Offering multilevel insight into one of the most astounding real-life dramas of modern history, The Fall and Rise of China weaves together the richly diverse developments and sociopolitical currents that created the China we now see in the headlines.As we enter what some are already calling the "Chinese century," the role of China is deeply fundamental to our reading of the direction of world civilization and history. In 48 penetrating lectures, The Fall and Rise of China takes you to the heart of the events behind China's new global presence, leaving you with a clear view of both the story itself and its critical implications for our world.Course Lecture Titles48 Lectures, 30 minutes per lecture 1. The Splendor That Was China, 600–1700 2. Malthus and Manchu Hubris, 1730–1800 3. Barbarians at the Gate, 1800–1860 4. Rural Misery and Rebellion, 1842–1860 5. The Self-Strengthening Movement, 1860–1890 6. Hundred Days of Reform and the Boxer Uprising 7. The End of Empire, 1900–1911 8. The Failed Republic, 1912–1919 9. The Birth of Chinese Communism, 1917–1925 10. Chiang, Mao, and Civil War, 1926–1934 11. The Republican Experiment, 1927–1937 12. "Resist Japan!" 1937–1945 13. Chiang's Last Stand, 1945–1949 14. "The Chinese People Have Stood Up!" 15. Korea, Taiwan, and the Cold War, 1950–1954 16. Socialist Transformation, 1953–1957 17. Cracks in the Monolith, 1957–1958 18. The Great Leap Forward, 1958–1960 19. Demise of the Great Leap Forward, 1959–1962 20. "Never Forget Class Struggle!" 1962–1965 21. "Long Live Chairman Mao!" 1964–1965 22. Mao's Last Revolution Begins, 1965–1966 23. The Children's Crusade, 1966–1967 24. The Storm Subsides, 1968–1969 25. The Sino-Soviet War of Nerves, 1964–1969 26. Nixon, Kissinger, and China, 1969–1972 27. Mao's Deterioration and Death, 1971–1976 28. The Legacy of Mao Zedong—An Appraisal 29. The Post-Mao Interregnum, 1976–1977 30. Hua Guofeng and the Four Modernizations 31. Deng Takes Command, 1978–1979 32. The Historic Third Plenum, 1978 33. The "Normalization" of U.S.-China Relations 34. Deng Consolidates His Power, 1979–1980 35. Socialist Democracy and the Rule of Law 36. Burying Mao, 1981–1983 37. "To Get Rich Is Glorious," 1982–1986 38. The Fault Lines of Reform, 1984–1987 39. The Road to Tiananmen, 1987–1989 40. The Empire Strikes Back, 1989 41. After the Deluge, 1989–1992 42. The "Roaring Nineties," 1992–1999 43. The Rise of Chinese Nationalism, 1993–2001 44. China's Lost Territories—Taiwan, Hong Kong 45. China in the New Millennium, 2000–2008 46. China's Information Revolution 47. "One World, One Dream"—The 2008 Olympics 48. China's Rise—The Sleeping Giant Stirs

    . . A beautiful, searing book that leaves an indelible presence in the mind." --Patricia Hampl, author of "The Florist's Daughter "Will Kiehn is seemingly destined for life as a humble farmer in the Midwest when, having felt a call from God, he travels to the vast North China Plain in the early twentieth-century. There he is surprised by love and weds a strong and determined fellow missionary, Katherine. They soon find themselves witnesses to the crumbling of a more than two-thousand-year-old dynasty that plunges the country into decades of civil war. As the couple works to improve the lives of the people of Kuang P'ing Ch'eng-- City of Tranquil Light, a place they come to love--and face incredible hardship, will their faith and relationship be enough to sustain them?Told through Will and Katherine's alternating viewpoints--and inspired by the lives of the author's maternal grandparents--"City of Tranquil Light" is a tender and elegiac portrait of a young marriage set against the backdrop of the shifting face of a beautiful but torn nation. A deeply spiritual book, it shows how those who work to teach others often have the most to learn, and is further evidence that Bo Caldwell writes "vividly and with great historical perspective" ("San Jose Mercury News").

    He'd heard that the locals constructed jerry-rigged hoops out of any material they could get their hands on-car hoods, driftwood, twisted rebar-and built courts everywhere, from cluttered street corners to the slopes of volcanoes and in the thick of jungles.Allured by the idea of an island nation full of people who love the game as irrationally as he does, American journalist Rafe Bartholomew arrived in Manila to unlock the riddle of basketball's grip on the Philippines. On his unforgettable journey, Bartholomew spends a season inside the locker room of a Philippine professional team, dines with politicians who exploit hoops for electoral success, travels with a troupe of midgets and transsexuals who play exhibition games at rural fiestas, and even acts in a local soap opera. Sweating his way through hard-fought games of 3-on-3, played with homemade hoops for 50-cent wagers, Bartholomew uses a mix of journalistic knowhow and the hard- court ethics he learned from his dad to get in the paint and behind the scenes of Filipinos' against-all-odds devotion to the sport.

    others recall his on-field arrogance. Some say he fixed matches . . . others say he was dropped for being Tamil! Who exactly was Pradeep Mathew? And what became of him?WG Karunasena, a man who spent 64 years drinking arrack and watching cricket decides to find out ...If you have never seen a cricket match; or if you have and it has made you snore ...If you can’t understand why anyone would watch, let alone obsess over this dull game ...... then this IS the book for you

    These are stories which Xinran could not bring herself to tell previously - because they were too painful and close to home. In the footsteps of Xinran's Good Women of China, this is personal, immediate, full of harrowing, tragic detail but also uplifting, tender moments. Ten chapters, ten women and many stories of heartbreak, including her own: Xinran once again takes us right into the lives of Chinese women - students, successful business women, midwives, peasants, all with memories which have stained their lives. Whether as a consequence of the single-child policy, destructive age-old traditions or hideous economic necessity... these women had to give up their daughters for adoption, others were forced to abandon them - on city streets, outside hospitals, orphanages or on station platforms - and others even had to watch their baby daughters being taken away at birth, and drowned. Here are the 'extra-birth guerrillas' who travel the roads and the railways, evading the system, trying to hold onto more than one baby; naive young student girls who have made life-wrecking mistakes; the 'pebble mother' on the banks of the Yangzte still looking into the depths for her stolen daughter; peasant women rejected by their families because they can't produce a male heir; and finally there is Little Snow, the orphaned baby fostered by Xinran but 'confiscated' by the state. The book sends a heartrending message from their birth mothers to all those Chinese girls who have been adopted overseas (at the end of 2006 there were over 120,000 registered adoptive families for Chinese orphans, almost all girls, in 27 countries), to show them how things really were for their mothers, and to tell them they were loved and will never be forgotten.

    I’d been waiting for months to hear from them...’ In early 2010, Arundhati Roy travelled into the forests of Central India, homeland to millions of indigenous people, dreamland to some of the world’s biggest mining corporations. The result is this powerful and unprecedented report from the heart of an unfolding revolution. About the Author : Arundhati Roy is the author of The God of Small Things, which won the Booker Prize in 1997. Three volumes of her non-fiction writing, The Algebra of Infinite Justice, An Ordinary Person’s Guide to Empire and Listening to Grasshoppers, were published in 2001, 2005 and 2009 respectively. The Shape of the Beast, a collection of her interviews, was published in 2008. Arundhati Roy lives in New Delhi.

    From seeing his father taken away to a concentration camp to arriving in Tel Aviv at the birth of Israel, Tommy Lapid lived every major incident of Jewish life since the 1930s first-hand.This sweeping narrative will captivate anyone with an interest in how Israel became what it is today. Tommy Lapid's uniquely unorthodox opinions - he belonged to neither left nor right, was Jewish, but vehemently secular - expose the many contradictions inherent in Israeli life today.

    This riveting true account of the first ever trial of an American citizen in North Korea’s highest court carries readers deep inside the world’s most secretive nation while it poignantly explores the powerful, inspiring bonds of sisterly love.

    Maya, their gifted architect, had created for them three cities fortified with iron, silver and gold and the great lord Brahma himself had decreed that these cities would be indestructible, unless struck by a single arrow. The three cities, known together as Tripura, orbited the earth and only once in a thousand years fell in a straight line, directly one above the other. Would Shiva be waiting to destroy them with a twang of his deadly bow?

    Mao Zedong threw his country into a frenzy with the Great Leap Forward, an attempt to catch up and overtake Britain in less than 15 years. The experiment ended in the greatest catastrophe the country had ever known, destroying tens of millions of lives. Access to Communist Party archives has long been denied to all but the most loyal historians, but now a new law has opened up thousands of central and provincial documents that fundamentally change the way one can study the Maoist era. Frank Dikotter's astonishing, riveting and magnificently detailed book chronicles an era in Chinese history much speculated about but never before fully documented. Dikotter shows that instead of lifting the country among the world's superpowers and proving the power of communism, as Mao imagined, in reality the Great Leap Forward was a giant - and disastrous -- step in the opposite direction. He demonstrates, as nobody has before, that under this initiative the country became the site not only of one of the most deadly mass killings of human history (at least 45 million people were worked, starved or beaten to death) but also the greatest demolition of real estate - and catastrophe for the natural environment - in human history, as up to a third of all housing was turned to rubble and the land savaged in the maniacal pursuit of steel and other industrial accomplishments. Piecing together both the vicious machinations in the corridors of power and the everyday experiences of ordinary people, Dikotter at last gives voice to the dead and disenfranchised. Exhaustively researched and brilliantly written, this magisterial, groundbreaking account definitively recasts the history of the People's Republic of China.

