That enemy is China, a country that invented totalitarianism thousands of years ago whose economic power rivals our own that believes its superior race and culture give it the right to universal deference that teaches its people to hate America for standing in the way of achieving its narcissistic "dream" of world domination that believes in its manifest destiny to usher in the World of Great Harmony which publishes maps showing the exact extent of the nuclear destruction it could rain down on the United States  Steven Mosher exposes the resurgent aspirations of the would-be hegemon–and the roots of China's will to domination in its five-thousand-year history of ruthless conquest and assimilation of other nations, brutal repression of its own people, and belligerence toward any civilization that challenges its claim to superiority.The naïve idealism of our "China hands" has lulled America into a fool's dream of "engagement" with the People's Republic of China and its "peaceful evolution" toward democracy and freedom. Wishful thinking, says Mosher, has blinded us to the danger we face and left the owlrd vulnerable to China's overweening ambitions.Mosher knows China as few Westerners do. Having exposed as a visiting graduate student the monstrous practice of forced abortions, he became the target of the regime's crushing retaliation. His encyclopedic grasp of China's history and its present-day politics, his astute insights, and his bracing realism are the perfect antidote for our dangerous confusion about the Bully of Asia.

    He adopted pragmatic economic policies alongside repressive political measures and showed that Islam was compatible with representative government and modernization. He emerged as a Third World champion and Islamic spokesman by standing up to the West.

                 A prizewinning foreign correspondent and former New York Times bureau chief in Shanghai and in West and Central Africa, Howard French is uniquely positioned to tell the story of China in Africa. Through meticulous on-the-ground reporting—conducted in Mandarin, French, and Portuguese, among other languages—French crafts a layered investigation of astonishing depth and breadth as he engages not only with policy-shaping moguls and diplomats, but also with the  ordinary men and women navigating the street-level realities of cooperation, prejudice, corruption, and opportunity forged by this seismic geopolitical development. With incisiveness and empathy, French reveals the human face of China’s economic, political, and human presence across the African continent—and in doing so reveals what is at stake for everyone involved.             We meet a broad spectrum of China’s dogged emigrant population, from those singlehandedly reshaping African infrastructure, commerce, and even environment (a self-made tycoon who harnessed Zambia’s now-booming copper trade; a timber entrepreneur determined to harvest the entirety of Liberia’s old-growth redwoods), to those just barely scraping by (a sibling pair running small businesses despite total illiteracy; a karaoke bar owner–cum–brothel madam), still convinced that Africa affords them better opportunities than their homeland. And we encounter an equally panoramic array of African responses: a citizens’ backlash in Senegal against a “Trojan horse” Chinese construction project (a tower complex to be built over a beloved soccer field, which locals thought would lead to overbearing Chinese pressure on their economy); a Zambian political candidate who, having protested China’s intrusiveness during the previous election and lost, now turns accommodating; the ascendant middle class of an industrial boomtown; African mine workers bitterly condemning their foreign employers, citing inadequate safety precautions and wages a fraction of their immigrant counterparts’. French’s nuanced portraits reveal the paradigms forming around this new world order, from the all-too-familiar echoes of colonial ambition—exploitation of resources and labor; cut-rate infrastructure projects; dubious treaties—to new frontiers of cultural and economic exchange, where dichotomies of suspicion and trust, assimilation and isolation, idealism and disillusionment are in dynamic flux.             Part intrepid travelogue, part cultural census, part industrial and political exposé, French’s keenly observed account ultimately offers a fresh perspective on the most pressing unknowns of modern Sino-African relations: why China is making the incursions it is, just how extensive its cultural and economic inroads are, what Africa’s role in the equation is, and just what the ramifications for both parties—and the watching world—will be in the foreseeable future.

    He returned with stories of exotic people, tremendous riches, and the most powerful ruler in the world – Kublai Khan. The explorer told of inventions ranging from gunpowder to paper money. The intellectual ferment and cultural diversity he described helped move Europe out of the Dark Ages and into the Renaissance. In his lifetime, people scoffed at his stories. But as this book explains, he changed the world.

