China Wakes: The Struggle for the Soul of a Rising Power


Nicholas D. Kristof - 1994
    An insightful and thought-provoking analysis of daily life in China, China Wakes is an exemplary work of reportage. 16 pages of photos.

Sports Illustrated: Brett Favre: The Tribute


Sports Illustrated - 2008
    Stunning action shots, stories from respected sports writers, and candid off-the-field moments highlight this tribute to an enduring American icon--a man who, more than any other, has played football the way it should be played.

Nixon and Mao: The Week That Changed the World


Margaret MacMillan - 2005
    Now she brings her extraordinary gifts to one of the most important subjects today-the relationship between the United States and China-and one of the most significant moments in modern history. In February 1972, Richard Nixon, the first American president ever to visit China, and Mao Tse-tung, the enigmatic Communist dictator, met for an hour in Beijing. Their meeting changed the course of history and ultimately laid the groundwork for the complex relationship between China and the United States that we see today. That monumental meeting in 1972-during what Nixon called "the week that changed the world"-could have been brought about only by powerful leaders: Nixon himself, a great strategist and a flawed human being, and Mao, willful and ruthless. They were assisted by two brilliant and complex statesmen, Henry Kissinger and Chou En-lai. Surrounding them were fascinating people with unusual roles to play, including the enormously disciplined and unhappy Pat Nixon and a small-time Shanghai actress turned monstrous empress, Jiang Qing. And behind all of them lay the complex history of two countries, two great and equally confident civilizations: China, ancient and contemptuous yet fearful of barbarians beyond the Middle Kingdom, and the United States, forward-looking and confident, seeing itself as the beacon for the world. Nixon thought China could help him get out of Vietnam. Mao needed American technology and expertise to repair the damage of the Cultural Revolution. Both men wanted an ally against an aggressive Soviet Union. Did they get what they wanted? Did Mao betray his own revolutionary ideals? How did the people of China react to this apparent change in attitude toward the imperialist Americans? Did Nixon make a mistake in coming to China as a supplicant? And what has been the impact of the visit on the United States ever since? Weaving together fascinating anecdotes and insights, an understanding of Chinese and American history, and the momentous events of an extraordinary time, this brilliantly written book looks at one of the transformative moments of the twentieth century and casts new light on a key relationship for the world of the twenty-first century. Margaret MacMillan is the author of "Women of the Raj" and "Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World," which won the Duff Cooper Prize, the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction, the Hessell-Tiltman Prize for History, a Silver Medal for the Arthur Ross Book Award of the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Governor General's Literary Award for nonfiction. It was selected by the editors of "The New York Times" as one of the best books of 2002. Currently the provost of Trinity College and a professor of history at the University of Toronto, MacMillan takes up the position of warden of St. Antony's College, Oxford, in July 2007. She is an officer of the Order of Canada, a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and a senior fellow of Massey College at the University of Toronto.

The Draft: A Year Inside the Nfl's Search for Talent


Pete Williams - 2006
    Among the prospects are Virginia defensive end Chris Canty, who overcomes a devastating early-season knee injury to reestablish himself as a top draft hopeful, only to suffer a detached retina in a nightclub skirmish; and Fred Gibson, a talented but rail-thin Georgia wide receiver who struggles to put on the weight needed to go over the middle in the NFL.It's a complex environment, with college coaches attempting to protect their student-athletes from exploitation (while fully aware that they can only remain competitive if they attract NFL-caliber players to their schools), along with sports agents and NFL scouts trying to stay a step ahead of their competition. These parties provide a multi-angled view of the world of emerging NFL talent. The reader follows the season through the eyes of a host of power players and scouts, from veteran agent Pat Dye Jr. to Jerry Maguire clone Jack Scharf, to the coaching divisions of Florida State University and the University of Virginia---headed by longtime Bill Parcells disciple Al Groh. Also central to the narrative are the Atlanta Falcons and executives Rich McKay and Tim Ruskell (now with Seattle), who use a character-based evaluation system to set their draft board. These parallel stories weave together, culminating in draft weekend, to create a gripping and fascinating look at a world few see from the inside.

City of Devils: The Two Men Who Ruled the Underworld of Old Shanghai


Paul French - 2018
    An ex-U.S. Navy boxing champion, he escaped from prison and rose to become the Slots King of Shanghai. "Dapper" Joe Farren--a Jewish boy who fled Vienna's ghetto--ruled the nightclubs. His chorus lines rivalled Ziegfeld's.In 1940, Lucky Jack and Dapper Joe bestrode the Shanghai Badlands like kings, while all around the Solitary Island was poverty, starvation, and war. They thought they ruled Shanghai, but the city had other ideas. This is the story of their rise to power, their downfall, and the trail of destruction left in their wake. Shanghai was their playground for a flickering few years, a city where for a fleeting moment even the wildest dreams could come true.