    The Caucasus had to be conquered and, for the highlanders, life would never be the same again. This title features author's journeys who intended to hear the stories of the conquest.

    To this place of devious merchants, deceitful interpreters, costly courtesans, earthquakes, and typhoons comes Jacob de Zoet, a devout and resourceful young clerk who has five years in the East to earn a fortune of sufficient size to win the hand of his wealthy fiancée back in Holland.But Jacob’s original intentions are eclipsed after a chance encounter with Orito Aibagawa, the disfigured daughter of a samurai doctor and midwife to the city’s powerful magistrate. The borders between propriety, profit, and pleasure blur until Jacob finds his vision clouded, one rash promise made and then fatefully broken. The consequences will extend beyond Jacob’s worst imaginings. As one cynical colleague asks, “Who ain’t a gambler in the glorious Orient, with his very life?”A magnificent mix of luminous writing, prodigious research, and heedless imagination, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is the most impressive achievement of its eminent author.

    The country has undergone a remarkable transformation on a scale similar to that of the Industrial Revolution in the West. The most remarkable part of this transformation, however, has been left largely untold—the central role of the Chinese Communist Party. As an organization alone, the Party is a phenomenon of unique scale and power. Its membership surpasses seventy-three million, and it does more than just rule a country. The Party not only has a grip on every aspect of government, from the largest, richest cities to the smallest far-flung villages in Tibet and Xinjiang, it also has a hold on all official religions, the media, and the military. The Party presides over large, wealthy state-owned businesses, and it exercises control over the selection of senior executives of all government companies, many of which are in the top tier of the Fortune 500 list. In The Party, Richard McGregor delves deeply into China's inner sanctum for the first time, showing how the Communist Party controls the government, courts, media, and military, and how it keeps all corruption accusations against its members in-house. The Party's decisions have a global impact, yet the CPC remains a deeply secretive body, hostile to the law, unaccountable to anyone or anything other than its own internal tribunals. It is the world's only geopolitical rival of the United States, and is steadfastly poised to think the worst of the West. In this provocative and illuminating account, Richard McGregor offers a captivating portrait of China's Communist Party, its grip on power and control over China, and its future.

    Was it murder or suicide? Amber starts to piece together a lost world -the mystical vibrant hippy trail to India- and as the mystery unfolds, begins her own journey of discovery, that leads to dark secrets of the past, lost love and a tragedy much closer to home.Author Interview&Reading Grp Notes

    On the outskirts of Tokyo, near a station on a private train line, stands a modest European style house with a red, triangular shaped roof. There a woman named Taki has worked as a maidservant in the house and lived with its owners, the Hirai family. Now, near the end of her life, Taki is writing down in a notebook her nostalgic memories of the time spent living in the house. Her journal captures the refined middle-class life of the time from her gentle perspective. At the end of the novel, however, a startling final chapter is added. The chapter brings to light, after Taki’s death, a fact not described in her notebook. This suddenly transforms the world that had been viewed through the lens of a nostalgic memoir, so that a dramatic, flesh-and-blood story takes shape. Nakajima manages to combine skillful dialogue with a dazzling ending. The result is a polished, masterful work fully deserving of the Naoki Prize.

    The thirty-eight essays provide every significant topic in the study of Indian politics by eminent experts. They address the links between Indian politics and institutions of the state, ideologies, political processes, social movements, identity politics, government policy, international affairs, and the academia.The success of India's democratic political system despite immense and multidimensional diversity and differences has been a subject of longstanding academic debate and analysis. In the last few decades, in an increasingly globalized and multicultural world, India has carved its position as a globaleconomic and political power, and Indian polity and society have witnessed rapid transformation in terms of structure, processes, success, and failures. Grasping this swift and phenomenal change is a mammoth task, and The Oxford Companion to Politics in India is the best resource to capture themacro as well as micro view of Indian politics in a global world.Specially designed and priced to serve the needs of students and teachers of Indian politics, this unprecedented survey presents in one volume, thirty-eight essays on every theme of Indian politics written by experts in the field, and a substantial new Preface for the student readers. Clustered intoeight sections, these essays address the links between Indian politics and institutions of the state, ideologies, political processes, social movements, identity politics, government policy, international affairs, and the academia. Weaving together historical narratives with fresh analyses, thisvolume provides an accessible yet deeply researched narrative of politics in modern India.

    After many centuries of not being practiced in Europe, tattooing was re-introduced to the Western world through the inhabitants of the Pacific Ocean. Beginnning in the 16th century, European explorers came across many people who practiced tattooing as an integral part of their cultures. This is the first serious study of Filipino tattoos, and it considers early accounts from explorers and Spanish-speaking writers. The text presents Filipino cultural practices connected with ancestral and spiritual aspects of tattoo markings, and how they relate to the process and tools used to make the marks. In the Philippine Islands, tatoos were applied to men and women for many different reasons. It became a form of clothing. Certain designs recognized manhood and personal accomplishments as well as attractiveness, fertility, and continuity of the family or village. Facial tattoos occurred on the bravest warriors with names that denoted particular honor. Through the fascinating text and over 200 images, including color photographs and design drawings, the deep meanings and importance of these markings becomes apparent.

    maritime strategy in Asia. They argue that China is laying the groundwork for a sustained challenge to American primacy in maritime Asia, and to defend this hypothesis they look back to Alfred Thayer Mahan's sea-power theories, now popular with the Chinese. The book considers how strategic thought about the sea shapes Beijing's deliberations and compares China's geostrategic predicament to that of the Kaiser's Germany a century ago. It examines the Chinese navy's operational concepts, tactics, and capabilities and appraises China's ballistic-missile submarine fleet. The authors conclude that unless Washington adapts, China will present a challenge to America's strategic position.

    The heroics of a small team of Australian Special Forces commandos in Timor who tied down a far superior Japanese force for most of the critical year of 1942.

    In this lively, entertaining, and often hilarious memoir, he relates the early life of a first-generation Thai-American and his constant, often bumbling attempts to reconcile cultural and familial expectations with the trials of growing up in 1980s America.            Young Ira may have lived in Oak Lawn, Illinois, but inside the family’s bi-level home was “Thailand with American conveniences.” They ate Thai food, spoke the Thai language, and observed Thai customs. His bedtime stories were tales of Buddha and monkey-faced demons. On the first day of school his mother reminded him that he had a Siamese warrior’s eyes—despite his thick glasses—as Aunty Sue packed his Muppets lunch box with fried rice. But when his schoolmates played tag he was always It, and as he grew, he face the constant challenge of reconciling American life with a cardinal family rule: “Remember, you are Thai.”            Inside the Thai Buddhist temple of Chicago, another “simulated Thailand,” are more rules, rules different from those of the Southside streets, and we see mainstream Western religion—“god people”—through the Sukrungruang family’s eyes. Within the family circle, we meet a mother who started packing for her return to Thailand the moment she arrived; her best friend, Aunty Sue, Ira’s second mother, who lives with and cooks for the family; and a wayward father whose dreams never quite pan out.            Talk Thai is a richly told account that takes us into an immigrant’s world. Here is a story imbued with Thai spices and the sensibilities of an American upbringing, a story in which Ira practices English by reciting lines from TV sitcoms and struggles with the feeling of not belonging in either of his two worlds. For readers who delight in the writings of Amy Tan, Gish Jen, and other Asian-Americans, Talk Thai provides generous portions of a still-mysterious culture while telling the story of an American boyhood with humor, playfulness, and uncompromising honesty.

    Drawing on notes, speeches, and writings from his own experiences in Southeast Asia, as well as in the United States Information Agency and in the White House, Herschensohn fills in important facts in that period of history and warns against the danger of succumbing to a similar voluntary amnesia in the future.

    Reviving life in Lahore as it was before 1947, the book opens on a nostalgic note, with vivid descriptions of the people that lived in the city’s streets and lanes like Bhola Pandhe Ki Gali: Tara, who wanted an education above marriage; Puri, whose ideology and principles often came in the way of his impoverished circumstances; Asad, who was ready to sacrifice his love for the sake of communal harmony. Their lives—and those of other memorable characters—are forever altered as the carnage that ensues on the eve of Independence shatters the beauty and peace of the land, killing millions of Hindus and Muslims, and forcing others to leave their homes forever.

    Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: Norwegian Wood, Kafka on the Shore, the Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, 1q84, Dance Dance Dance, Pinball, 1973, After Dark, Sputnik Sweetheart, a Wild Sheep Chase, Hear the Wind Sing, South of the Border, West of the Sun. Source: Wikipedia. Free updates online. Not illustrated. Excerpt: Norwegian Wood Noruwei no Mori) is a 1987 novel by Japanese author Haruki Murakami. The novel is a nostalgic story of loss and sexuality. The story's protagonist and narrator is Toru Watanabe, who looks back on his days as a freshman university student living in Tokyo. Through Toru's reminiscences we see him develop relationships with two very different women the beautiful yet emotionally troubled Naoko, and the outgoing, lively Midori. The novel is set in Tokyo during the late 1960s, a time when Japanese students, like those of many other nations, were protesting against the established order. While it serves as the backdrop against which the events of the novel unfold, Murakami (through the eyes of Toru and Midori) portrays the student movement as largely weak-willed and hypocritical. Part of the novel was later published in the collection Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman under the title Firefly. Norwegian Wood was hugely popular with Japanese youth and made Murakami somewhat of a superstar in his native country (apparently much to his dismay at the time). Despite its mainstream popularity in Japan, Murakami's established readership saw Norwegian Wood as an unwelcome departure from his by-then established style of energetic prose flavoured with the unexpected and supernatural (as exemplified by Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, released two years earlier); as translator Jay Rubin observes in the translator's note...More: http: //booksllc.net/?id=117388

    The early years of the Unification Church, the expansion to an international ministry, and the importance of global wedding ceremonies are all explained in first-hand accounts.

    To amuse themselves and fellow inmates, a group of sportsmen led by the indefatigable and popular Chicken Smallhorn, created an Australian Football League, complete with tribunal, selection panel, umpires and coaches. The final game of the one and only season was between Victoria and the Rest of Australia, which attracted 10 000 spectators, and a unique Brownlow Medal was awarded in this unlikely setting under the curious gaze of Japanese prison guards. Meet the main characters behind this spectacle: Peter Chitty, the farm hand from Snowy River country with unfathomable physical and mental fortitude, and one of eight in his immediate family who volunteer to fight and serve in WW2; Chicken Smallhorn, the Brownlow-medal winning little man with the huge heart; and Weary Dunlop, the courageous doctor, who cares for the POWs as they endure malnutrition, disease and often inhuman treatment. This is a story of courage and the invincibility of the human spirit, and highlights not only the Australian love of sport, but its power to offer consolation in times of extreme hardship.

    Why yes, this is a book about cat fashion. More specifically, it is about the insanely adorable cat clothing designed by Takako Iwasa and modelled by Takako's supermodel cat muses, Prin and Kotaro.Vice Books is proud to present to you, faithfully translated from the original Japanese, the cutest book of the cutest cats wearing the cutest outfits ever. Meow!

    He now lives in the Pamir Mountains.

    Mai loves feeding the caged birds near the temple but dreams that one day she'll see them fly free. Then she meets Thu and shares the joy of feeding the birds with her. This sets a chain of good deeds in motion that radiates throughout her village and beyond. Set in Vietnam, Roseanne Thong's inspiring story is elegantly illustrated with watercolor on wood by Eujin Kim Neilan.

    Seth surveys Korean history from Neolithic times to the present. He explores the origins and development of Korean society, politics, and its still little-known cultural heritage from their inception to the two Korean states of today. Telling the remarkable story of the origins and evolution of a society that borrowed and adopted from abroad, Seth describes how various tribal peoples in the peninsula came together to form one of the world's most distinctive communities. He shows how this ancient, culturally and ethnically homogeneous society was wrenched into the world of late-nineteenth-century imperialism, fell victim to Japanese expansionism, and then became arbitrarily divided into two opposed halves, North and South, after World War II. Tracing the past seven decades, the book explains how the two Koreas, with their deeply different political and social systems and geopolitical orientations, evolved into sharply contrasting societies. South Korea, after an unpromising start, became one of the few postcolonial developing states to enter the ranks of the first world, with a globally competitive economy, a democratic political system, and a cosmopolitan and dynamic culture. North Korea, by contrast, became one of the world's most totalitarian and isolated societies, a nuclear power with an impoverished and famine-stricken population. Seth describes and analyzes the radically different and historically unprecedented trajectories of the two Koreas, formerly one tight-knit society. Throughout, he adds a rich dimension by placing Korean history into broader global perspective and by including primary readings from each era. All readers looking for a balanced, knowledgeable history will be richly rewarded with this clear and concise book.

    Their citizen army fought through 1974 with covert support from the Tibetan exile government and the governments of India, Nepal, and the United States. Decades later, the story of this resistance is only beginning to be told and has not yet entered the annals of Tibetan national history. In Arrested Histories, the anthropologist and historian Carole McGranahan shows how and why histories of this resistance army are “arrested” and explains the ensuing repercussions for the Tibetan refugee community.Drawing on rich ethnographic and historical research, McGranahan tells the story of the Tibetan resistance and the social processes through which this history is made and unmade, and lived and forgotten in the present. Fulfillment of veterans’ desire for recognition hinges on the Dalai Lama and “historical arrest,” a practice in which the telling of certain pasts is suspended until an undetermined time in the future. In this analysis, struggles over history emerge as a profound pain of belonging. Tibetan cultural politics, regional identities, and religious commitments cannot be disentangled from imperial histories, contemporary geopolitics, and romanticized representations of Tibet. Moving deftly from armed struggle to nonviolent hunger strikes, and from diplomatic offices to refugee camps, Arrested Histories provides powerful insights into the stakes of political engagement and the cultural contradictions of everyday life.

    Today the government of China recognizes just 56 ethnic nationalities, or minzu, as groups entitled to representation. This controversial new book recounts the history of the most sweeping attempt to sort and categorize the nation's enormous population: the 1954 Ethnic Classification project (minzu shibie). Thomas S. Mullaney draws on recently declassified material and extensive oral histories to describe how the communist government, in power less than a decade, launched this process in ethnically diverse Yunnan. Mullaney shows how the government drew on Republican-era scholarship for conceptual and methodological inspiration as it developed a strategy for identifying minzu and how non-Party-member Chinese ethnologists produced a “scientific” survey that would become the basis for a policy on nationalities.

    The three volumes, connected by theme rather than character, and above all by their shared wit, brio, and daring, range in setting from the India of the Great Mutiny of 1857, to Ireland immediately after the Great War, to the besieged Singapore of World War II. Together the books constitute not only a spectacular entertainment but also an ambitious refashioning of the traditional historical novel to meet the tragic realities of the modern world. The Siege of Krishnapur - India, 1857 - the year of the Great Mutiny, when Muslim soldiers turned in bloody rebellion on their British overlords. This time of convulsion is the subject of J. G. Farrell's The Siege of Krishnapur, widely considered one of the finest British novels of the last fifty years.Farrell's story is set in an isolated Victorian outpost on the subcontinent. Rumors of strife filter in from afar, and yet the members of the colonial community remain confident of their military and, above all, moral superiority. But when they find themselves under actual siege, the true character of their dominion - at once brutal, blundering, and wistful - is soon revealed. Troubles - 1919: After surviving the Great War, Major Brendan Archer makes his way to Ireland, hoping to discover whether he is indeed betrothed to Angela Spencer, whose Anglo-Irish family owns the once-aptly-named Majestic Hotel in Kilnalough. But his fiancée is strangely altered and her family's fortunes have suffered a spectacular decline. The hotel's hundreds of rooms are disintegrating on a grand scale; its few remaining guests thrive on rumors and games of whist; herds of cats have taken over the Imperial Bar and the upper stories; bamboo shoots threaten the foundations; and piglets frolic in the squash court. Meanwhile, the Major is captivated by the beautiful and bitter Sarah Devlin. As housekeeping disasters force him from room to room, outside the order of the British Empire also totters: there is unrest in the East, and in Ireland itself the mounting violence of "the troubles." · The Singapore Grip - Singapore, 1939: life on the eve of World War II just isn't what it used to be for Walter Blackett, head of British Singapore's oldest and most powerful firm. No matter how forcefully the police break one strike, the natives go on strike somewhere else. His daughter keeps entangling herself with the most unsuitable beaus, while her intended match, the son of Blackett's partner, is an idealistic sympathizer with the League of Nations and a vegetarian. Business may be booming - what with the war in Europe, the Allies are desperate for rubber and helpless to resist Blackett's price-fixing and market manipulation - but something is wrong. No one suspects that the world of the British Empire, of fixed boundaries between classes and nations, is about to come to a terrible end.

    Originally written in English by Yuri Yasuda, based on her interpretations of traditional Japanese tales, these charming stories of rich imagination are now accompanied by Japanese text by Yumi Matsunari and Yumi Yamaguchi. The Japanese text includes basic kanji accompanied by furigana to help beginning learners to recognize and learn the characters.Adventures carry us, on turtle-back, to the splendors of the underwater palace of the dragon princess, to the beautiful hills where Kintaro plays with his animal friends, and to a temple where we discover a "tea kettle" that is really a cunning badger in disguise.The 98 color illustrations bring to life the charming characters of these heart-warming tales of old Japan, which include:Shitakiri Suzume, the Tongue-Cut SparrowKintaro, the Strong BoyKaguya Hime, the Luminous PrincessMomotaro, the Peach BoyBunbuku Chagama, the Lucky Cauldron

    In their own words, men and women from Burma describe their lives in the country that Human Rights Watch has called “the textbook example of a police state.”