    In 47 Percent, Corn recounts how the 47 percent video fit into the ongoing narrative of the 2012 election and greatly changed the course of the campaign. This instant, on-the-news book also features an astute review of the first debate between President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney and assesses the strengths and weaknesses of each candidate as they head into the final stretch of this historical election.

    It wasn’t even the long list of scandals exposed to a horrified nation — charging fees to dead people, blatant conflicts of interest, and taking $1 billion from customers in fees that banks were never entitled to.What made it so fascinating, so heart-breaking, and so enraging was the procession of faces through the witness box, and the team of counsel gazing into the dark heart of banking.Tearful victims, blank-faced executives, hapless regulators, and a couple of utter charlatans all had their day in court, watched by an audience of millions, and revealing — in their stories — the material to justify re-shaping the multi-trillion dollar financial services industry that forms a pillar of Australian life.A Wunch of Bankers covers not just the big shocks, but the small moments — lost in the flurry of daily reporting — that reveal how companies have used the law, limp enforcement, and basic human behaviour to take advantage of customers.Is there a phrase that judges how much life-insurance spruikers in call centres can terrify you about your impending death — and the grief-stricken ruins of an estate you’ll leave for your bereaved family — while still being legal?Yes, there is.Was there a meeting in which a bank’s executives ignored a warning of “Extreme” from its chief risk officer, to embark on an illegal scheme that accrued $3.6 billion in funds?There was.Mixed among the testimony are snippets from life on the road as the World’s Oldest Debuting TV Reporter — not just driving five hours one-way to talk to a man who almost blew his brains out over a bank nabbing his $22 million estate, but explaining how journalism can only ever give you a glimpse inside complex issues.In A Wunch of Bankers, Danel Ziffer bring out the colour and grit of the royal commission’s proceedings, and explores broader issues raised by the testimony. A mixture of analysis, reportage, and observations, it is densely researched and compellingly written.

    We also have the necessary scientific skills. Australia could be the natural home for an increasing proportion of global industry. But how do we make this happen?In this crisp, compelling book, Australia’s leading thinker about climate and energy policy offers a road map for progress, covering energy, transport, agriculture, the international scene and more. Rich in ideas and practical optimism, Superpower is a crucial, timely contribution to this country’s future.

    . .In Stop at Nothing Annabel Crabb recounts the Malcolm Turnbull story with characteristic wit and perceptiveness.Drawing on extensive interviews with Turnbull, Crabb delves into the young man's university exploits – which included co-authoring a musical with Bob Ellis – and his remarkable relationship with Kerry Packer, the man for whom he was at first a prized attack dog, and then a mortal enemy. She asks whether Turnbull – colourful, aggressive, humorous and ruthless – has changed sufficiently to entrench himself as prime minister. She tells how he first lost, and then won back, the Liberal leadership, and explores the challenges that now face him as the forward-looking leader of a conservative Coalition government.This is a memorable and highly amusing portrait by one of the country's most incisive writers.‘The most incisive portrait of Turnbull that's been written.’—David Marr

    This book provides a practical guidebook for those seeking to understand and defeat the Alinsky tactics used by the Obama Administration, Occupy Wall Street, and other far-Left organizations.

    Resolute, self-possessed and a penetrating thinker on subjects from workplace relations to foreign affairs, she is admired by members of parliament and the public from across the political divide.In this first-ever biography of Penny Wong, acclaimed journalist Margaret Simons traces her story: from her early life in Malaysia, to her student activism in Adelaide, to her entry into the male-dominated chambers of federal parliament, to her leading role as a voice of reason and respect in the polarising campaign to legalise same-sex marriage – and to her current position, poised to become Australia’s future minister for foreign affairs. What emerges is a picture of a leader for modern Australia, a cool-headed, cautious, yet charismatic figure of piercing intelligence and a personal history linking back to Australia’s colonial settlers and through to its multicultural present.Drawing on exclusive interviews with Penny Wong, and her Labor colleagues, parliamentary opponents, close friends and family, this scintillating portrait of an Australian politician without precedence promises to be one of the most talked-about political biographies of the year.