Factory Man: How One Furniture Maker Battled Offshoring, Stayed Local - and Helped Save an American Town


Beth Macy - 2014
    The Bassett Furniture Company was once the world's biggest wood furniture manufacturer. Run by the same powerful Virginia family for generations, it was also the center of life in Bassett, Virginia. But beginning in the 1980s, the first waves of Asian competition hit, and ultimately Bassett was forced to send its production overseas. One man fought back: John Bassett III, a shrewd and determined third-generation factory man, now chairman of Vaughan-Bassett Furniture Co, which employs more than 700 Virginians and has sales of more than $90 million. In Factory Man, Beth Macy brings to life Bassett's deeply personal furniture and family story, along with a host of characters from an industry that was as cutthroat as it was colorful. As she shows how he uses legal maneuvers, factory efficiencies, and sheer grit and cunning to save hundreds of jobs, she also reveals the truth about modern industry in America.

China Run


David Ball - 2002
    She hadn't done that since college. It had been the most remarkable twenty-four hours of her life -- hours in which, for better or worse, a choice had been made, a line crossed. There was no going back. Each time she thought about it, she felt the same strange shock: She was a straitlaced civil engineer from Denver, huddled in the bowels of a broken-down cargo boat on the Wan Li Chang Jiang, the Yangtze River. Hunted by police, with her stepson and a baby that wasn't legally hers."With all that, she was not even heading toward Shanghai, toward home."Instead, she was heading upriver, deeper into the heart of China....""AS FRESH AS TODAY'S HEADLINES -- THE CHILLING, SUSPENSEFUL STORY OF A MOTHER, A NEWLY ADOPTED CHILD, AND A FOREIGN GOVERNMENT TRYING TO SEPARATE THEM...For Allison Turk, the journey to China to claim the daughter she is adopting had been a trying experience, a series of false starts and long waits. Forced to travel without her husband, she makes the trip with her nine-year-old stepson. She hopes it will be a bonding experience, but so far this hasn't happened.When she finally holds the little girl in her arms, however, she knows that the trip has been worth all the effort and ag gravation. In only two days, she will board a plane for home, taking with her the greatest pride and joy she has ever known.Then suddenly everything unravels. Summoned to an emergency meeting of the adoptive parents, Allison is told a mistake has been made -- a "clerical error." The Americans have been given healthy infants rather than children with special needs, for which they are technically qualified, and they are told they must exchange their babies for different children. Allison is faced with a terrible decision: Should she capitulate and surrender the child she has come to love intensely, or risk an attempt to reach the American consulate in Shanghai, where she might at least have a chance to negotiate and keep her baby?Joining with several other American couples caught in the same dilemma, Allison chooses to run. There is a more sinister reason underlying the nightmare than they know about, and their flight spawns a massive manhunt led by a ruthless police colonel wielding all the terrifying apparatus of a police state. What ensues is tense, dramatic, and totally believable -- a race in which Allison not only struggles with her infant daughter and recalcitrant stepson, but is caught in a political tug-of-war that forces her to display a depth of courage and a strength of will she had never known she possessed.Inspired by a true-life incident, "China Run" takes the reader on a breathtaking chase across China that is gripping, compulsively readable, and frighteningly real.

Ambedkar's India


B.R. Ambedkar - 2020
    Ambedkar's most prominent speeches on caste and the Indian Constitution. "In the fight for Swaraj, you fight with the whole nation on your side. In fighting caste system, you stand against the whole nation—and that too, your own." Annihilation of Caste is one of Ambedkar's best works in putting together how caste as a system has been eating up the roots of a rich cultural melting pot like India. "Bhakti in religion could lead to salvation. But in politics, Bhakti is a sure road to eventual dictatorship." The Grammar of Anarchy reflects Ambedkar's ideas on how we need to pave the way for Independent India. It reflects his deep love and aspirations for India and its people. "...the sub-divisions [of caste] have lost the open-door character of the class system, and have become self-enclosed units called castes." Castes in India: Their Mechanism, Genesis and Development is an in-depth study of how classes went on to become castes and sub-castes to dot the Indian social system. This powerful narrative is a radical eye-opener.