    Volume 2: From the Great Qing Empire through the People's Republic of China (1644—2009).

    In The Optic Trilogy, the surfacing of buried secrets and repressed memories profoundly alters the way a man and woman see each other. In Fugitives, the members of a family discover that their self-definition relies on their interactions with ‘outsiders’ who exist beyond their comfort zones. In Homesick, a diasporic Singaporean family, quarantined during the SARS crisis, evaluate the meanings of home. And in sex.violence.blood. gore, the facade of a rigid, orderly society is peeled away to reveal chaotic passions.

    Full Color ThroughoutFull of color images and maps makes planning as inspiring as the journey itselfColor-coded navigation Easy-To-Use StructureEasy-to-use tools include: color-coded chapters, color thumb tabs, dynamic color spreads on major highlights andEasy-to-read planning sections throughout HighlightsSpecial front-of-book chapter on the top 25 can t-miss experiencesFeatures the must-see attractions and unbeatable experiencesFocuses on key cities and regions ItinerariesCountry-wide itineraries take you step by step though the country broken out by interest, theme and length of tripRegion-specific itineraries help you plan more deeply for the regions you are most interested in Local Experts Major attractions include insights from local experts on what not to miss

    Ordering Power draws on theoretical insights dating back to Thomas Hobbes to develop a unified framework for explaining both of these political outcomes. States are especially strong and dictatorships especially durable when they have their origins in "protection pacts" broad elite coalitions unified by shared support for heightened state power and tightened authoritarian controls as bulwarks against especially threatening and challenging types of contentious politics. These coalitions provide the elite collective action underpinning strong states, robust ruling parties, cohesive militaries, and durable authoritarian regimes - all at the same time. Comparative-historical analysis of seven Southeast Asian countries (Burma, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, South Vietnam, and Thailand) reveals that subtly divergent patterns of contentious politics after World War II provide the best explanation for the dramatic divergence in Southeast Asia's contemporary states and regimes.

    Soldiers pour into the room. They're shouting and waving rifles. I shield my head with my arms. It was a lie! I think, my mind racing.Girls and boys alike are screaming. The soldiers prod and herd some of us together and push the rest apart as if we're cows or goats. Their leader is a middle—aged man. He's moving slowly, intently, not dashing around like the others." Take the boys only, Win Min," I overhear him telling a tall, gangly soldier. "Make them obey."

    The Western Hemisphere lies front and center, while the Indian Ocean region is relegated to the edges, split up along the maps’ outer reaches. This convention reveals the geopolitical focus of the now-departed twentieth century, for it was in the Atlantic and Pacific theaters that the great wars of that era were lost and won. Thus, many Americans are barely aware of the Indian Ocean at all.But in the twenty-first century this will fundamentally change. In Monsoon, a pivotal examination of the Indian Ocean region and the countries known as “Monsoon Asia,” bestselling author Robert D. Kaplan deftly shows how crucial this dynamic area has become to American power in the twenty-first century. Like the monsoon itself, a cyclical weather system that is both destructive and essential for growth and prosperity, the rise of these countries (including India, Pakistan, China, Indonesia, Burma, Oman, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Tanzania) represents a shift in the global balance that cannot be ignored. The Indian Ocean area will be the true nexus of world power and conflict in the coming years. It is here that the fight for democracy, energy independence, and religious freedom will be lost or won, and it is here that American foreign policy must concentrate if America is to remain dominant in an ever-changing world. From the Horn of Africa to the Indonesian archipelago and beyond, Monsoon explores the multilayered world behind the headlines. Kaplan offers riveting insights into the economic and naval strategies of China and India and how they will affect U.S. interests. He provides an on-the-ground perspective on the more volatile countries in the region, plagued by weak infrastructures and young populations tempted by extremism. This, in one of the most nuclearized areas of the world, is a dangerous mix.The map of this fascinating region contains multitudes: Here lies the entire arc of Islam, from the Sahara Desert to the Indonesian archipelago, and it is here that the political future of Islam will most likely be determined. Here is where the five-hundred-year reign of Western power is slowly being replaced by the influence of indigenous nations, especially India and China, and where a tense dialogue is taking place between Islam and the United States.  With Kaplan’s incisive mix of policy analysis, travel reportage, sharp historical perspective, and fluid writing, Monsoon offers a thought-provoking exploration of the Indian Ocean as a strategic and demographic hub and an in-depth look at the issues that are most pressing for American interests both at home and abroad. Exposing the effects of explosive population growth, climate change, and extremist politics on this unstable region—and how they will affect our own interests—Monsoon is a brilliant, important work about an area of the world Americans can no longer afford to ignore.

    There’s a civil war (the world’s longest running, in fact) raging between the government and ethnic rebels. Much of the United States’ heroin comes from there. And there’s the small matter that America helped make it all possible with overt funding and the CIA’s very first secret war. Of course, you wouldn’t know any of this, because Burma is a country nearly shut out from the rest of the world, with the only footage of the carnage coming via groups of young, tough, booze-loving refugees who run into war zones to collect it. And with these refugees is where we find Mac McClelland embedded in her staggering debut, For Us Surrender Is Out of the Question. McClelland weaves a narrative that is part investigative journalism, part popular history, and part memoir of a Midwestern, twentysomething girl living with refugee activists on the Burma-Thailand border. Driven by the community McClelland is illegally aiding—a small group of brave young men and women—For Us Surrender Is Out of the Question is an urgent and fascinating look at a weary conflict, told by a bright, new voice.

    Although Tada's writing is an essential part of postwar Japanese poetry, her use of themes and motifs from European, Near Eastern, and Mediterranean history, mythology, and literature, as well as her sensitive explorations of women's inner lives make her very much a poet of the world. Forest of Eyes offers English-language readers their first opportunity to read a wide selection from Tada's extraordinary oeuvre, including nontraditional free verse, poems in the traditional forms of tanka and haiku, and prose poems. Translator Jeffrey Angles introduces this collection with an incisive essay that situates Tada as a poet, explores her unique style, and analyzes her contribution to the representation of women in postwar Japanese literature.

    And the stories and parables of the Lotus Sutra-one of the world's great religious scriptures and most influential texts-are among the most fascinating and dramatic.In this fun, engaging, and plain-English book, Gene Reeves-the translator of Wisdom's critically acclaimed and bestselling edition of the Lotus Sutra-presents the most memorable and remarkable of the Lotus Sutra's many stories and parables, along with a distillation of his decades of reflection on them in an accessible, inspiring, and naturally illuminating way.The Stories of the Lotus Sutra is the perfect companion to Reeve's breathtaking translation of this scriptural masterpiece as well as a thoroughly enjoyable stand-alone volume for those who want to bring the inspiring teachings of the bodhisattva path into their daily lives.

    The contributors theorize the effects of militarization across former and current territories of Japan and the United States, such as Guam, Okinawa, the Marshall Islands, the Philippines, and Korea, demonstrating that the relationship between militarization and colonial subordination—and their gendered and racialized processes—shapes and produces bodies of memory, knowledge, and resistance. Contributors: Walden Bello, U of the Philippines; Michael Lujan Bevacqua, U of Guam; Patti Duncan, Oregon State U; Vernadette Vicuña Gonzalez, U of Hawai‘i, M noa; Insook Kwon, Myongji U; Laurel A. Monnig, U of Illinois, Urbana–Champaign; Katharine H. S. Moon, Wellesley College; Jon Kamakawiwo‘ole Osorio, U of Hawai‘i, M noa; Naoki Sakai, Cornell U; Fumika Sato, Hitotsubashi U; Theresa Cenidoza Suarez, California State U, San Marcos; Teresia K. Teaiwa, Victoria U, Wellington; Wesley Iwao Ueunten, San Francisco State U.

    While jailed in Tehran's most-feared prison, where she's held for her father's antiregime sentiments, Leila tells her story in flashback. She describes her childhood days in Tehran and shares her experiences as a college student in the United States, where she falls in love with Jack, only to see their relationship torn asunder by the strong influence of their disparate religions. Ultimately, hope triumphs in the face of fanaticism and intolerance.

    Drawing from more than 330 interviews and a year and a half of field research, it develops a case study of the international intervention during the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s unsuccessful transition from war to peace and democracy (2003–2006). Grassroots rivalries over land, resources, and political power motivated widespread violence. However, a dominant peacebuilding culture shaped the intervention strategy in a way that precluded action on local conflicts, ultimately dooming the international efforts to end the deadliest conflict since World War II. Most international actors interpreted continued fighting as the consequence of national and regional tensions alone. UN staff and diplomats viewed intervention at the macro levels as their only legitimate responsibility. The dominant culture constructed local peacebuilding as such an unimportant, unfamiliar, and unmanageable task that neither shocking events nor resistance from select individuals could convince international actors to reevaluate their understanding of violence and intervention.

