Opium entered China during the Middle Ages when Arab traders brought it into China for medicinal purposes. As it took hold as a recreational drug, opium wrought havoc on Chinese society. By the early nineteenth century, 90 percent of the Emperor's court and the majority of the army were opium addicts. Britain was also a nation addicted-to tea, grown in China, and paid for with profits made from the opium trade. When China tried to ban the use of the drug and bar its Western smugglers from it gates, England decided to fight to keep open China's ports for its importation. England, the superpower of its time, managed to do so in two wars, resulting in a drug-induced devastation of the Chinese people that would last 150 years. In this page-turning, dramatic and colorful history, The Opium Wars responds to past, biased Western accounts by representing the neglected Chinese version of the story and showing how the wars stand as one of the monumental clashes between the cultures of East and West. "A fine popular account."-Publishers Weekly "Their account of the causes, military campaigns and tragic effects of these wars is absorbing, frequently macabre and deeply unsettling."-Booklist

    The original Great Game, the clandestine struggle between Russia and Britain for mastery of Central Asia, has long been regarded as one of the greatest geopolitical conflicts in history. Many believed that control of the vast Eurasian heartland was the key to world dominion. The original Great Game ended with the Russian Revolution, but the geopolitical struggles in Central Asia continue to the present day. In this updated edition, the authors reflect on Central Asia's history since the end of the Russo-Afghan war, and particularly in the wake of 9/11.

    Examining a series of El Niño-induced droughts and the famines that they spawned around the globe in the last third of the nineteenth century, Mike Davis discloses the intimate, baleful relationship between imperial arrogance and natural incident that combined to produce some of the worst tragedies in human history and to sow the seeds of underdevelopment in what later became known as the Third World.

    My name is Little Green, my country Zhong Guo, the Middle Kingdom. When I was ten years old, our leader had died and the revolution ended. And this is how I remember it. When Chun Yu was born in a small city in China, she was born into a country in revolution. The streets were filled with roaming Red Guards, the walls were covered with slogans, and reeducation meetings were held in all workplaces. Every family faced danger and humiliation, even the youngest children. Shortly after Chun's birth, her beloved father was sent to a peasant village in the countryside to be reeducated in the ways of Chairman Mao. Chun and her brother stayed behind with their mother, who taught in a country middle school where Mao's Little Red Book was a part of every child's education. Chun Yu's young life was witness to a country in turmoil, struggle, and revolution -- the only life she knew. This first-person memoir of a child's view of the Chinese Cultural Revolution is a stunning account of a country in crisis and a testimony to the spirit of the individual -- no matter how young or how innocent.

    Readers will learn essential skills like how to haggle, exchange currencies, cross the street, decipher menus, say useful phrases in Chinese, and more. The guide comes complete with survival tips on etiquette, a map, and resource lists. Don’t leave home for China without it!Veteran travelers Qin and Larry Herzberg are Chinese language and culture professors at Calvin College in Michigan.

    Most of them came to be forgotten, but I see nothing in this to regret. For although recalling the past may make you happy, it may sometimes also make you lonely, and there is no point in clinging in spirit to lonely bygone days. However, my trouble is that I cannot forget completely, and these stories have resulted from what I have been unable to erase from memory."—Lu HsunLiving during a time of dramatic change in China, Lu Hsun had a career that was as varied as his writing. As a young man he studied medicine in Japan but left it for the life of an activist intellectual, eventually returning to China to teach. Though he supported the aims of the Communist revolution, he did not become a member of the party nor did he live to see the Communists take control of China. Ambitious to reach a large Chinese audience, Lu Hsun wrote his first published story, "A Madman's Diary," in the vernacular, a pioneering move in Chinese literature at the time. "The True Story of Ah Q," a biting portrait of feudal China, gained him popularity in the West. This collection of eighteen stories shows the variety of his style and subjects throughout his career.In a new introduction, Ha Jin, the author of Waiting (National Book Award winner), The Bridegroom, and other works, places Lu Hsun's life and work in the context of Chinese history and literature.

    Events in Fragrants Lotus' life twist and unfold in a series of witty and often wicked ironies, obliterating easy distinctions between kindness and cruelty, history and fable, forgery and authentic work. The novel's waggish narrator exists in the tension between judgement and description, wryly deflating his reader's certainties along the way. Written in 1985, The Three-Inch Golden Lotus is a deeply affecting, thoroughly enjoyable literary revelation.

