Every year, hundreds of thousands of tourists journey to the Great Wall of China, and a myriad of photographs have made it familiar to millions more. Yet its story remains mysterious and steeped in myth.In this riveting account, John Man travels the entire length of the Great Wall and across two millennia to find the truth behind the legend. Along the way, he delves into the remarkable and complex history of Chinas tribal past through its war with the Mongols to its present-day status as a resurgent superpower.

    It demonstrates how throughout the twentieth century, Thailand has been drawn into the international system, the American camp in the Cold War, the economic gambit of rising Japan, and more recently, the forces of globalization. The authors also survey the country's transformation accompanying massive social evolution over recent decades. (Control of the nation state is still contested between forces with a patriarchal belief in change from above, and advocates of democracy and liberal values.)

    'The Early Chinese Empires' illuminates many formative events in China's long history of imperialism - events whose residual influence can still be discerned today.

    Chapters are brief and each major Chinese dynasty, Japanese Shogunate, or other discrete period is treated in a separate chapter. Chapters or groups of chapters on China or Japan alternate. Encounters with the West, beginning in the 16th and expanding greatly in the 19th century, are extensively covered.

    This book, by the noted historian who served as a consultant for the film, adds new dimensions to this famous legend.

    The structure of global politics is shifting rapidly. After decades of rising, China has entered a new and critical phase where it seeks to turn its economic heft into global power. In this deeply informed book, Geoff Dyer makes a lucid and convincing argument that China and the United States are now embarking on a great power–style competition that will dominate the century. This contest will take place in every arena: from control of the seas, where China’s new navy is trying to ease the United States out of Asia and reassert its traditional leadership, to rewriting the rules of the global economy, with attempts to turn the renminbi into the predominant international currency, toppling the dominance of the U.S. dollar. And by investing billions to send its media groups overseas, Beijing hopes to shift the global debate about democracy and individual rights. Eyeing the high ground of international politics, China is taking the first steps in an ambitious global agenda. Yet Dyer explains how China will struggle to unseat the United States. China’s new ambitions are provoking intense anxiety, especially in Asia, while America’s global influence has deep roots. If Washington can adjust to a world in which it is no longer dominant but still immensely powerful, it can withstand China’s challenge. With keen insight based on a deep local knowledge—offering the reader visions of coastal Chinese beauty pageants and secret submarine bases, lockstep Beijing military parades and the neon media screens of Xinhua exported to New York City’s Times Square—The Contest of the Century is essential reading at a time of great uncertainty about America’s future, a road map for retaining a central role in the world.

    Let her sleep, for when she wakes she will shake the world.” In 2014, President Xi Jinping triumphantly declared that the lion had awoken. Under Xi, China is pursuing an increasingly ambitious foreign policy with the aim of restoring its historical status as the dominant power in Asia. From the Mekong Basin to the Central Asian steppe, the country is wooing its neighbors with promises of new roads, railways, dams, and power grids.  Chinese trade and investment presents huge opportunities for China’s neighbors, and its ability to build much-needed infrastructure could assist in the development of some of the world’s poorest countries. Yet Chinas rise also threatens to reduce its neighbours to the status of exploited vassals. In Vietnam and Myanmar, resentment of Chinese encroachment has already incited anti-Chinese protests, and many countries in the region are seeking to counterbalance its influence by turning to the US and Japan. Combining a concise overview of the situation with on-the-ground reportage from over seven countries, China’s Asian Dream offers a fresh perspective on one of the most important questions of our time: what does China’s rise mean for the future of Asia and of the world?

