Conceived as "a story to be read, and not a calendar to be memorized," this concise narrative of Philippine history serves as a handy guide for understanding the important highlights of the nation's development.Jose S. Arcilla, S.J., is a member of the department of history at the Ateneo de Manila University and is at present also the archivist of the Philippine Province of the Society of Jesus. He finished graduate studies in the United States and in Spain. Farther Arcilla, who has authored "Aspects of Wester Medieval Culture", has published in professioal reviews both in the Philippines and abroad. He is the Philippine coordinator for the editorial staff of the "International Jesuit Encyclopedia" being published by the Institute of Jesuit History (Rome).

    Victor's book is the first to show that implementing the Final Solution was actually the root of Hitler's most disastrous military decisions.

    Following on from Our Story, Ron Kray fills in the gaps and gives his version of the murders of Jack The Hat McVitie and George Cornell, describing his bisexuality and his marriage in Broadmoor and clarifying many of the misconceptions about the years when he and Reg ruled the London underworld, shot enemies at will and simultaneously socialized with some of the most glittering politicians, celebrities and hostesses of the time.

    Author Mark Wilkerson interviewed Townshend himself and several of Townshend's friends and associates for this biography.

    In his gripping memoir, Rinpoche relates the story of having been abandoned in his monastery as a young boy after witnessing the torture and arrest of his monastery family. In the years to come, Rinpoche survived under harsh Chinese rule, as he was forced into hard labor and endured continual public humiliation as part of Mao’s Communist "reeducation." By turns moving, suspenseful, historical, and spiritual, Rinpoche’s unique experiences provide a rare window into a tumultuous period of Chinese history and offer readers an uncommon glimpse inside a Buddhist monastery in Tibet.

     The Souls of China tells the story of one of the world's great spiritual revivals. Following a century of violent anti-religious campaigns, China is now filled with new temples, churches, and mosques--as well as cults, sects, and politicians trying to harness religion for their own ends. Driving this explosion of faith is uncertainty--over what it means to be Chinese and how to live an ethical life in a country that discarded traditional morality a century ago and is searching for new guideposts.Ian Johnson first visited China in 1984; in the 1990s he helped run a charity to rebuild Daoist temples, and in 2001 he won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the suppression of the Falun Gong spiritual movement. While researching this book, he lived for extended periods with underground church members, rural Daoists, and Buddhist pilgrims. Along the way, he learned esoteric meditation techniques, visited a nonagenarian Confucian sage, and befriended government propagandists as they fashioned a remarkable embrace of traditional values. He has distilled these experiences into a cycle of festivals, births, deaths, detentions, and struggle--a great awakening of faith that is shaping the soul of the world's newest superpower.

    In clear language, Introduction to Emptiness explains that emptiness is not a mystical sort of nothingness, but a specific truth that can and must be understood through calm and careful reflection. Newland's contemporary examples and vivid anecdotes will be helpful to students trying to understand one of the great classic texts of the Tibetan tradition, Tsong-kha-pa's Great Treatise.

    China's dragons, guardians of the throne, are unlike those of the West. They are benign and protective but can turn like terrible emperors on the people. If they do so, it is the fault of the people, not the dragons. They breathe fire and thrash their tail only if betrayed, a convenient concept for an emperor.

    

    While these media overly romanticize the relationship between a philosophy of non-violence and the art of fighting, When Buddhists Attack: The Curious Relationship Between Zen and the Martial Arts shows this link to be nevertheless real, even natural.Exploring the origins of Buddhism and the ethos of the Japanese samurai, university professor and martial arts practitioner Jeffrey Mann traces the close connection between the Buddhist way of compassion and the way of the warrior. This zen book serves as a basic introduction to the history, philosophy, and current practice of Zen as it relates to the Japanese martial arts. It examines the elements of Zen that have found a place in budo—the martial way—such as zazen, mushin, zanshin and fudoshin, then goes on to discuss the ethics and practice of budo as a modern sport. Offering insights into how qualities integral to the true martial artist are interwoven with this ancient religious philosophy, this Buddhism book will help practitioners reconnect to an authentic spiritual discipline of the martial arts.

    Browning explores the often-changing war aims of the major belligerents-Austria, France, Great Britain, Prussia, Piedmont-Sardinia, and Spain-and links diplomatic and military events to the political and social context from which they arose.

    Now, as the Party's 18th National Congress oversees the biggest leadership transition in decades, and installs the Bo family's long-time rival Xi Jinping as president, China's rulers are finding it increasingly difficult to keep their poisonous internal divisions behind closed doors.Bo Xilai's breathtaking fall from grace is an extraordinary tale of excess, murder, defection, political purges and ideological clashes going back to Mao himself, as the princeling sons of the revolutionary heroes ascend to control of the Party. China watcher John Garnaut examines how Bo's stellar rise through the ranks troubled his more reformist peers, as he revived anti-'capitalist roader' sentiment, even while his family and associates enjoyed the more open economy's opportunities. Amid fears his imminent elevation to the powerful Standing Committee was leading China towards another destructive Cultural Revolution, have his opponents seized their chance now to destroy Bo and what he stands for? The trigger was his wife Gu Kailai's apparently paranoid murder of an English family friend, which exposed the corruption and brutality of Bo's outwardly successful administration of the massive city of Chongqing. It also led to the one of the highest-level attempted defections in Communist China's history when Bo's right-hand man, police chief Wang Lijun, tried to escape the ruins of his sponsor's reputation.Garnaut explains how this incredible glimpse into the very personal power struggles within the CCP exposes the myth of the unified one-party state. With China approaching super-power status, today's leadership shuffle may set the tone for international relations for decades. Here, Garnaut reveals a particularly Chinese spin on the old adage that the personal is political.

    We've taken you UP SHIT CREEK. Now, we dare to ask the eternal question...WHO CUT THE CHEESE? Which is to say, what exactly is a fart? Why do we do it? Why do we hide it when we do it? And why do we find farts so darn funny? A cut above anything else on the subject, this book really lets go and tells all, getting to the bottom of these mysteries. Author Jim sniffs out a load of historical and scientific fart tales, then offers the kind of fun facts you'll be dying to let slip at social occasions, in chapters like "Fart Facts That Aren't Just Hot Air," "Gone with the Wind" (on famous movie farts), and "Le Petomane & the Art of the Fart" (on the most famous windbag in history). From fact to fiction to frivolous flatulence, this book is unquestionably a ripping good read.

    Based on more than 100 interviews, this intelligent profile explores Morrison's roots; the hard times he went through in London, New York, and Boston; the making of his seminal albums Moondance and Astral Weeks; and the disastrous business arrangements that left Morrison hungry and penniless while his songs were topping the charts. Detailed are the breakdown of Morrison's marriage, the creative drought that followed, and his triumphant reemergence. In addition, this biography attempts to explain the forbidding aspects of Morrison's persona, such as paranoia, hard drinking, misanthropy, as well as why, in the words of his one-time singing partner Linda Gail Lewis, Morrison's music "brings happiness to other people, not him." Also included is a Van Morrision sessionography that spans 1964 to 2001.

    This record of World Wrestling Entertainment explores the inner workings of the WWE and the day-to-day lives of its stars.