The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture


Ruth Benedict - 1946
    A recognized classic of cultural anthropology, this book explores the political, religious, and economic life of Japan from the seventh century through the mid-twentieth, as well as personal family life.

Born Under an Assumed Name: The Memoir of a Cold War Spy's Daughter


Sara Mansfield Taber - 2011
    Born under an Assumed Name portrays the thrilling and confusing life of a girl growing up abroad in a world of secrecy and diplomacy—and the heavy toll it takes on her and her father. As Taber leads us on a tour through the alluring countries to which her father is assigned, we track two parallel stories—those of young Sara and her Cold War spy father. Sara struggles for normalcy as the family is relocated to cities in North America, Europe, and Asia, and the constant upheaval eventually exacts its price. Only after a psychiatric hospitalization at age sixteen in a U.S. Air Force hospital with shell-shocked Vietnam War veterans does she come to a clear sense of who she is. Meanwhile, Sara's sweet-natured, philosophical father becomes increasingly disillusioned with his work, his agency, and his country. This is the question at the heart of this elegant and sophisticated work: what does it mean to be an American? In this fascinating, painful, and ultimately exhilarating coming-of-age story, young Sara confronts generosity, greatness, and tragedy—all that America heaps on the world.

Forgotten Ally: China's World War II, 1937-1945


Rana Mitter - 2013
    The war began in China, two years before Hitler invaded Poland, and China eventually became the fourth great ally, partner to the United States, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain. Yet its drama of invasion, resistance, slaughter, and political intrigue remains little known in the West.Rana Mitter focuses his gripping narrative on three towering leaders: Chiang Kai-shek, the politically gifted but tragically flawed head of China’s Nationalist government; Mao Zedong, the Communists’ fiery ideological stalwart, seen here at the beginning of his epochal career; and the lesser-known Wang Jingwei, who collaborated with the Japanese to form a puppet state in occupied China. Drawing on Chinese archives that have only been unsealed in the past ten years, he brings to vivid new life such characters as Chiang’s American chief of staff, the unforgettable “Vinegar Joe” Stilwell, and such horrific events as the Rape of Nanking and the bombing of China’s wartime capital, Chongqing. Throughout, Forgotten Ally shows how the Chinese people played an essential role in the wider war effort, at great political and personal sacrifice.Forgotten Ally rewrites the entire history of World War II. Yet it also offers surprising insights into contemporary China. No twentieth-century event was as crucial in shaping China’s worldview, and no one can understand China, and its relationship with America today, without this definitive work.

Empire of Signs


Roland Barthes - 1970
    With this book, Barthes offers a broad-ranging meditation on the culture, society, art, literature, language, and iconography--in short, both the sign-oriented realities and fantasies--of Japan itself.

The Comfort Women: Japan's Brutal Regime of Enforced Prostitution in the Second World War


George L. Hicks - 1995
    Until as recently as 1993 the Japanese government continued to deny this shameful aspect of its wartime history. George Hicks's book is the only history in English regarding this terrible enslavement of women.

The Myth of Chinese Capitalism: The Worker, the Factory, and the Future of the World


Dexter Tiff Roberts - 2020
    In The Myth of Chinese Capitalism, Roberts explores the reality behind today’s financially-ascendant China and pulls the curtain back on how the Chinese manufacturing machine is actually powered.He focuses on two places: the village of Binghuacun in the province of Guizhou, one of China’s poorest regions that sends the highest proportion of its youth away to become migrants; and Dongguan, China’s most infamous factory town located in Guangdong, home to both the largest number of migrant workers and the country’s biggest manufacturing base. Within these two towns and the people that move between them, Roberts focuses on the story of the Mo family, former farmers-turned-migrant-workers who are struggling to make a living in a fast-changing country that relegates one-half of its people to second-class status via household registration, land tenure policies and inequality in education and health care systems. In The Myth of Chinese Capitalism, Dexter Roberts brings to life the problems that China and its people face today as they attempt to overcome a divisive system that poses a serious challenge to the country’s future development. In so doing, Roberts paints a boot-on-the-ground cautionary picture of China for a world now held in its financial thrall.Dexter Roberts is an award-winning journalist and a regular commentator on the U.S.-China trade and political relationship. His prior speaking engagements include traditional news media outlets (NPR, Fox News, CNN International) as well as universities and institutes (George Washington University, Council on Foreign Relations, and the Overseas Press Club). He is available for virtual classroom visits to courses that adopt The Myth of Chinese Capitalism. Please contact academic@macmillan.com for more information.