    As if rising from an uneasy grave, Palchinsky's ghost leads us through the miasma of Soviet technology and industry, pointing out the mistakes he condemned in his time, the corruption and collapse he predicted, the ultimate price paid for silencing those who were not afraid to speak out. The story of this visionary engineer's life and work, as Loren Graham relates it, is also the story of the Soviet Union's industrial promise and failure.We meet Palchinsky in pre-Revolutionary Russia, immersed in protests against the miserable lot of laborers in the tsarist state, protests destined to echo ironically during the Soviet worker's paradise. Exiled from the country, pardoned and welcomed back at the outbreak of World War I, the engineer joined the ranks of the Revolutionary government, only to find it no more open to criticism than the previous regime. His turbulent career offers us a window on debates over industrialization. Graham highlights the harsh irrationalities built into the Soviet system--the world's most inefficient steel mill in Magnitogorsk, the gigantic and ill-conceived hydroelectric plant on the Dnieper River, the infamously cruel and mislocated construction of the White Sea Canal. Time and again, we see the effects of policies that ignore not only the workers' and consumers' needs but also sound management and engineering precepts. And we see Palchinsky's criticism and advice, persistently given, consistently ignored, continue to haunt the Soviet Union right up to its dissolution in 1991.The story of a man whose gifts and character set him in the path of history, The Ghost of the Executed Engineer is also a cautionary tale about the fate of an engineering that disregards social and human issues.

    The Mencius, in which he recounts his dialogues with kings, dukes and military men, as well as other philosophers, is one of the Four Books that make up the essential Confucian corpus. It takes up Confucius's theories of jen, or goodness and yi, righteousness, explaining that the individual can achieve harmony with mankind and the universe by perfecting his innate moral nature and acting with benevolence and justice. Mencius' strikingly modern views on the duties of subjects and their rulers or the evils of war, created a Confucian orthodoxy that has remained intact since the third century BCE.

    Presents clashing views on political issues which are provided in a debate-style format designed to develop critical thinking skills in a student.

    In one hundred brief, reader-friendly chapters, alphabetized by subject, "China A to Z" introduces a general audience to contemporary Chinese society, as well as its venerable history. Discover: ? Why Chinese names are written in reverse order ? What to bring when visiting a Chinese household ? What the current relationship is between Japan and China ? Why you should wrap gifts in red or pink paper, and never send white flowers With the 2008 Summer Olympics being held in Beijing, thousands of Chinese adoptions occurring each year, and China becoming the fourth most popular international destination, the need for information about this complex country is greater than ever.

    Suu Kyi's party will be a major contender in the 2015 elections, a revolutionary breakthrough after years of military dictatorship. Using exclusive interviews with Suu Kyi since her release from fifteen years of house arrest, as well as recently disclosed diplomatic cables, Pederson uncovers new facets to Suu Kyi’s extraordinary story.The Burma Spring will also surprise readers by revealing the extraordinary steps taken by First Lady Laura Bush to help Suu Kyi, and also how former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton injected new momentum into Burma’s democratic rebirth. Pederson provides a never before seen view of the harrowing hardships the people of Burma have endured and the fiery political atmosphere in which Suu Kyi’s has fought a life-and-death struggle for liberty in this fascinating part of the world.

    President Nixon and Secretary of State Kissinger began their diplomacy with China in an attempt to find a way out of Vietnam. The remaining Cold War presidents saw China as an ally against the Soviet Union and looked askance at its violations of international principles. With the end of communism and China's continued human rights abuses, the U.S has failed to forge a genuinely new relationship with China. This is the essential story of contemporary U.S./China policy.

    We must learn more about Vietnamese culture and Vietnamese paradigms in order to untangle the muddled debates about our own. Realizing that we must do this is the first and most important lesson of Vietnam. And it is one we Americans have been exasperatingly slow to learn. We remain far too ready to assume that other people are, or want to be, or should be, like us.

    McCloskey's classic work on the Supreme Court's role in constructing the U.S. Constitution has introduced generations of students to the workings of our nation's highest court. In this fourth edition, Sanford Levinson extends McCloskey's magisterial treatment to address the Court's most recent decisions, including its controversial ruling in Bush v. Gore and its expansion of sexual privacy in Lawrence v. Texas. The book's chronology of important Supreme Court decisions and itsannotated bibliographical essay have also been updated.As in previous editions, McCloskey's original text remains unchanged. He argues that the Court's strength has always been its sensitivity to the changing political scene, as well as its reluctance to stray too far from the main currents of public sentiment. Levinson's two new chapters show how McCloskey's approach continues to illuminate recent developments, such as the Court's seeming return to its pre-1937 role as "umpire" of the federal system. It is in Bush v. Gore, however, where the implications of McCloskey's interpretation stand out most clearly.The best and most concise account of the Supreme Court and its place in American politics, McCloskey's wonderfully readable book is an essential guide to its past, present, and future prospects of this institution.