    In this book he explains how to gain clarity, peace, and wisdom through step-by-step analysis and meditation on the true nature of reality. He also introduces readers to the joy and profundity of yogic song, and reveals the power of aspiration prayers to inspire, transform, and brighten our hearts.

    This collection of photos, vignettes, and life stories from pre- and postwar rural Japan is the first English translation of his modern Japanese classic. From blowfish to landslides, Miyamoto's stories come to life in Jeffrey Irish's fluid translation.

    Those who have been are often not fully aware of—or are unwilling to accept—the degree to which they have been compromised.’ Till just a few decades ago, much of the world was carved into empires. By the mid twentieth century independent countries had emerged from these, but even after years of political liberation, cultural freedom has eluded formerly colonized nations like India . In this important book, Pavan Varma, best-selling author of the seminal works The Great Indian Middle Class and Being Indian, looks at the consequences of Empire on the Indian psyche. Drawing upon modern Indian history, contemporary events and personal experience, he examines how and why the legacies of colonialism persist in our everyday life, affecting our language, politics, creative expression and self-image. Over six decades after Independence , English remains the most powerful language in India , and has become a means of social and economic exclusion. Our classical arts and literature continue to be neglected, and our popular culture is mindlessly imitative of western trends. Our cities are dotted with incongruous buildings that owe nothing to indigenous traditions of architecture. For all our bravado as an emerging superpower, we remain unnaturally sensitive to both criticism and praise from the Anglo-Saxon world and hunger for its approval. And outside North Block, the headquarters of free India ’s Ministry of Home Affairs, a visitor can still read these lines inscribed by the colonial rulers: ‘ Liberty will not descend to a people, a people must raise themselves to liberty. It is a blessing which must be earned before it can be enjoyed.’ With passion, insight and impeccable logic, Pavan Varma shows why India , and other formerly subject nations, can never truly be free—and certainly not in any position to assume global leader

    The collection brings together works by many of the most important Zainichi Korean writers of the twentieth century, from the colonial-era Into the Light (1939) by Kim Sa-ryang to Full House (1997) by Yu Miri, one of contemporary Japan's most acclaimed and popular authors.Although diverse in style and subject matter, all of the stories gathered in this volume ask a single consuming question: What does it mean to be Korean in Japan? Some stories record their contemporary milieu, while others focus on internal turmoil or document social and legal discrimination. More generally, they consider the relationship of Korean ethnicity to sexuality, family, culture, politics, and history. Thus the stories provide a fascinating window into the human experience of modernity in Japan and Korea, not only enabling us to track the ways in which grand concepts such as nation, language, empire, economy, and gender have shaped the human imagination, but also entreating us to ask how individual authors have sought to provide insight--or even guidance--on the path that grand history might follow.The volume includes stories by Chong Ch'u-wol, Kim Ch'ang-saeng, Kim Hak-yong, Kim Sa-ryang, Kim Tal-su, Noguchi Kakuchu, Yi Yang-ji, and Yu Miri.

    Such designers as Issey Miyake, Yohji Yamamoto and Rei Kawakubo made an enormous impact on the world fashion scene in the late twentieth century, challenging established notions of beauty and turning fashion into art. Today a new generation of radical designers, among them Tao Kurihara and Jun Takahashi, is fast gaining acclaim. This spectacular book, written by a team of experts led by the eminent fashion historian Akiko Fukai, explores the distinct sensibility of Japanese design – the uniqueness of its form, cut and fabric. Illustrated with over 250 photographs and sketches, Future Beauty is an authoritative and stylish guide to some of the world’s most expressive fashion.

    Sam gives chase and runs foul of the boss of a pickpocket gang, who's also involved in the illegal trade of exotic pets, including tiger cubs taken from the wild. When a pair of cubs is to be smuggled through Pakistan to Iran, Sam and the young pickpocket, now his ally, set out in the cause of wildlife conservation to rescue them. They pull it off, but find themselves miles from Delhi, with no money... and two tigers!

    As Korean American adoptee author Mi Soon Burzlaff slowly acculturates herself into her birth family and society at large, her writing opens an illuminating window into Seoul's raw and dynamic identity.

    Grab your explorer s cap and get ready for this one-of-a-kind Grand Canyon adventure. Charlie, a spirited monkey, and his triceratops buddy, Trike, set off with a burly one-eyed tour guide to hike deep into the Grand Canyon. But there s trouble on the trail when Charlie goes off on his own to dig for fossils. What s more, Charlie s convinced the tour guide is a thief, but any plans to catch him are quickly foiled. Once in the Canyon, Trike does his best to explain to his friend the worldwide Flood and why we can trust the Bible. Finally, with the tour guide s help, Charlie understands the truth in a way that will change his life forever.

    In the campy and carnivalesque Dreamplay, history is turned upside-down as a goddess travels through time to ‘save gay men from themselves’. In Landmarks, geography takes centrestage, as eight short plays explore the spaces that have been claimed, colonised, and trespassed by those at the margins of the mainstream. In Happy Endings, the playwright’s adaptation of the novel Peculiar Chris evolves into a meditation on the relationship between life and literature. With clear-eyed compassion and eloquent outrage, this collection of plays charts the coming-of-age of a community finding its voice.

    Yet, as an ancient civilization, the region had both an historical and cultural coherence. It shared, for example, a Confucian heritage, some common approaches to Buddhism, a writing system that is deeply imbued with ideas and meaning, and many political and institutional traditions. This shared past and the interconnections among three distinct, yet related societies are at the heart of this book, which traces the story of East Asia from the dawn of history to the early twenty-first century. Charles Holcombe is an experienced and sure-footed guide who encapsulates, in a fast-moving and colorful narrative, the vicissitudes and glories of one of the greatest civilizations on earth.

    Filled with drawings, photos and anecdotes, the diary reveals an alpine world that his father once inhabited as a child: where tribes were fashioned by tree spirits; animals could be spoken to; fleas danced; and the moon and stars were guiding lights in darkling forests. His father’s world was alive with birdsong and hidden spirits, serene yet fleeting—but it all changed when he befriended two bears. Bewitching and timeless, award-winning Taiwanese author Chang Ying-Tai’s The Bear Whispers to Me is a poignant forest fable about the vivid beauty of the natural world, childhood, loss and the transient nature of time.

    He is in the pantheon of the great travel-writers of the world, though virtually unknown to western readers. This brand new translation by the foremost scholar of his age, brings Evliya sparkling to life, so that we can relish his charm and intelligence once more, whether he is describing high jinks in the bathhouses, being kidnapped by bandits, Ottoman Istanbul in its baroque heyday or a worldwide convention of trapeze artists.

     In three succinct essays, Patrick Smith investigates the East’s endeavor to adopt Western technology and all that we consider modern. He underscores a crucial distinction between modernization (the simple emulation of the West) and the true task of “becoming modern.” He examines the strategies that three prominent cultures—those of Japan, China, and India—evolved as they encountered materialistic foreign cultures and imported ideas while defending their own traditions. The result, Smith explains, has often been called “doubling”—a division of the self wherein Asians are receptive to Western products and ideas but simultaneously reject these same imports to emphasize the validity of the “unmodern.”  Employing an exceptional combination of reflection and reportage, Smith also examines the often troubled relationship Asians have with history as a result of their encounters with the West. Finally, he considers Asia’s twenty-first-century attempt to define itself without reference to the West for the first time in modern history. The author foresees a new balance in the East-West dialogue—one in which the East transcends old ideals of nationhood (another Western import). Smith asserts that there are fundamental lessons in Asia’s long struggle with the modern: In the twenty-first century, the East will challenge the West just as the West once challenged the East. This is a book of exceptional significance and extraordinary depth.

    Yet the single year in which Japanese forces occupied territory from Alaska to Indonesia was followed by three years of terrible defeat. Nevertheless, until the shattering end of the war, many Japanese continued to believe in the invincibility of their country. But in the diaries of well-known writers--including Nagai Kafu, Takami Jun, Yamada Futaru, and Hirabayashi Taiko--and the scholar Watanabe Kazuo, varying doubts were vividly, though privately, expressed.Donald Keene, renowned scholar of Japan, selects from these diaries, some written by authors he knew well. Their revelations were sometimes poignant, sometimes shocking to Keene. Ito Sei's fervent patriotism and even claims of racial superiority stand in stark contrast to the soft-spoken, kindly man Keene knew. Weaving archival materials with personal recollections and the intimate accounts themselves, Keene reproduces the passions aroused during the war and the sharply contrasting reactions in the year following Japan's surrender. Whether detailed or fragmentary, these entries communicate the reality of false victory and all-too-real defeat.

    The definitive guide to cooking and traveling in Thailand, featuring full of tips on local customs and eating habits.

