Myers, a North Korea analyst and a contributing editor of The Atlantic, presents the first full-length study of the North Korean worldview. Drawing on extensive research into the regime’s domestic propaganda, including films, romance novels and other artifacts of the personality cult, Myers analyzes each of the country’s official myths in turn—from the notion of Koreans’ unique moral purity, to the myth of an America quaking in terror of “the Iron General.” In a concise but groundbreaking historical section, Myers also traces the origins of this official culture back to the Japanese fascist thought in which North Korea’s first ideologues were schooled.What emerges is a regime completely unlike the West’s perception of it. This is neither a bastion of Stalinism nor a Confucian patriarchy, but a paranoid nationalist, “military-first” state on the far right of the ideological spectrum.Since popular support for the North Korean regime now derives almost exclusively from pride in North Korean military might, Pyongyang can neither be cajoled nor bullied into giving up its nuclear program. The implications for US foreign policy—which has hitherto treated North Korea as the last outpost of the Cold War—are as obvious as they are troubling. With North Korea now calling for a “blood reckoning” with the “Yankee jackals,” Myers’s unprecedented analysis could not be more timely.

    Frightened and in pain, she was once forced to make her way on foot. Propelled by the love she held for her soon-to-be-born child, Homeira walked through blood and wreckage to reach the hospital doors. But the joy of her beautiful son’s birth was soon overshadowed by other dangers that would threaten her life.No ordinary Afghan woman, Homeira refused to cower under the strictures of a misogynistic social order. Defying the law, she risked her freedom to teach children reading and writing and fought for women’s rights in her theocratic and patriarchal society.Devastating in its power, Dancing in the Mosque is a mother’s searing letter to a son she was forced to leave behind. In telling her story—and that of Afghan women—Homeira challenges you to reconsider the meaning of motherhood, sacrifice, and survival. Her story asks you to consider the lengths you would go to protect yourself, your family, and your dignity.

    For seven years he lived in Pyongyang enjoying privileged access to the ruling classes and enjoying the confidence of the country's young elite. In this fascinating insight into the culture of North Korea he describes the hospitality of his hosts, how they were shaken by the Velvet Revolution of 1989 and many of the fascinating characters he met from South Korean and American GI defectors to his Korean minder and socialite friends. After seven years and having been caught passing South Korean music tapes to friends and going out without his minder to places forbidden to foreigners, he was asked to leave the country.

    Each item is accompanied by relevant notes about China’s social system, history and culture for readers’ reference. It also includes 45 photos taken at different stages of Xi’s life, providing readers with more information about his work and life.The publication of this book in various languages is of great significance. It will contribute to interpreting the concepts and principles of governance of the CPC leadership, and help the international community to learn more about and better understand China’s ideas, path of development, domestic and foreign policies, and response to international concerns about China.

    It examines Thackeray the person and his intriguing political personality, his party’s militaristic methods of operation, its controversial role at major junctures, the fight between Thackeray’s nephew Raj and son Uddhav, the end of an era in Maharashtra politics after his death in November 2012 and the future of the Shiv Sena without his imposing presence. A must-read for an understanding of contemporary Indian politics and the rise of the Hindu nationalist phenomenon.

    Blending fiction and non-fiction seamlessly, Emily Hahn looks at everything and everyone she met on her breath-taking journey through the China of the nineteen-thirties. Hahn investigates not so much the complicated issues of political blocs and party conflict, but the ordinary, or extraordinary, lives of Chinese residents and tourists. This includes taking us into the personal lives of everyone from Asian prostitutes to European merchants. Join Emily Hahn as she explores China in this literary adventure.

