Great reading!--New York Times.

    Today, his teachings shape the daily lives of more than 1.6 billion people. Throughout East Asia, Confucius's influence can be seen in everything from business practices and family relationships to educational standards and government policies. Even as western ideas from Christianity to Communism have bombarded the region, Confucius's doctrine has endured as the foundation of East Asian culture. It is impossible to understand East Asia, journalist Michael Schuman demonstrates, without first engaging with Confucius and his vast legacy. Confucius created a worldview that is in many respects distinct from, and in conflict with, Western culture. As Schuman shows, the way that East Asian companies are managed, how family members interact with each other, and how governments see their role in society all differ from the norm in the West due to Confucius's lasting impact. Confucius has been credited with giving East Asia an advantage in today's world, by instilling its people with a devotion to learning, and propelling the region's economic progress. Still, the sage has also been highly controversial. For the past 100 years, East Asians have questioned if the region can become truly modern while Confucius remains so entrenched in society. He has been criticized for causing the inequality of women, promoting authoritarian regimes, and suppressing human rights. Despite these debates, East Asians today are turning to Confucius to help them solve the ills of modern life more than they have in a century. As a wealthy and increasingly powerful Asia rises on the world stage, Confucius, too, will command a more prominent place in global culture. Touching on philosophy, history, and current affairs, Confucius tells the vivid, dramatic story of the enigmatic philosopher whose ideas remain at the heart of East Asian civilization.

    Wresting this iconic urban center from these misleading, tired clich�s, The City-State of Boston highlights Boston's overlooked past as an autonomous city-state, and in doing so, offers a pathbreaking and brilliant new history of early America. Following Boston's development over three centuries, Mark Peterson discusses how this self-governing Atlantic trading center began as a refuge from Britain's Stuart monarchs and how--through its bargain with slavery and ratification of the Constitution--it would tragically lose integrity and autonomy as it became incorporated into the greater United States.Drawing from vast archives, and featuring unfamiliar figures alongside well-known ones, such as John Winthrop, Cotton Mather, and John Adams, Peterson explores Boston's origins in sixteenth-century utopian ideals, its founding and expansion into the hinterland of New England, and the growth of its distinctive political economy, with ties to the West Indies and southern Europe. By the 1700s, Boston was at full strength, with wide Atlantic trading circuits and cultural ties, both within and beyond Britain's empire. After the cataclysmic Revolutionary War, "Bostoners" aimed to negotiate a relationship with the American confederation, but through the next century, the new United States unraveled Boston's regional reign. The fateful decision to ratify the Constitution undercut its power, as Southern planters and slave owners dominated national politics and corroded the city-state's vision of a common good for all.Peeling away the layers of myth surrounding a revered city, The City-State of Boston offers a startlingly fresh understanding of America's history.

    Out of the Gobi draws a vivid picture of the raw human energy and the will to succeed against all odds.Shan only finished elementary school when Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution tore his country apart. He was a witness to the brutality and absurdity of Mao's policies during one of the most tumultuous eras in China's history. Exiled to the Gobi Desert at age 15 and denied schooling for 10 years, he endured untold hardships without ever giving up his dream for an education. Shan's improbable journey, from the Gobi to the "People's Republic of Berkeley" and far beyond, is a uniquely American success story - told with a splash of humor, deep insight and rich and engaging detail.This powerful and personal perspective on China and America will inform Americans' view of China, humanizing the country, while providing a rare view of America from the prism of a keen foreign observer who lived the American dream.Says former Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen: "Shan's life provides a demonstration of what is possible when China and the United States come together, even by happenstance. It is not only Shan's personal history that makes this book so interesting but also how the stories of China and America merge in just one moment in time to create an inspired individual so unique and driven, and so representative of the true sprits of both countries."