    Their only hope is a refugee camp in Thailand—on the other side of the river.When they reach the camp, their struggles are far from over. Na Pho is a forgotten place where life consists of squalid huts, stifling heat, and rationed food. Still, Vonlai tries to carry on as if everything is normal. He pays attention in school, a dusty barrack overcrowded with kids too hungry to learn. And, to forget his empty stomach, he plays soccer in a field full of rocks. But when someone inside the camp threatens his family, Vonlai calls on a forbidden skill to protect their future—a future he's sure is full of promise, if only they can make it out of Na Pho alive.In her compelling debut, Laura Manivong has written an evocative story that is vividly real, strongly affecting, and, at its heart, about hope that resonates in even the darkest moments.

    He was the boss's favorite pupil, but then in a single night, after he had won so many territorial fights for his gang, he lost everything! Why?

    The delay handed the Japanese a golden opportunity to set their house in order before Allied war crimes investigators arrived. After 14 August groups of Allied POWs were brutally murdered. Vast amounts of documentation concerning crimes were burned ahead of the arrival of Allied forces. POW facilities and medical experimentation installations were either abandoned or destroyed. Perhaps the greatest crimes were continuing deaths of Allied POWs from starvation, disease and ill-treatment after the Japanese surrender. The blame rests with the American authorities, and particularly General MacArthur, Supreme Allied Commander in the Pacific. MacArthur expressly forbade any Allied forces from liberating Japanese occupied territories before he had personally taken the formal Japanese surrender aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on 2 September 1945. Vice Admiral Lord Mountbatten, Commanding Allied forces in Southeast Asia, protested against this policy, believing that pandering to MacArthur s vanity and ego would mean condemning many starving and sick prisoners to death. Deaths among British and Commonwealth POWs were significant as opposed to American POWs who were already largely liberated in the Philippines and elsewhere."

    In a visit to the United States in 2003, Philippine president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo even referred to herself as not only the head of state but also “the CEO of a global Philippine enterprise of eight million Filipinos who live and work abroad." Robyn Magalit Rodriguez investigates how and why the Philippine government transformed itself into what she calls a labor brokerage state, which actively prepares, mobilizes, and regulates its citizens for migrant work abroad. Filipino men and women fill a range of jobs around the globe, including domestic work, construction, and engineering, and they have even worked in the Middle East to support U.S. military operations. At the same time, the state redefines nationalism to normalize its citizens to migration while fostering their ties to the Philippines. Those who leave the country to work and send their wages to their families at home are treated as new national heroes. Drawing on ethnographic research of the Philippine government’s migration bureaucracy, interviews, and archival work, Rodriguez presents a new analysis of neoliberal globalization and its consequences for nation-state formation.

    As a young man Erik Jensen settled in Sarawak where he lived with the Iban for seven years, learning their language and the varied rites and practices of their lives. In this compelling and beautifully-wrought memoir, Erik Jensen reveals the challenges facing the Iban as they adapt to another century, whilst fighting to preserve their identity and singular place in the world. Haunting, yet hopeful, Where Hornbills Fly opens a window onto a vanishing world and paints a remarkable portrait of this fragile tribe, which continues to survive deep in the heart of Borneo.

    It tells the true story of being catapulted from continent to continent constantly: leaving friends and starting all over again, her unquenchable search for a 'home' and sense of belonging in this world, her desire for a life-partner with the odds all but against her due to constantly relocating (even into adulthood). You will laugh and cry along with Heidi as she recounts hilarious and heart-breaking tales from her childhood as West blends with East. That is the true beauty of Heidi's upbringing, it crossed borders and defied logic but she lacked for nothing.

    Following the huge success of Korean Eye: Moon Generation, the first international exhibition of Korean contemporary art, Skira publishes a book featuring sixty of Korea’s most renowned contemporary artists, selected by a curatorial team which consists of a mix of Korean and international art curators. The book also includes background information on the art scene in Korea and references to the major art fairs, symposia, exhibitions, galleries, museums, and events throughout the year.

    Performed by a handful of players, mostly masked and using minimal props and exceedingly understated movements, this is theater pared down to its essentials. Yet, as an art form, Noh drama is highly complex^DDLrichly symbolic, nuanced and exquisite in its austerity.Since the emergence of Noh drama over six centuries ago, the masks worn by the actors have been integral to the work. A Noh mask, with its subtle fusion of the real and the imaginary, is a beautiful object; but it only comes fully to life when a talented actor is able to transcend the mask's unchanging expression and convey a wide range of emotions.In recent years, Noh drama has seen a resurgence in prestige and popularity, both in Japan and abroad. Today, the masks worn by most Noh thespians are either old, passed down from generation to generation within a particular school of acting, or the work of an artist who specializes in this craft. Only one Noh master-actor continues to make masks in addition to teaching, writing and performing. Michishige Udaka is a shite-kata (lead and producer), with a career spanning almost 50 years. As an actor and playwright, he is able to bring to the task of mask-making a deep understanding both of the character the mask represents and of the actor's intentions while playing that role. These insights have enabled Udaka to add greater dimension to his own performances.The Secrets of Noh Masks presents 32 pieces, a representative sample of the more than 200 produced to date by the author. Every one has passed the ultimate test^DDLuse in actual performances^DDLand may be seen on stage today. The stunning photos are accompanied by captions and essays about the history of Noh, its performance style, mask-making philosophy and techniques. There is also an index listing each mask with a thumbnail sketch.Those who know little of this ancient dramatic form, might assume that Noh masks lack expression. But the images showcased in this volume reveal an emotional depth and humanity that is as powerful in the 21st century as it was over 600 years ago.

    Masood Ashraf Raja's main assertion, challenging the conventional andpostcolonial appraisals of the Indian national history, is that the Indian Muslim particular identity and Muslim exceptionalism preceded the rise of Congress or Gandhian nationalism. Using major theories of nationalism-including works of Benedict Anderson, Anthony D. Smith, John Breuilly, ParthaChatterjee and others-and analysis of literary, political, and religious texts produced by Indian Muslims, Constructing Pakistan traces the varied Muslim responses to the post 1857 British ascendancy. This study provides a multilayered discussion of Indian Muslim nationalism from the rise of post1857 Muslim exceptionalism to the beginnings of a more focused struggle for a nation-sate in the 1940s.In this dual act of retrieval and intervention, a varied mixture of literary, political, and religious texts are employed to suggest that if the Muslim textual production of this time period is read within the realm of politics and not just within the arena of culture, then the rise of Indian Muslimnationalism can be clearly traced within these texts and through their affective value for the Indian Muslims.Raja states that no such work exits either in the postcolonial field or in the field of area studies that combines close readings of the texts, their reception, and the politics of identity formation specifically related to the rise of Indian Muslim nationalism. The author's main argument hinges ontwo important assumptions: 1) After the rebellion it becomes extremely important for the Muslim elite to force the dominant British regime into a hegemonic view of the Muslims, and 2) this forces the Muslim elite to develop a language of politics that must always invoke the people in order to enterthe British system of privileges and dispensations. Consequently, the rise of early Muslim exceptionalism and its eventual specific nationalistic unfolding, of which Pakistan was one outcome, can then be read as political acts that long preceded the Indian national party politics. The reason mostIndian and European historians cannot trace a pronounced Muslim sense of separate identity before the 1940s is because they trace this identity either in the form of resistance or in the shape of party politics. The early loyalism of the Muslim elite, in such strategy, remains unexplained, as itdoes not fit the resistance model. Constructing Pakistan attempts to re-read this loyalism as a sophisticated form of resistance that, in the end, makes the Muslim question central to the British politics of post-rebellion era.

    Jumping on any boat that would let her onboard, she begins a leisurely exploration of Myanmar’s thirteen hundred-mile long Ayeyarwaddy River. Always hungry—for food, conversation, and a good story—Ma Thanegi clearly savors and vividly describes every adventure she encounters, whether she is traveling into the Cyclone Nargis-stricken delta region, feeding a dragon, or careening down the rock-infested white-water gorge of the Ayeyarwaddy’s First Defile. You’ll love accompanying this opinionated and delightful lady on an odyssey that takes her through much of Myanmar—never without great passion for her country, a wicked sense of humor, and her tube of red lipstick.

    For the past 150 years most aspects of the Uprising have been subjected to intense scrutiny by historians, yet the nature of the outbreak itself remains obscure. What was the extent of the conspiracies and plotting? How could rumours of contaminated ammunition spark a mutiny when not a single greased cartridge was ever distributed to the sepoys?Based on a careful, even handed reassessment of the primary sources, The Great Fear of 1857 explores the existence of conspiracies during the early months of that year and presents a compelling and detailed narrative of the panics and rumours which moved Indians to take up arms. With its fresh and unsentimental approach, this book offers a radically new interpretation of one of the most controversial events in the history of British India.Kim A. Wagner is Lecturer in Imperial and World History at the University of Birmingham. He has published extensively on crime and rebellion in British India and his first book, Thuggee: Banditry and the British in Early Nineteenth-Century India, was shortlisted for the History Today Award 2008.