    Her background made her an obvious target for the fanatics of the Cultural Revolution: educated in London, the widow of an official of Chiang Kai-Shek's regime, and an employee of Shell Oil, Nien Cheng enjoyed comforts that few of her compatriots could afford. When she refused to confess that any of this made her an enemy of the state, she was placed in solitary confinement, where she would remain for more than six years. "Life and Death in Shanghai" is the powerful story of Nien Cheng's imprisonment, of the deprivation she endured, of her heroic resistance, and of her quest for justice when she was released. It is the story, too, of a country torn apart by the savage fight for power Mao Tse-tung launched in his campaign to topple party moderates. An incisive, rare personal account of a terrifying chapter in twentieth-century history, "Life and Death in Shanghai" is also an astounding portrait of one woman's courage.

    Dr. Swift is the first to concentrate on this unusual subject with such a wealth of sympathetic detail."-Sarah Bradford, author of "America's Queen: The Life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Elizabeth: A Biography of Britain's Queen," and "The Reluctant King: The Life and Reign of George VI, 1895--1952""A splendid addition to our understanding of an extraordinary Anglo-American partnership. Both intimate and expansive, Will Swift's vigorously researched book is timely, illuminating, and dramatic."-Blanche Wiesen Cook, author of "Eleanor Roosevelt, Vol. 1: 1884-1933" and "Eleanor Roosevelt, Vol. 2: The Defining Years, 1933-1938""The Anglo-American alliance has long been a bedrock of the global order, and Will Swift's The Roosevelts and the Royals details an important chapter in that fascinating story with warmth and verve."-Jon Meacham, author of "Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship""Those who remember only that the Roosevelts served hot dogs to the royals will be fascinated by this well-researched account of an historic and ennobling relationship-a great story!"-James MacGregor Burns, author of "The Three Roosevelts: Patrician Leaders Who Transformed America" and "Roosevelt: Soldier of Freedom""A gripping account of four very different lives that were woven together to change the world in wartime."-Hugo Vickers, author of "Cecil Beaton and Alice: Princess Andrew of Greece""Written in fluid and lucid prose, this book is not only eminently readable but also historically illuminating. It explores the contrasting personalities of the four main protagonists with skill and insight and it is both convincing and refreshingly candid."-Brian Roberts, author of "Randolph: A Study of Churchill's Son and Cecil Rhodes and the Princess""This book brings to life my grandmother and her royal friends. Reading it, I found myself reliving the times I shared with them. A wonderful story."-Nina Roosevelt Gibson, Ph.D., psychologist and granddaughter of Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt

    An estimated 74,000 people died within the first five months, and another 75,000 were injured.Published on the seventieth anniversary of the bombing, Nagasaki takes readers from the morning of the bombing to the city today, telling the first-hand experiences of five survivors, all of whom were teenagers at the time of the devastation. Susan Southard has spent years interviewing hibakusha (“bomb-affected people”) and researching the physical, emotional, and social challenges of post-atomic life. She weaves together dramatic eyewitness accounts with searing analysis of the policies of censorship and denial that colored much of what was reported about the bombing both in the United States and Japan.A gripping narrative of human resilience, Nagasaki will help shape public discussion and debate over one of the most controversial wartime acts in history.

    This book tells the story from three perspectives: of the Japanese soldiers who performed it, of the Chinese civilians who endured it, and of a group of Europeans and Americans who refused to abandon the city and were able to create a safety zone that saved many.

    She played a significant role in organizing mining strikes in West Virginia and Colorado, as well as the Pittsburgh steel strike of 1919. She was instrumental in the formation of the United Mine Workers union (UMW) in 1890 and the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in 1905.An important addition to feminist literature, the Autobiography of Mother Jones is also "a great piece of working-class literature…probably the most readable book in the whole field of American labor history." — Clarence Darrow.

