


Phil MacDonald - 2002
    They want to deeply understand their destination before they go, feel a meaningful connection to the place while there, and return home feeling enriched and ready to share their experiences with others. With these trends in mind, and the results of extensive, proprietary market research, National Geographic Traveler has been enhanced with engaging new features and a contemporary redesign.Each guide begins with an introduction that enables the traveler to sample a bit of the culture, history, and attractions before they go and plan the trip based on their own interests and length of stay. Travelers can immerse themselves in active, in-country "Experiences" and "Off-the-Beaten-Path Excursions" they won't find anywhere else, like visiting a family in a South African township or learning to cook Maori cuisine with a renowned New Zealand chef. Other new features, such as "Insider Tips" from National Geographic photographers, writers, and experts, as well as "Not-To-Be-Missed" lists ensure that each person's visit will be one-of-a-kind and memorable.To make the most of these and all the other great new features, the guides' design has been simplified, opened up, and enhanced with easy-to-read tinted sections. Gorgeous color photographs, high-quality maps, and the popular walking and driving tours are still highlights of our crisp, new look. To complete the update, our new covers boast a striking, single image of the destination, along with the clear National Geographic branding that signifies quality, trust, and all the best in travel.With more than a century of travel expertise, new content, and a new look, National Geographic Traveler is the right guide at the right time-poised to meet the changing needs of today's traveler better than ever and better than anyone.Hong Kong is presented exquisitely with its gleaming skyscrapers and teeming streets. Find out where to drink tea and take lessons in feng shui and kung fu.

Tigers of the Snow: How One Fateful Climb Made The Sherpas Mountaineering Legends


Jonathan Neale - 2002
    By 1953 Sherpa Tenzing Norgay stood on the summit of Everest, and the coolies had become the "Tigers of the Snow."Jonathan Neale's absorbing new book is both a compelling history of the oft-forgotten heroes of mountaineering and a gripping account of the expedition that transformed the Sherpas into climbing legends. In 1934 a German-led team set off to climb the Himalayan peak of Nanga Parbat, the ninth highest mountain on earth. After a disastrous assault in 1895, no attempt had been made to conquer the mountain for thirty-nine years. The new Nazi government was determined to prove German physical superiority to the rest of the world. A heavily funded expedition was under pressure to deliver results. Like all climbers of the time, they did not really understand what altitude did to the human body. When a hurricane hit the leading party just short of the summit, the strongest German climbers headed down and left the weaker Germans and the Sherpas to die on the ridge. What happened in the next few days of death and fear changed forever how the Sherpa climbers thought of themselves. From that point on, they knew they were the decent and responsible people of the mountain.Jonathan Neale interviewed many old Sherpa men and women, including Ang Tsering, the last man off Nanga Parbat alive in 1934. Impeccably researched and superbly written, Tigers of the Snow is the compelling narrative of a climb gone wrong, set against the mountaineering history of the early twentieth century, the haunting background of German politics in the 1930s, and the hardship and passion of life in the Sherpa valleys.

Yan And The Pike


Jun Machida - 2002
    

Mencius (A Bilingual Edition)


D.C. Lau - 2002
    The "Mencius" consists of sayings of Mencius and conversations he had with his contemporaries. When read side by side with the "Analects," the "Mencius" throws a great deal of light on the teachings of Confucius.Mencius developed many of the ideas of Confucius and at the same time discussed problems not touched upon by Confucius. He drew out the implications of Confucius' moral principles and reinterpreted them for the conditions of his time. As the fullest of the four great Confucian texts, the "Mencius" has been required reading among Chinese scholars for two thousand years, and it still throws considerable light on the character of the Chinese people.

The Modern Anthropology of South-East Asia: An Introduction


Victor T. King - 2002
    It provides an overview of the major theoretical issues and themes which have emerged from the engagement of anthropologists with South-East Asian communities; a succinct historical survey and analysis of the peoples and cultures of the region. Most importantly the volume reveals the vitally important role which the study of the area has occupied in the development of the concepts and methods of anthropology: from the perspectives of Edmund Leach to Clifford Geertz, Maurice Freedman to Claude Levi-Strauss; Lauriston Sharp to Melford Spiro.

Emperor and Aristocracy in Japan, 1467-1680: Resilience and Renewal


Lee Butler - 2002
    In showing how the court adapted and survived, the author examines internal court politics and protocols, external court relations, court finances, court structure, and ceremonial observances. Emperor and courtiers, he concludes, adjusted to the warrior elite, while retaining the ideological advantage bestowed by culture, tradition, and birth, to which these new wielders of power continued to pay homage.

Westward Dharma: Buddhism beyond Asia


Charles S. Prebish - 2002
    Leading scholars from North America, Europe, South Africa, and Australia explore the plurality and heterogeneity of traditions and practices that are characteristic of Buddhism in the West.This recent, dramatic growth in Western Buddhism is accompanied by an expansion of topics and issues of Buddhist concern. The contributors to this volume treat such topics as the broadening spirit of egalitarianism; the increasing emphasis on the psychological, as opposed to the purely religious, nature of practice; scandals within Buddhist movements; the erosion of the distinction between professional and lay Buddhists; Buddhist settlement in Israel; the history of Buddhism in internment camps; repackaging Zen for the West; and women's dharma in the West. The interconnections of historical and theoretical approaches in the volume make it a rich, multi-layered resource.

