But that’s before she sees the perfect child. There he sits in his stroller, angelic and beautiful, magnetic and serene– and he makes Jane question everything she has and everything she thought she wanted. Suddenly all she can see are babies and pregnant woman everywhere. Were there always so many of them? And while there was once a man in her life–her one true love, Sam, gone from this world too soon–there is no man now. Jane must make a choice: possibly become a bitter and childless old lady, letting her biological clock tick on ’till menopause, or tend the ache in her heart now, by becoming a single mother. As Jane struggles to make the most important decision of her life, friends and family offer no shortage of opinions. There’s Ray, her “hubstitute” and gay best friend who would be jealous of any kid who got Jane as a mom; Sheila, her sister, who went from zero to sixty when she eloped with Raoul–who had two young twin sons– and has mixed feelings about being a new mommy; her strict, Catholic father who can’ t imagine what level of hell Jane would banish herself to if she becomes a single mother; and the women of Families with Children from China who are preparing to adopt orphan daughters–without a man in sight. Just as she thinks she’s made up her mind, Jane discovers one small wrench in her plans: handsome, charming, funny Peter, who just happens to be (unhappily) married. . . . And Baby Makes Two is a heartbreakingly honest, wonderfully addictive, and funny novel about love and loss, family and friendship. Judy Sheehan, co-creator of the smash hit Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding, has perfectly captured the delights and dilemmas of the scariest job in the world: motherhood.From the Hardcover edition.

    These sea raiders, or ‘corsairs’ as they were known, sought captives to enslave in the Ottoman Empire’s galleys, mines and harems. When reports circulated of white Christians being shackled to oars, smashing rocks in mines and being sold into sexual slavery, the American public became incensed. The leaders of the young republic were forced to act and with remarkable dexterity built a fleet of ships that grew into a fighting force powerful enough to withstand its first major test: The Barbary Wars.*Includes annotations and images.

    Helping to bring these forgotten figures into the light, Andrew Gimson's illuminating accounts are accompanied by sketches from Guardian sartirical cartoonist, Martin Rowson, making this the perfect gift for all lovers of history and politics.

    Reacting in part to the Soviet Union’s "revisionism" that he regarded as a threat to the future of socialism, Mao mobilized the masses in a battle against what he called "bourgeois" forces within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). This ten-year-long class struggle on a massive scale devastated traditional Chinese culture as well as the nation’s economy.Following his groundbreaking and award-winning history of the Great Famine, Tombstone, Yang Jisheng here presents the only history of the Cultural Revolution by an independent scholar based in mainland China, and makes a crucial contribution to understanding those years' lasting influence today.The World Turned Upside Down puts every political incident, major and minor, of those ten years under extraordinary and withering scrutiny, and arrives in English at a moment when contemporary Chinese governance is leaning once more toward a highly centralized power structure and Mao-style cult of personality.

    A fresh, bold interpretative survey, it focuses on the dynamic social forces underlying the Chinese Communists' rise in three short decades from obscurity to power.The author seeks above all to relate the events of this tumultuous period to certain tentative generalizations about the nature and course of the revolution. He is concerned less with the May Fourth Movement as such, for example, than with the revolution's intellectual origins, less with the Communist party's early political history than with the place of Marxist ideology in that history, less with the military aspects of the war of 1937-45 than with the influence of nationalism in the growing success of the Communists.An important part of the book deals with the various governmental and non-governmental attempt at reform during the Kuomintang era, which the author shows were too little too late to dam the swelling flood of revolution. The conclusion evaluates the crucial role of imperialism, the peasantry, and the army in the Chinese "formula" for revolution and re-examines the relationship between Marxism and the Chinese Revolution.

    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.

    This is a competition between the American system—which is governed by freedom and the rule of law—and a totalitarian dictatorship that is controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. These are two different visions for the future; one will succeed, and one will fail.It is possible for America to respond to the Chinese Communist Party's efforts, but doing so will require new thinking, many big changes, and many hard choices for our leaders in government and private sector.Newt Gingrich's Trump vs. China serves as a rallying cry for the American people and a plan of action for our leaders in government and the private sector. Written in a language that every American can understand but still rich in detail and accurate in fact, Trump vs. China exposes the Chinese Communist Party's multi-pronged threat against the United States and what we must do as a country to survive.