    But Tao cannot fully be explained in words; it can only felt and experienced. Tao is something you live, day by day, moment by moment. It s the omnipresent oneness beyond ephemeral phenomena that expresses itself in everything. New York Times bestselling author Ilchi Lee, an enlightened Tao master from South Korea, has laid out a path to living Tao everyday. Along this path, he guides you to an understanding of the meaning of birth, death, and everything in between, building a foundation for living a complete and whole life. The universal principles contained in "Living Tao: Timeless Principles for Everyday Enlightenment" stem from the Korean practice of Sundo, an ancient tradition of mind-body training, as well as Lee s own life experience. With these tangible principles, Ilchi Lee makes this profound topic simple and accessible. "Living Tao" has an unparalleled depth in its simplicity that anyone can absorb and immediately apply. * 2015 INDIEFAB Book of the Year Award Winner, Bronze, Body, Mind & Spirit"

    An acclaimed author and public speaker, Black shows how this body of knowledge has been declared ‘heretical’ both by the established church and by today’s atheistic intellectual elite.Finally, he outlines in the clearest terms possible the supernatural laws that govern our universe, and describes rules for living that take us beyond consensual thought, rules that may at first seem crazy, even dangerous, but which contain the secrets for achieving success, happiness and a higher state of being.

    The tipping point, Mirbat, South Oman, 19 July 1972 is one of the least-known yet most crucial battles of modern times. If the SAS had been defeated at Mirbat, the Russian and Chinese plan for a communist foothold in the Middle East would have succeeded, with catastrophic consequences for the oil-hungry West. OPERATION STORM is a page-turning account of courage and resilience. Mirbat was a battle fought and won by nine SAS soldiers and a similar number of brave local people - some as young as ten years old - outnumbered by at least twenty-five to one. Roger Cole, one of the SAS soldiers who took part, and writer Richard Belfield have interviewed every SAS survivor who fought in the battle from the beginning to the end - the first time every single one of them has revealed their experience. OPERATION STORM is a classic story of bravery against impossible odds, minute by minute, bullet by bullet.

    That wish has come true for us. Now what? In this radically illuminating book, Alan Cohen delves into one of the world’s most venerated wisdom texts for answers and brings the lofty and enigmatic concepts of the Tao Te Ching down to earth in fresh, easy-to-grasp language with practical, personal examples we can use to uplift our daily lives.Most other interpretations of the Tao march through the stanzas one by one. Here Alan Cohen calls forth the ancient verses around themes that are central to our modern lives —from love to work to the lessons we learn from pain. Then he brings each message to life in short vignettes where he imagines himself a student of Lao Tse and interacts with the master directly and intimately. He invites you to join the ancient sage and the contemporary seeker as they wend their way through the challenges and triumphs of the same journey you’re taking yourself.

    Over the course of three years, journalist Thomas Laird spent more than sixty hours with His Holiness the Dalai Lama in candid, one-on-one interviews that covered His Holiness’s beliefs on history, science, reincarnation, and his lifelong study of Buddhism. Traveling across great distances to offer vivid descriptions of Tibet’s greatest monasteries, Laird brings his meetings with His Holiness to life in a rich and vibrant historical narrative that outlines the essence of thousands of years of civilization, myth, and spirituality. His Holiness introduces us to Tibet’s greatest yogis and meditation masters, and explains how the institution of the Dalai Lama was founded. Embedded throughout this journey is His Holiness’s lessons on the larger roles religion and spirituality have played in Tibet’s story, reflecting the Dalai Lama’s belief that history should be examined not only conventionally but holistically. The Story of Tibet is His Holiness’s personal look at his country’s past as well as a summation of his life’s work as both spiritual and temporal leader of the Tibetan people.