    These creatures are believed to be messengers of the god of water; they often do mysterious things and love to eat cucumbers. Legends of kappas exist all over Japan.The Last Kappa of Old Japan tells the story of a Japanese boy, Norihei, who lived on a farm in the countryside of Japan some time ago. One day Norihei discovers a sick young kappa, Kyu-chan, and saves his life. The two become fast friends and Kyu-chan introduces Norihei to the secret wonders of the water world. Many years later, Kyu-chan is able to return Norihei's favor. This warmly written and beautifully illustrated book introduces young readers to many aspects of traditional Japanese culture and folklore, while teaching an important lesson about maintaining a clean environment.

    The book includes short 3-4 paragraph articles about different things. Each issue provides for a variety of topics for discussion by a various Opinion Samples. Dialogue over each issue associated with each student to learn a variety of colloquialisms are asked to. We first start with a textbook that led to conversations. We would read one article per class and discuss the article. There are discussion questions in the book you can follow to aid the flow of discussion.

    Now, two men rediscover the near-forgotten Yokai and return these ancient beasts to their former glory in The Bento Bestiary. This beautiful book is manufactured using Nobrow's renowned spot color print process.Scott James Donaldson is a writer living in Bristol, United Kingdom.Ben Newman is an illustrator and artist living in Bristol, United Kingdom.

    Covering Japan, China, Korea, and India; England, Ireland, France, and The Netherlands; Australia, Africa, Central America, North America, and beyond, Quilts Around the World explores both the diversity and common threads of quilting. Discover Aboriginal patchwork from Australia, intricate Rallis from the Middle East, Amish and Hawaiian quilts from the United States, Sashiko quilts from Japan, vivid Molas from Central America, and art quilts from every corner of the globe. Also included are twenty patchwork and applique patterns to use in your own quilt projects, inspired by designs from the world’s most striking quilts.

    China's War of Resistance began in 1937 with the Japanese invasion and ended in 1945 after eight long years. Diana Lary, one of the foremost historians of the period, tells the tragic history of China's war and its consequences from the perspective of those who went through it. Using archival evidence only recently made available, interviews with survivors, and extracts from literature, she creates a vivid and highly disturbing picture of the havoc created by the war, the destruction of towns and villages, the displacement of peoples, and the accompanying economic and social disintegration. Her focus is on families torn apart, men, women, and children left homeless and struck down by disease and famine. It is also a story of courage and survival. By 1945, the fabric of China's society had been utterly transformed, and entirely new social categories had emerged. As the author suggests in a new interpretation of modern Chinese history, far from stemming the spread of communism from the USSR, which was the Japanese pretext for invasion, the horrors of the war, and the damage it created, nurtured the Chinese Communist Party and helped it to win power in 1949.

    Tyrants ride high, old notions of justice vanish, and people may feel they have nowhere to turn for relief. In some ways, this is the story of human civilization.Indeed, this is what happened to the Chinese world in the thirteenth century when the Mongol conquerors mangled China and left the Chinese social order in tatters.This book, from one the pioneering and preeminent translators of Zen for the West, presents a selection of Zen lessons from four teachers in four successive generations whose public lives spanned a turbulent period in Chinese history. These four Zen masters were all eminent teachers, and their teaching words reflect the state of the art of Zen teaching in their time. And they are, even now, all vividly relevant.

    This book gets us closer to understanding North Korea beyond the usual headlines, and does so in a richly detailed, well-researched, and theoretically contextualized way." ---Charles K. Armstrong, Director, Center for Korean Research, Columbia University"One of this book's strengths is how it deals at the same time with historical, geographical, political, artistic, and cultural materials. Film and theatre are not the only arts Kim studies---she also offers an excellent analysis of paintings, fashion, and what she calls 'everyday performance.' Her analysis is brilliant, her insights amazing, and her discoveries and conclusions always illuminating."---Patrice Pavis, University of Kent, CanterburyNo nation stages massive parades and collective performances on the scale of North Korea. Even amid a series of intense political/economic crises and international conflicts, the financially troubled country continues to invest massive amounts of resources to sponsor unflinching displays of patriotism, glorifying its leaders and revolutionary history through state rituals that can involve hundreds of thousands of performers. Author Suk-Young Kim explores how sixty years of state-sponsored propaganda performances---including public spectacles, theater, film, and other visual media such as posters---shape everyday practice such as education, the mobilization of labor, the gendering of social interactions, the organization of national space, tourism, and transnational human rights. Equal parts fascinating and disturbing, Illusive Utopia shows how the country's visual culture and performing arts set the course for the illusionary formation of a distinctive national identity and state legitimacy, illuminating deep-rooted cultural explanations as to why socialism has survived in North Korea despite the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and China's continuing march toward economic prosperity. With over fifty striking color illustrations, Illusive Utopia captures the spectacular illusion within a country where the arts are not only a means of entertainment but also a forceful institution used to regulate, educate, and mobilize the population.Suk-Young Kim is Associate Professor in the Department of Theater and Dance at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and coauthor with Kim Yong of Long Road Home: A Testimony of a North Korean Camp Survivor.

    Yet, by not asking, are they missing out on something, perhaps half the story? This is the question this book, edited and written by journalists, for journalists and the lay public interested in media, raises. Through examples from the media, and from their own experience, the contributors explain the concept of gender-sensitive journalism and look at a series of subjects that journalists have to cover—sexual assault, environment, development, business, politics, health, disasters, conflict—and set out a simple way of integrating a gendered lens into day-to-day journalism. Written in a non-academic, accessible style, this book is possibly the first of its kind in India—one that attempts to inject a gender perspective into journalism.

    In Korean temples, Seonbang is the most essential part of Zen monasteries, where monks or nuns sleep and live and meditate. In Seonbang, they are strictly protected from any outer disturbance. This book is a rare and valuable record of retreat life at a monastic retreat center. The diary covers major events and happenings among the monks throughout the retreat. It is the story of their greed, anger and ignorance, and the record of their suffering, and the testimony of their great courage to put their suffering to an end. Readers are transported into the world of Korean Zen practice in a mountain monastery within minutes. Readers will get to know Korean Buddhism more intimately through this book.

    Foreign engineers introduced the Japanese to modern, underground sewer systems with above ground access points called manhoru (manholes). At first, Japanese manhole covers used geometric designs similar to those used in other countries. In the 1980s, when communities outside of Japan's major cities were slated to receive new sewer systems, the public works projects were met with resistance – until one dedicated bureaucrat solved the problem by devising a way to make these mostly invisible systems aesthetically appreciated aboveground: customized manhole covers.  Because the Japanese elevate design in all aspects of life to a new level, the custom covers were welcomed, even though they cost more than generic ones. Today nearly 95 percent of the 1,780 municipalities in Japan sport their very own specially designed manhole covers. Designs range from images that evoke a region's cultural identity, flora or fauna to landmarks and local festivals. Unsurprisingly, this phenomenon has bred another phenomenon: manhoru mania. A rabid online community, based in Japan and abroad, has developed around this city-sanctioned urban art. Several blogs and websites dedicated to manhole covers provide details about locations and designs. With numerous colorful photographs organized by region, Drainspotting is the first book to document yet another wholly distinct aspect of contemporary Japanese visual culture.

    Her splendid illustrations were painted with Chinese inks and gold overlays and with frames inspired by jewels from the tomb of Philip II of Macedonia at Verghina.

    This book chronicles a rare, regime-sanctioned excursion by a North American into the heart of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. What is revealed is often what's expected, such as the adoration of leaders, excursions to national monuments, and exposure to propaganda relating to self-sufficiency. But as a Korean speaker, the author gathered a lot more information than the scripted English narration provided by his Korean guides. Behind the propaganda of the Communist regime, the authentic, eye-opening North Korea is revealed.

    Through a nuanced analysis of the Nuosu population, this book seeks to answer why the Nuosu has a disproportionately large number of opiate users and HIV positive individuals relative to others in Sichuan. By focusing on the experiences of Nuosu migrants and drug users, it shows how multiple modernities, individual yearnings, and societal resilience have become entwined in the Nuosu's calamitous encounter with the Chinese state and, after long suppression, their efforts at cultural reconstruction.This ethnography pits the Nuosu youths' adventures, as part of their passage to manhood, against the drastic social changes in their community and, more broadly, China over the last half century. It offers fascinating material for courses on migration, globalization, youth culture, public health, and development at both undergraduate and graduate levels.

    It is a comprehensive textbook covering the basic four skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing. While fostering balanced development of these four skills, the new textbook is designed with emphsis on enhancing speaking ability. The "Try it" section in each chapter is designed to help students improve their conversation skills without memorization by creating their own dialogue according to a given situation and explanation of the flow of the dialogue and vocabulary. In addition, taking into consideration the demands and preferences expressed by students, levels 1 to 3 consist of two books each.