The Gate of Heavenly Peace: The Chinese and Their Revolution 1895-1980


Jonathan D. Spence - 1981
    Fairbank)   In this masterful, highly original approach to modern Chinese history, Jonathan D. Spence shows us the Chinese revolution through the eyes of its most articulate participants—the writers, historians, philosophers, and insurrectionists who shaped and were shaped by the turbulent events of the twentieth century. By skillfully combining literary materials with more conventional sources of political and social history, Spence provides an unparalleled look at China and her people and offers valuable insight into the continuing conflict between the implacable power of the state and the strivings of China's artists, writers, and thinkers.

Wild At Heart: A Band of Brothers: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul (Facilitator's Guide)


John Eldredge - 2003
    WILD AT HEART DVD-BASED STUDY SESSIONSWILD AT HEART DVD-BASED STUDY SESSIONS

Chiang Kai Shek: China's Generalissimo and the Nation He Lost


Jonathan Fenby - 2003
    Chiang Kai-shek was one of the most influential world figures of the twentieth century. The leader of the Kuomintang, the Nationalist movement in China, by 1928 he had established himself as head of the government in Nanking. But while he managed to survive the political storms of the 1930s, Chiang's power was continually being undermined by the Japanese on one side and the Chinese Communists on the other. Drawing extensively on original Chinese sources and accounts by contemporaneous journalists, acclaimed author Jonathan Fenby explores little-known international connections in Chiang's story as he unfolds a story as fascinating in its conspiratorial intrigues as it is remarkable for its psychological insights. This is the definitive biography of the man who, despite his best intentions, helped create modern-day China.

The Truth About China: Propaganda, patriotism and the search for answers


Bill Birtles - 2021
    What threw me, though, was the urgency of the diplomats in Beijing. They live it, they get it. And they wanted me out.'Bill Birtles was rushed out of China in September 2020, forced to seek refuge in the Australian Embassy in Beijing while diplomats delicately negotiated his departure in an unprecedented standoff with China's government. Five days later he was on a flight back to Sydney, leaving China without any Australian foreign correspondents on the ground for the first time in decades.A journalist's perspective on this rising global power has never been more important, as Australia's relationship with China undergoes an extraordinary change that's seen the detention of a journalist Cheng Lei, Canberra's criticism of Beijing's efforts to crush Hong Kong's freedoms, as well as China's military activity in the South China Sea and its human rights violations targeting the mostly Muslim Uighur minority in Xinjiang province. Chronicling his five-year stint in China as he criss-crossed the country, Birtles reveals why the historic unravelling of China's relations with the West is perceived very differently inside the country.The Truth About China is a compelling and candid examination of China, one that takes a magnifying glass to recent events, and looks through a telescope at what is yet to come.

Banquo's Ghosts


Rich Lowry - 2009
    With the assistance of his most trusted agent, Robert Wallets, Banquo recruits Peter Johnson, a dissolute, morally bankrupt liberal news journalist, to travel to Iran. Johnson poses as a sympathetic reporter writing a piece on the country’s nuclear facilities. His mission: to kill the scientist. Like many elaborate plans, Johnson’s assassination attempt fails. The journalist falls into Iranian hands and is tortured to confess—a staggering security crisis for the United States. Aided by Wallets and the battle-hardened Marjorie Morningstar—the CIA operatives who trained him—Johnson escapes from Iran.Now back in the United States, Johnson helps Banquo and his CIA cohorts lead a team of federal agents and New York City officials in tracking down a group of suspected Iranian terrorists in New York who are planning to commit nuclear terrorism by dispersing a highly radioactive material throughout the city streets and subways. When Johnson’s only daughter is kidnapped by the Iranians, he and Banquo must race against time to save her...and the City of New York.

The Tiananmen Papers


Liang Zhang - 2000
    In this extraordinary collection of hundreds of internal government and Communist Party documents, secretly smuggled out of China, we learn how these events came to pass from behind the scenes. The material reveals how the most important decisions were made; and how the turmoil split the ruling elite into radically opposed factions. The book includes the minutes of the crucial meetings at which the Elders decided to cashier the pro-reform Party secretary Zhao Ziyang and to replace him with Jiang Zemin, to declare martial law, and finally to send the troops to drive the students from the Square. Just as the Pentagon Papers laid bare the secret American decision making behind the Vietnam War and changed forever our view of the nation's political leaders, so too has The Tiananmen Papers altered our perception of how and why the events of June 4 took the shape they did. Its publication has proven to be a landmark event in Chinese and world history.

The Official DVSA Guide To Driving - The Essential Skills


Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency - 1992
    This comprehensive guide is THE industry standard driving manual. Learn how to get the most enjoyment from your driving with the correct skills, attitude and behaviour.