An Inquiry into the Good


Kitarō Nishida - 1911
    In this important new translation, two scholars—one Japanese and one American—have worked together to present a lucid and accurate rendition of Nishida’s ideas. "The translators do an admirable job of adhering to the cadence of the original while avoiding unidiomatic, verbatim constructions."—John C. Maraldo, Philosophy East and West"More accurate and critical than the first translation into English of Nishida's earliest book. . . . An important addition to library collections of twentieth-century philosophy, Japanese intellectual history, and contemporary Buddhist thought."—Choice "A welcome new translation of a work by probably the most original and influential of modern Japanese philosophers."—Hidé Ishiguro, Times Literary Supplement  "Undoubtedly the most important work for anyone in the West interested in understanding modern Japanese thought. This work premiered Japanese philosophy as modern but has also shown unusual staying power. In the late twentieth century Japanese thinkers, both religious and secular, insist on its importance and relevance."—William R. La Fleur, University of Pennsylvania

Don't Kiss Your Brother's Sworn Enemy (Don't Kiss! Series Book 1)


Elle Gonzales - 2020
    Well, according to her twin brother Cole, that is. Cole's resentment toward him has been there for as long as she can remember.So it goes without saying that she needs to stay away from Jake if she wants to keep the peace. That should be easy, right?Except there's one problem: Jake is assigned as her partner for a school paper. And as if that's not enough, she also needs his help to get back in her best friend's good graces.Callie knows that getting close to him is not a good idea. Too bad she's starting to like him...

Murder Your Darlings (Sophie Sayers Village Mysteries Book 6)


Debbie Young - 2020
    Away from her rural English comfort zone, she also takes stock of her relationship with her boyfriend Hector. But scarcely has the writing course begun when bestselling romantic novelist Marina Milanese disappears on a solo excursion to an old windmill. First on the scene, Sophie is prime suspect for Marina's murder. When a storm prevents the Greek police from landing on the island to investigate, Sophie must try to solve the crime herself - not easy, when everyone at the retreat has a motive. As she strives to uncover the truth about Marina's fate, Sophie arrives at a life-changing decision about her own future.

Sunset over Brightwater Bay: Part four in the sparkling new series by Holly Hepburn!


Holly Hepburn - 2020
    But Merry has a secret: the magic has stopped flowing from her fingers. Try as she might, she can’t summon up the sparkle that makes her stories shine. And as her deadline whooshes by, her personal life falls apart too. Alex tells her he wants something other than the future she’d always imagined for them and Merry finds herself single for the first time since – well, ever. Desperate to get her life back on track, Merry leaves London and escapes to the windswept Orkney Islands, locking herself away in a secluded clifftop cottage to try to heal her heart and rediscover her passion for writing. But can the beauty of the islands and the kindness of strangers help Merry to fool herself into believing in love again, if only long enough to finish her book? Or is it time for her to give up the career she’s always adored and find something new to set her soul alight??The brand new series from Holly Hepburn, author of A Year at the Star and Sixpence. Parts one to four in the new series are available to pre-order now: BROKEN HEARTS AT BRIGHTWATER BAY, SEA BREEZES AT BRIGHTWATER BAY, DANGEROUS TIDES AT BRIGHTWATER BAY and SUNSET OVER BRIGHTWATER BAY Praise for Holly Hepburn 'A fresh new voice, brings wit and warmth to this charming tale of two sisters' Rowan Coleman 'Warm, witty and laced with intriguing secrets!' Cathy Bramley 'You'll fall in love with this fantastic new series from  star of women's fiction, Holly Hepburn' Miranda Dickinson 'Sparkles with fun, romance, mystery, and a hunky blacksmith. It's a real delight' Julie Cohen 'Holly Hepburn has created the most delightful welcome to what promises to be a brilliant series' Kate Harrison 'Warm, witty and utterly charming' Cally Taylor

Accidental Weatherman


Sam Mac - 2021
    

Japan: The Story of a Nation


Edwin O. Reischauer - 1970
    to 1850), modern (1850-1945), and postwar (1945-1989) Japanese civilization from imperial rule through the death of Emperor Hirohito. Professor Reischauer, a former U.S. ambassador to Japan, explores the roots and development of the military dictatorship that brought Japan into World War II, the dubious leadership of its emperor, and the effects of the postwar American occupation.Download PDFhttp://www.2shared.com/document/vwGCG...

The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently... and Why


Richard E. Nisbett - 2003
    As a result, East Asian thought is “holistic”—drawn to the perceptual field as a whole and to relations among objects and events within that field. By contrast, Westerners focus on salient objects or people, use attributes to assign them to categories, and apply rules of formal logic to understand their behavior. From feng shui to metaphysics, from comparative linguistics to economic history, a gulf separates the children of Aristotle from the descendants of Confucius. At a moment in history when the need for cross-cultural understanding and collaboration have never been more important, The Geography of Thought offers both a map to that gulf and a blueprint for a bridge that will span it.

Japan's Total Empire: Manchuria and the Culture of Wartime Imperialism


Louise Young - 1997
    Focusing on the domestic impact of Japan's activities in Northeast China between 1931 and 1945, Young considers "metropolitan effects" of empire building: how people at home imagined and experienced the empire they called Manchukuo.Contrary to the conventional assumption that a few army officers and bureaucrats were responsible for Japan's overseas expansion, Young finds that a variety of organizations helped to mobilize popular support for Manchukuo—the mass media, the academy, chambers of commerce, women's organizations, youth groups, and agricultural cooperatives—leading to broad-based support among diverse groups of Japanese. As the empire was being built in China, Young shows, an imagined Manchukuo was emerging at home, constructed of visions of a defensive lifeline, a developing economy, and a settler's paradise.

The Tale of the Heike


Anonymous
    This new translation is not only far more readable than earlier ones, it is also much more faithful to the content and style of the original. Intended for the general audience as well as the specialist, this edition is highly annotated.