      During the summer of 1972—a few short months after Nixon’s legendary visit to China—master historian Barbara W. Tuchman made her own trip to that country, spending six weeks in eleven cities and a variety of rural settlements. The resulting reportage was one of the first evenhanded portrayals of Chinese culture that Americans had ever read.   Tuchman’s observations capture the people as they lived, from workers in the city and provincial party bosses to farmers, scientists, and educators. She demonstrates the breadth and scope of her expertise in discussing the alleviation of famine, misery, and exploitation; the distortion of cultural and historical inheritances into ubiquitous slogans; news media, schools, housing, and transportation; and Chairman Mao’s techniques for reasserting the Revolution. This edition also includes Tuchman’s “fascinating” (The New York Review of Books) essay, “If Mao Had Come to Washington in 1945”—a tantalizing piece of speculation on a proposed meeting between Mao and Roosevelt that would have changed the course of postwar history.   “Shrewdly observed . . . Tuchman enters another plea for coolness, intelligence and rationality in American Asian policies. One can hardly disagree.”—The New York Times Book Review

    Owens launched the Blexit movement to encourage black voters to leave the Democrat plantation.Today, the mainstream media calls her a white nationalist, even though she is the black granddaughter of a Southern sharecropper. Some conservatives, on the other hand, believe she will one day be President.In this biography, Richard West provides Candace Owens’ life story, showing how she evolved from a victim-mentality liberal to a victor-mentality conservative. She went from being “a girl who started with nothing” to a true American success.

    Raised in a powerful Chinese family, the beautiful, brilliant, and captivating Soong Mayling married Nationalist leader Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, and went on to become his chief adviser, interpreter, and propagandist. When the Communists broke with Chiang’s Nationalist Party, Mayling and her sister, the widow of Sun Yat-Sen, found themselves on opposing sides of a civil war. A relentless crusader speaking out against Communism well into her nineties, she sparred with international leaders and impressed Westerners and Chinese alike with her acumen, charm, and glamour. But she was also decried as a manipulative “Dragon Lady” and was despised for living in Western-style splendor while Chinese citizens suffered under her husband’s brutal oppression. The result of years of extensive research in the United States and abroad and access to previously classified CIA and diplomatic files, here at last is the story of an extraordinary woman who has become a symbol of America’s long, vexed love affair with China and China’s own struggle to define itself as a world power.

    Please note this book only contains two words and is entirely satire.

    So, when a long-time NPR correspondent wanted to learn more about the real China, he started driving a cab--and discovered a country amid seismic political and economic change.China--America's most important competitor--is at a turning point. With economic growth slowing, Chinese people face inequality and uncertainty as their leaders tighten control at home and project power abroad.In this adventurous, original book, NPR correspondent Frank Langfitt describes how he created a free taxi service--offering rides in exchange for illuminating conversation--to go beyond the headlines and get to know a wide range of colorful, compelling characters representative of the new China. They include folks like "Beer," a slippery salesman who tries to sell Langfitt a used car; Rocky, a farm boy turned Shanghai lawyer; and Chen, who runs an underground Christian church and moves his family to America in search of a better, freer life.Blending unforgettable characters, evocative travel writing, and insightful political analysis, The Shanghai Free Taxi is a sharply observed and surprising book that will help readers make sense of the world's other superpower at this extraordinary moment.

    Donald Trump’s surprise electoral victory shattered the fragile understanding between Washington and Beijing, putting the most important relationship of the twenty-first century in the hands of a novice who had bitterly attacked China from the campaign trail. Almost as soon as he entered office, Trump brought to a boil the long-simmering rivalry between the two countries, while also striking up a “friendship” with Chinese president Xi Jinping — whose manipulations of his American counterpart would undermine the White House’s already disjointed response to the historic challenge of a rising China. All the while, Trump’s own officials fought to steer U.S. policy from within. By the time the COVID-19 pandemic erupted in Wuhan, Trump’s love-hate relationship with Xi had sparked a trade war, while Xi’s aggression had pushed the world to the brink of a new Cold War. But their quarrel had also forced a long-overdue reckoning within the United States over China’s audacious foreign-influence operations, horrific human rights abuses, and creeping digital despotism. Ironically, this awakening was one of the biggest foreign-policy victories of Trump’s fractious term in office. ​Filled with shocking revelations drawn from Josh Rogin’s unparalleled access to top U.S. officials from the White House and deep within the country’s foreign policy machine, Chaos Under Heaven reveals an administration at war with itself during perhaps our most urgent hour.

    In January of 1999, the arrest of Wen Ho Lee, the Los Alamos scientist who was falsely accused of espionage by the U.S. government and imprisoned without trial, sparked controversy throughout the country. Throughout the ordeal, Wen Ho Lee quietly and steadfastly maintained his innocence. Now he tells his story. A riveting account about prejudice, fear, suspicionand courage, My Country Versus Me offers at last a clear and truthful look at one of the great miscarriages of justice of our time.