    Moreover, most of the relevant primary documents have existed only in Chinese, scattered in hard-to-find publications. Contemporary Chinese Art remedies this situation by bringing together carefully selected primary texts in English translation. Arranged in chronological order, the texts guide readers through the development of avant-garde Chinese art from 1976 until 2006. Because experimental Chinese art emerged as a domestic phenomenon in the 1970s and 1980s and its subsequent development has been closely related to China’s social and economical transformation, this volume focuses on art from mainland China. At the same time, it encompasses the activities of mainland artists residing overseas, since artists who emigrated in the 1980s and 1990s were often key participants in the early avant-garde movements and have continued to interact with the mainland art world. The primary documents include the manifestos of avant-garde groups, prefaces to important exhibitions, writings by representative artists, important critical and analytical essays, and even some official documents. Each chapter and section begins with a concise preface explaining the significance of the texts and providing the necessary historical background; the volume includes a timeline summarizing important art phenomena and related political events.Publication of the Museum of Modern Art

    Features four stories about young Prince Veera, who, along with his friend Suku, helps his father, the king, solve some of the problems he is having with his subjects.

    The mosaic of family rooms, filtered through the feelings and eyes of narrators with heightened subjectivities, gives one the sense of what the country of lndonesia has gone through from time to time. The further away the protagonists roam from home, the stronger is the unspoken yearning for unraveling the traumas rooted at the center of the family homes. One especially strategic family room, where all these dark socio-cultural and political dimensions are dramatized brilliantly, is the kitchen, where the women of the home churn dreams, fears, social and political intrigues away. Another one is the bedroom, where babies are born and a maternal figure dies. It is in these domestic, feminized spaces that family as well as political affairs are played out in the most sharply felt intensity.

    Over 100 million people live in this small nation of islands. Many live in the countryside, but millions live in crowded cities like Tokyo. Students will learn about the physical features of the landscape and surrounding waters as well as the cultural aspects of the Japanese from old traditions to modern everyday life.

    It is frequently photographed because of its remarkable resemblance to a Chinese straw hat. The Story of Chinaman's Hat is an original legend describing how this uniquely shaped island was created. The story begins with a young boy in China who magically grows into a giant and floats across the seas to Hawai'i. The adventures he experiences change him and the face of the Hawaiian Islands forever.

    Born in Venice, Italy, Beato came of age in the Ottoman capital of Constantinople. As a young apprentice in 1856, he photographed the sites of the Crimean War, thereby launching a long and remarkably adventurous career. Over the next half century he would follow in the wake of the British Empire: Egypt, Palestine, and Syria; India, where he photographed the aftermath of the Indian Mutiny; and China, where he chronicled the Second Opium War. He spent some thirty years in Japan and Burma, where he was among the first commercial photographers at the time that these countries were starting to open to the West.The text includes an engaging narrative of his life and entrepreneurial career and a thought-provoking essay on Beato and the photography of war. There is a generous selection of his photographs, including panoramas and hand-colored Japanese studies, along with captivating period ephemera, lithographs based on his work, and humorous caricatures of the artist.

    After 30 years, Bou Meng has largely moved beyond the need for personal revenge.

    Even though China is an international leader in modern business and technology, its ancient history exerts a powerful force on its foreign policy. In The Mind of Empire: China's History and Modern Foreign Relations, Christopher A. Ford expertly traces China's self-image and its role in the world order from the age of Confucius to today. Ford argues that despite its exposure to and experience of the modern world, China is still strongly influenced by a hierarchical view of political order and is only comfortable with foreign relationships that reinforce its self-perception of political and moral supremacy.Recounting how this attitude has clashed with the Western notion of separate and coequal state sovereignty, Ford speculates -- and offers a warning -- about how China's legacy will continue to shape its foreign relations. Ford examines major themes in China's conception of domestic and global political order, sketches key historical precedents, compares Chinese ideas to the tradition of Western international law, and outlines the remarkable continuity of China's Sinocentrism. Artfully weaving historical, philosophical, religious, and cultural analysis into a cohesive study of the Chinese worldview and explaining its relevance, Ford offers a unique perspective of modern China.

    That's the general public's reaction to the crucial movement of oil around the world's oceans. Yet this vital supply chain that allows the world to function is constantly under enormous, largely unreported pressure. The uninterrupted flow of oil is essential to globalization and increasingly so as manufacturing and markets move Eastwards to Asia. However, it is threatened by conflicts between nation states, pirates and global warming. All too often the movement of oil by ocean is something taken for granted by the majority of the world yet it is fraught with difficulty, and could haemorrhage global growth if issues covered in this book are not resolved or allowed to escalate. From reporting onboard giant tankers to looking at the geopolitical shift in oil consumption, Oil on Water is holistic, all encompassing and engrossing look at the way oil is moved and consumed mixing reportage, examples and hard-hitting facts.

    Yet the Chinese government has consistently resisted these efforts, countering with repression and a sophisticated strategy of state-sanctioned propaganda emphasizing interethnic harmony and Chinese nationalism. After decades of struggle, Uyghurs remain passionate about establishing and expanding their power within government, and China's leaders continue to push back, refusing to concede any physical or political ground.Beginning with the history of Xinjiang and its unique population of Chinese Muslims, Gardner Bovingdon follows fifty years of Uyghur discontent, particularly the development of individual and collective acts of resistance since 1949, as well as the role of various transnational organizations in cultivating dissent. Bovingdon's work provides fresh insight into the practices of nation building and nation challenging, not only in relation to Xinjiang but also in reference to other regions of conflict. His work highlights the influence of international institutions on growing regional autonomy and underscores the role of representation in nationalist politics, as well as the local, regional, and global implications of the "war on terror" on antistate movements. While both the Chinese state and foreign analysts have portrayed Uyghur activists as Muslim terrorists, situating them within global terrorist networks, Bovingdon argues that these assumptions are flawed, drawing a clear line between Islamist ideology and Uyghur nationhood.

    It is a look at female display figures both cross-culturally and cross-temporally, through texts and iconography, beginning with figures depicted in very early Neolithic Anatolia, early and middle Neolithic southeast Europe--Bulgaria, Romania, and Serbia--continuing through the late Neolithic in East Asia, and into early historic Greece, India, and Ireland, and elsewhere across the world. These very similar female figures were depicted in Anatolia, Europe, Southern Asia, and East Asia, in a broad chronological sweep, beginning with the pre-pottery Neolithic, ca. 9000 BCE, and existing from the beginning of the second millennium of this era up to the present era. This book demonstrates the extraordinary similarities, in a broad geographic range, of depictions and descriptions of magical female figures who give fertility and strength to the peoples of their cultures by means of their magical erotic powers. This book uniquely contains translations of texts which describe these ancient female figures, from a multitude of Indo-European, Near Eastern, and East Asian works, a feat only possible given the authors' formidable combined linguistic expertise in over thirty languages. The book contains many photographs of these geographically different, but functionally and artistically similar, female figures. Many current books (academic and otherwise) explore some of the female figures the authors discuss in their book, but such a wide-ranging cross-cultural and cross-temporal view of this genre of female figures has never been undertaken until now. The "sexual" display of these female figures reflects the huge numinosity of the prehistoric divine feminine, and of her magical genitalia. The functions of fertility and apotropaia, which count among the functions of the early historic display and dancing figures, grow out of this numinosity and reflect the belief in and honoring of the powers of the ancient divine feminine.

    Focusing on the specialty of “medicine for women”(fuke), Yi-Li Wu explores the material and ideological issues associated with childbearing in the late imperial period. She draws on a rich array of medical writings that circulated in seventeenth- to nineteenth-century China to analyze the points of convergence and contention that shaped people's views of women's reproductive diseases. These points of contention touched on fundamental issues: How different were women's bodies from men's? What drugs were best for promoting conception and preventing miscarriage? Was childbirth inherently dangerous? And who was best qualified to judge? Wu shows that late imperial medicine approached these questions with a new, positive perspective.

    Associated with blood, fire, fertility, and life force, the color red has always been extremely difficult to achieve and thus highly prized. This book discusses the origin of the red colorant derived from the insect cochineal, its early use in Precolumbian ritual textiles from Mexico and Peru, and the spread of the American dyestuff through cultural interchange following the Spanish discovery and conquest of the New World in the 16th century. Drawing on examples from the collections of the Metropolitan Museum, it documents the use of this red-colored treasure in several media and throughout the world.

    Just returned to the Straits Settlements after spending half his life in England, the young lawyer is thrown into the swirling brew that is colonial society in 1930s Singapore: a society of tuans and towkays, Babas and babus, where race is everything and even love cannot be wholly colour-blind. Juggling his career and personal responsibilities, Chiang encounters a life full of courtroom dramas, cultural prejudices and even communist intrigue. Never far away is Chiang’s mentor, the unflappable D’Almeida, who in public is a calm, efficient lawyer, but he possesses a shrewd investigative streak and uses unorthodox methods that result in his young protégé Chiang being caught up in a succession of captivating adventures.The Advocate’s Devil is the first of two books featuring the character Dennis Chiang.