    Ursula Burton was friendly but reserved, and spoke English with a slight foreign accent. By all accounts, she seemed to be living a simple, unassuming life. Her neighbors in the village knew little about her.They didn’t know that she was a high-ranking Soviet intelligence officer. They didn’t know that her husband was also a spy, or that she was running powerful agents across Europe. Behind the facade of her picturesque life, Burton was a dedicated Communist, a Soviet colonel, and a veteran agent, gathering the scientific secrets that would enable the Soviet Union to build the bomb.This true-life spy story is about the woman code-named “Sonya.” Over the course of her career, she was hunted by the Chinese, the Japanese, the Nazis, MI5, MI6, and the FBI—and she evaded them all. Her story reflects the great ideological clash of the twentieth century—between Communism, Fascism, and Western democracy—and casts new light on the spy battles and shifting allegiances of our own times.With unparalleled access to Sonya’s diaries and correspondence and never-before-seen information on her clandestine activities, Ben Macintyre has written a history of a legendary secret agent, a woman who influenced the course of the Cold War and helped plunge the world into a decades-long standoff between nuclear superpowers.

    In her late twenties, she reconnected with her first family and returned to Seoul where she spent four months getting to know other adoptees, as well as her Korean mother, father, siblings, and extended family. At the guesthouse for transnational adoptees where she lived, alliances were troubled by violence and fraught with the trauma of separation and of cultural illiteracy. Unsurprisingly, heartbreakingly, Wills found that her nascent relationships with her family were similarly fraught.Ten years later, Wills sustains close ties with her Korean family. Her Korean parents and her younger sister attended her wedding in Montreal, and that same sister now lives in Canada. Remarkably, meeting Jenny caused her birth parents to reunite after having been estranged since her adoption. Little by little, Jenny Heijun Wills is learning and relearning her stories and those of her biological kin, piecing together a fragmented life into something resembling a whole.Delving into gender, class, racial, and ethnic complexities, as well as into the complex relationships between Korean women—sisters, mothers and daughters, grandmothers and grandchildren, aunts and nieces—Older Sister. Not Necessarily Related. describes in visceral, lyrical prose the painful ripple effects that follow a child's removal from a family, and the rewards that can flow from both struggle and forgiveness.

    Written at the onset of the First World War, My Own Story brings attention to Pankhurst's cause while defending her decision to cease activism until the end of the war. Notable for its descriptions of the British prison system, My Own Story is an invaluable document of a life dedicated to others, of a historical moment in which an oppressed group rose up to advocate for the simplest of demands: equality.Born in a politically active household, Emmeline Pankhurst was introduced to the women's suffrage movement at a young age. In 1903, she founded the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), an organization dedicated to the suffragette movement. As their speeches, rallies, and petitions failed to make headway, they turned to militant protest, and in 1908 Emmeline was arrested for attempting to enter Parliament to deliver a document to Prime Minister H.H. Asquith. Imprisoned for six weeks, she observed the horrifying conditions of prison life, including solitary confinement. This experience changed her outlook on the struggle for women's suffrage, and she increasingly saw imprisonment as a means of radical publicity. Over the next several years, she would be arrested seven times for rioting, destroying property, and assaulting police officers, and while in prison staged hunger strikes in order to gain the attention of the press and political establishment. My Own Story is a record of one woman's tireless advocacy for the sake of countless others.With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Emmeline Pankhurst's My Own Story is a classic of English literature reimagined for modern readers.

    That quixotic quest for understanding has drawn much of the world’s population eastward ever since Buddha first assumed the lotus position, and writer Mara Altman needed to know why. So she flew around the world in search of an answer not only to that mystery, but also to the deeper questions that plague all who yearn to define the meaning of life. What Altman found in her wild, comic 18-day reporting trek across India – a journey that took her on a laborious, 37-hour cross-country train trip, onto a mystical flat rock by the ocean in Pondicherry, and eventually into the emergency room of a cut-rate Bangalore hospital – will make you laugh, learn and ponder. By the end of her epic odyssey, it will also take you unexpectedly and thrillingly close to the pulsing heart of human existence. After graduating from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, Mara Altman worked as a staff writer for The Village Voice. In 2009, HarperCollins published Altman's first book, Thanks For Coming: A Young Woman's Quest for an Orgasm, which was optioned as a comedy series by HBO. She has published seven bestselling Kindle Singles, including the #1 bestseller Bearded Lady, and has also written for New York Magazine and The New York Times. Cover design by Adil Dara