City Requiem, Calcutta: Gender and the Politics Of Poverty


Ananya Roy - 2002
    An ethnography of urban development in Calcutta, Roy's book explores the dynamics of class and gender in the persistence of poverty.City Requiem, Calcutta emphasizes how gender itself is spatialized, and how gender relations are negotiated within the geopolitics of modernity and through the everyday practices of territory. Thus Roy shows how urban developmentalism, in its populist guise, reproduces the relations of masculinist patronage, and, in its entrepreneurial guise, seeks to reclaim a bourgeois Calcutta, gentlemanly in its nostalgias. In doing so, her work expands the field of poverty studies by showing how a politics of poverty is also a poverty of knowledge, a construction and management of social and spatial categories.

Contemporary Chinese Philosophy


Chung-Ying Cheng - 2002
    Contemporary Chinese philosophers developed sophisticated positions in many central areas of philosophy and set out to reinterpret the complex inheritance of ancient Chinese philosophy. Contemporary Chinese Philosophy features leading scholars describing and critically assessing the works of sixteen major twentieth-century Chinese philosophers. The book explores these philosophers' attempts to revive and modernize the Confucian, Daoist, Mohist, Legalist, Logicist, Neo-Confucian, and Buddhist schools as well as their critiques of Western thinkers from Plato to Wittgenstein. It demonstrates that the values and achievements of Chinese philosophers offer a gateway to understanding the development of Chinese views of humanity and reality. This volume enables students and general readers to understand the rich and challenging diversity of issues and positions explored in contemporary Chinese philosophy.

Economy of the Sacred in Hellenistic and Roman Asia Minor


Beate Dignas - 2002
    Examining the forms of interaction between rulers, cities, and sanctuaries, the book proposes a triangular relationship in which the rulers often acted as mediators between differing interests of city and cult.

Nomadic Art of the Eastern Eurasian Steppes: The Eugene V. Thaw and Other New York Collections


Emma C. Bunker - 2002
    This book accompanies an exhibition held at the museum from 2002-2003 of these, and other artefacts, dating largely from the first millennium BC. Four short essays discuss the land and people, the types of artefacts within the collection and the legacy of the people of the Eurasian steppes. The main body of the book includes a catalogue of artefacts arranged by object type accompanied by colour photographs.

Armies of the 19th Century: Asia. Central Asia and the Himalayan Kingdoms


Ian Heath - 2002
    During the nineteenth century these territories which are now part of or border on Russia, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and China were the main theater of the Great Game, in which British and Russian agents competed for influence over the native princes.

Remembered Prisoners of a Forgotten War: An Oral History of Korean War POWs


Lewis H. Carlson - 2002
    For nearly half a century, the media, general public, and even scholars have described hundreds of these prisoners as "brainwashed" victims of a heinous enemy who had uncharacteristically caved in to their Communist captors or, even worse, as turncoats who betrayed their fellow soldiers. In either case, these boys apparently lacked the "right stuff" required of our brave sons. Dr. Carlson debunks these popular myths in this captivating oral history. From the Tiger Death March to the paranoia here at home, Korean War POWs suffered injustices on a scale few can comprehend. Here, at long last, is a chance to hear the true story of these brave men in their own words--a story that, until now, has gone largely untold.

Frog under A Coconut Shell


Josephine Chia - 2002
    This highly nostalgic and evocative book pays tribute to her mother's courageous journey from the bloom of youth to her affliction with Alzheimer's disease in old age.

Everyday Life in South Asia


Diane P. Mines - 2002
    Firsthand accounts portray the ways ordinary people live and make their worlds through growing up and aging, arranging marriages, exploring sexuality, negotiating caste hierarchies, practicing religion, participating in politics and popular culture, enduring violence as nations are built, and moving abroad to make new lives. An international group of scholars present a diverse range of contemporary life situations and perspectives, including peasant girls in rural Rajasthan and advertising executives in Mumbai; "untouchable" sharecroppers and high-caste landlords; intimate, multi-generational households and street youth involved in "modern" gangs; South Asian--American children of high-powered professionals and refugees displaced by national conflict, among many others. The lively text provides lucid introductions to the questions involved in understanding gender, caste, religion, globalization, nationalism, and other key issues as they affect this important region.Contributors: Joseph S. Alter, J. Bernard Bate, E. Valentine Daniel, Robert Desjarlais, Sara Dickey, Gautam Ghosh, Ann Grodzins Gold, Benedicte Grima, Kim Gutschow, Kathleen Hall, Patricia Jeffery, Roger Jeffery, Pradeep Jeganathan, Nita Kumar, Sarah Lamb, Mark Liechty, McKim Marriott, William Mazzarella, Diane P. Mines, Mattison Mines, Serena Nanda, Kirin Narayan, Steven M. Parish, Gloria Goodwin Raheja, Paula Richman, Susan Seizer, Susan Seymour, Margaret Trawick, Ruth Vanita, Viramma (with Josiane Racine and Jean Luc Racine), Susan S. Wadley, and Jim Wilce.

Red Sorrow


Nanchu - 2002
    She was left to fend for herself and her younger brother. When she grew older, she herself became a Red Guard and was sent to the largest work camp in China. There she faced primitive conditions, sexual harassment, and the pressure to conform. Eventually, she was admitted to Madam Mao's university, where politics were more important than learning. Her testimony is essential reading for anyone interested in China or human rights. -- Like Anchee Min's Red Azalea, Red Sorrow conveys the drama of an entire society in upheaval through a story of personal survival.