    Born in 1951, he had a happy childhood — raised by his loving adoptive parents, Bert and Gwen Tickner, in the small seaside town of Forster, New South Wales. He grew up to be a cheerful and confident young man with a fierce sense of social justice, and the desire and stamina to make political change. Serving in the Hawke and Keating governments, he held the portfolio of minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander affairs. Among other achievements while in government, he was responsible for initiating the reconciliation process with Indigenous Australians, and he was instrumental in instigating the national inquiry into the stolen generations.During his time on the front bench, Robert’s son was born, and it was his deep sense of connection to this child that moved him at last to turn his attention to the question of his own birth. Although he had some sense of the potentially life-changing course that lay ahead of him, he could not have anticipated learning of the exceptional nature of the woman who had brought him into the world, the deep scars that his forced adoption had left on her, and the astonishing series of coincidences that had already linked their lives. And this was only the first half of a story that was to lead to a reunion with his birth father and siblings.This deeply moving memoir is a testament to the significance of all forms of family in shaping us — and to the potential for love to heal great harm.

    It flows three thousand miles from east to west, passing through the factory towns of the coastal areas, through the rural heart of China, then up into the Gobi Desert, where it merges with the Old Silk Road. The highway witnesses every part of the social and economic revolution that is turning China upside down.In this utterly surprising and deeply personal book, acclaimed National Public Radio reporter Rob Gifford, a fluent Mandarin speaker, takes the dramatic journey along Route 312 from its start in the boomtown of Shanghai to its end on the border with Kazakhstan. Gifford reveals the rich mosaic of modern Chinese life in all its contradictions, as he poses the crucial questions that all of us are asking about China: Will it really be the next global superpower? Is it as solid and as powerful as it looks from the outside? And who are the ordinary Chinese people, to whom the twenty-first century is supposed to belong? Gifford is not alone on his journey. The largest migration in human history is taking place along highways such as Route 312, as tens of millions of people leave their homes in search of work. He sees signs of the booming urban economy everywhere, but he also uncovers many of the country’s frailties, and some of the deep-seated problems that could derail China’s rise. The whole compelling adventure is told through the cast of colorful characters Gifford meets: garrulous talk-show hosts and ambitious yuppies, impoverished peasants and tragic prostitutes, cell-phone salesmen, AIDS patients, and Tibetan monks. He rides with members of a Shanghai jeep club, hitchhikes across the Gobi desert, and sings karaoke with migrant workers at truck stops along the way.As he recounts his travels along Route 312, Rob Gifford gives a face to what has historically, for Westerners, been a faceless country and breathes life into a nation that is so often reduced to economic statistics. Finally, he sounds a warning that all is not well in the Chinese heartlands, that serious problems lie ahead, and that the future of the West has become inextricably linked with the fate of 1.3 billion Chinese people.“Informative, delightful, and powerfully moving . . . Rob Gifford’s acute powers of observation, his sense of humor and adventure, and his determination to explore the wrenching dilemmas of China’s explosive development open readers’ eyes and reward their minds.” –Robert A. Kapp, president, U.S.-China Business Council, 1994-2004

    Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century makes a powerful case that wealth, and accumulated wealth, tends to stay where it lands: and with the passage of time, just gets bigger…and bigger.But how many of us who bought or borrowed the book–or even, perhaps, reviewed it–have read more than a fraction of its 696 pages? How many more shuddered at the thought of committing $40 to such a venture? And how many of Piketty’s groundshaking concepts have gone unappreciated, all for want of intellectual stamina?Deliverance is at hand in the form of Pocket Piketty, written in clear and accessible prose by an experienced economist and teacher–and one whose work was relied on by Piketty for his masterpiece. In this handy and slim volume, Jesper Roine explains all things Piketty.

    

    By examining what they thought and what they did through lively and absorbing portraits, Schell and Delury chart how China made its tortured transformation from a weak, humiliated country under foreign assault to its astonishing rise in the early 21st century. In so doing, they provide us with a deeper and richer understanding of China's present success story.