    The Gnostic message, however, was not destroyed but simply went underground. Starting with the first emergence of Gnosticism, the author shows how its influence extended from the teachings of neo-Platonists and the magical traditions of the Middle Ages to the beliefs and ideas of the Sufis, Jacob Böhme, Carl Jung, Rudolf Steiner, and the Rosicrucians and Freemasons. In the language of spiritual freemasonry, gnosis is the rejected stone necessary for the completion of the Temple, a Temple of a new cosmic understanding that today's heirs to Gnosticism continue to strive to create.The Gnostics believed that the universe embodies a ceaseless contest between opposing principles. Terrestrial life exhibits the struggle between good and evil, life and death, beauty and ugliness, and enlightenment and ignorance: gnosis and agnosis. The very nature of physical space and time are obstacles to humanity's ability to remember its divine origins and recover its original unity with God. Thus the preeminent gnostic secret is that we are God in potential and the purpose of bona fide gnostic teaching is to return us to our godlike nature.Tobias Churton is a filmmaker and the founding editor of the magazine Freemasonry Today. He studied theology at Oxford University and created the award-winning documentary series and accompanying book The Gnostics, as well as several other films on Christian doctrine, mysticism, and magical folklore. He lives in England.

    Now, for the first time, based on numerous interviews with key insiders at the FBI and CIA as well as with Chinese agents and people close to them, David Wise tells the full story of China’s many victories and defeats in its American spy wars.Two key cases interweave throughout: Katrina Leung, code-named Parlor Maid, worked for the FBI for years, even after she became a secret double agent for China, aided by love affairs with both of her FBI handlers. Here, too, is the inside story of the case, code-named Tiger Trap, of a key Chinese-American scientist suspected of stealing nuclear weapons secrets. These two cases led to many others, involving famous names from Wen Ho Lee to Richard Nixon, stunning national security leaks, and sophisticated cyberspying. The story takes us up to the present, with a West Coast spy ring whose members were sentenced in 2010—but it surely will continue for years to come, as China faces off against America. David Wise’s history of China’s spy wars in America is packed with eye-popping revelations.

    It is the operation of these forces, in combination with the talent of Pasteur, that Bruno Latour sets before us as a prime example of science in action.Latour argues that the triumph of the biologist and his methodology must be understood within the particular historical convergence of competing social forces and conflicting interests. Yet Pasteur was not the only scientist working on the relationships of microbes and disease. How was he able to galvanize the other forces to support his own research? Latour shows Pasteur’s efforts to win over the French public—the farmers, industrialists, politicians, and much of the scientific establishment.Instead of reducing science to a given social environment, Latour tries to show the simultaneous building of a society and its scientific facts. The first section of the book, which retells the story of Pasteur, is a vivid description of an approach to science whose theoretical implications go far beyond a particular case study. In the second part of the book, “Irreductions,” Latour sets out his notion of the dynamics of conflict and interaction, of the “relation of forces.” Latour’s method of analysis cuts across and through the boundaries of the established disciplines of sociology, history, and the philosophy of science, to reveal how it is possible not to make the distinction between reason and force. Instead of leading to sociological reductionism, this method leads to an unexpected irreductionism.

    The authors propose that the 20th century was not only the American century, but also the century of human capital. That is, her educational system made America the richest nation on earth.

    (Timur Lenk would leave piles of severed heads in his conquered cities; another tribe sent nine sacks of ears to their khan.) Less studied is the remarkable effectiveness of their battle techniques: For two thousand years, these horse-archer armies were an unstoppable force to sedentary peoples, be they Romans, Crusaders, Chinese, or medieval. Erik Hildinger introduces the most important of these raiders as well as a host of other tribes and examines in detail their tactics, strategies, and weaponry—a form of highly mobile and defensive warfare that even armies of today can learn from.

    Shakya gives a balanced, blow-by-blow account of Tibet's ongoing struggle to maintain its independence and safeguard its cultural identity while being sandwiched between the heavyweights of Asian geopolitics: Britain, India, China, and the United States. With thorough documentation, Shakya details the Chinese depredations of Tibet, and reveals the failures of the Tibetan leadership's divided strategies. Rising above the simplistic dualism so often found in accounts of Tibet's contested recent history, The Dragon in the Land of Snows lucidly depicts the tragedy that has befallen Tibet and identifies the conflicting forces that continue to shape the aspirations of the Tibetan people today.