    Flagel unveils the big picture by using detailed top-ten lists, ranking the best, worst, first, and most significant elements of the largest and deadliest conflict in history.

    So why does Lafitte refuse their generous offer? In the approaching War of 1812 General Andrew Jackson hasn’t any weapons, ammunition or money to fight the British with and no one to turn to for help but the notorious pirate Jean Lafitte. Jackson hates pirates, but he agrees to meet with Lafitte, and he forms an unlikely alliance with the dashing pirate. What changed Jackson’s mind about attending the meeting? Before the war begins, Lafitte buries an unusual treasure, one that is sought in the 21st century by two men and a beautiful woman. Julianna Montaigne a direct descendent of Pierre Lafitte has found his diary in her grandfathers old sea man’s trunk. The diary has a clue to the treasure. Eddie Calto a New York City firefighter has a second clue left to him by his great great grandfather, The two join forces in an attempt to find Lafitte's Treasure. But there are dangerous men who want the treasure for themselves and for 200 years they have waited patiently for anyone seeking Lafitte’s Treasure. Borrow this book for free with your prime subscription or subscribe to kindle lending library!

    Through the story of his family, the author illustrates the decline of the countryside in relation to the cities as a result of modernization and the transformation of Confucian ideology as a result of these changes. Based on nearly 400 volumes of Liu's diary and other writings, the book illustrates what it was like to study in an academy and to be a schoolteacher, the pressures of changing family relationships, the daily grind of work in industry and agriculture, people's experience with government, and life under the Japanese occupation.

    Ranging through history, literature, folklore, linguistics, and sociology, this is a breezy, straightforward primer of surprising breadth.

    With Iris and Matthew as my guides, I would virtually and literally go anywhere." —Becky Selengut, author of Shroom: Mind-bendingly Good Recipes for Cultivated and Wild Mushrooms Seattle food writer Matthew Amster-Burton grew up on Chinese-American food. One day, he decided to take his ten-year-old daughter out for Chinese…in Hong Kong. Join two adventurous eaters as they explore night markets, hawker centers, gargatuan malls, and a fancy dim sum palace, all while living out their food fantasy: spending a week without having to eat anything other than Chinese food. Along with Matthew and Iris, you’ll: • Ride the world’s most exhilarating form of public transportation • Eat crispy rice, egg tarts, Hong Kong French toast, and a spicy chicken dish with more chiles than chicken • Hang out with locals (human and feline) • Discover Iris’s supervillain lair, high above the city Featuring two dozen color photos, Child Octopus is the first installment in a new series of short ebooks about Asian food and travel. We’re not experts. We just got here. And we’re hungry.

    Not only was it the first decisive victory for British troops against the Japanese, more significantly, it demonstrated how the Japanese could be defeated. The lessons learned in this tiny and otherwise insignificant corner of the Far East, set up the campaign in Burma that would follow, as General Slim’s Fourteenth Army finally turned defeat into victory.It is an amazing and thrilling story: more gripping than that of Rorke’s Drift, with a more justifiable enemy, and with every bit as many moments of extreme heroism. In this fifteen-day battle of terrifying violence, there was incredible human drama: bloody-hand-to-hand fighting, daring airborne drops, valiant attempts to break the siege, increasingly desperate and suicidal charges by the Japanese, repeated breakthroughs that needed counter-attacking, tragedy, black humour and the ultimate triumph of the defenders.

    A girlhood played out against the backdrop of the China trade changed forever, when, at seventeen, Olga joined her brothers in their fight against the Bolsheviks. Death and retribution followed. Olga was forced to flee to China, rubies sewn into her petticoats. Twice more Olga would be forced to leave everything behind - first to escape Mao's Communists, and again when Japan invaded China during World War II. From the comfort of her family to the terror of revolution, war and exile, Olga's Story is the heartbreaking tale of the author's grandmother.

    Set in 1930s Shanghai,the Paris of the East, but where following the path of duty still takes precedence over personal desires, a young Chinese woman named Feng finds herself in an arranged marriage to a wealthy businessman. In the enclosed world of her new household-a place of public ceremony and private cruelty-she learns that, above all else, she must bear a male heir. Ruthless and embittered by the life that has been forced on her, Feng seeks revenge by doing the unthinkable. Years later, she must come to a reckoning with the decisions she has made to assure her place in family and society, before the entire country is caught up in the fast-flowing tide of revolution.