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    Here for the first time is an English-language biography of the man. Morris Rossabi draws on sources from a variety of East Asian, Middle Eastern, and European languages as he focuses on the life and times of the great Mongol monarch.

    For more than two centuries, American and Chinese statesmen, merchants, missionaries, and adventurers, men and women, have profoundly influenced the fate of these nations. While we tend to think of America's ties with China as starting in 1972 with the visit of President Richard Nixon to China, the patterns—rapturous enchantment followed by angry disillusionment—were set in motion hundreds of years earlier.Drawing on personal letters, diaries, memoirs, government documents, and contemporary news reports, John Pomfret reconstructs the surprising, tragic, and marvelous ways Americans and Chinese have engaged with one another through the centuries. A fascinating and thrilling account, The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom is also an indispensable book for understanding the most important—and often the most perplexing—relationship between any two countries in the world.--us.macmillan.com

    This fascination has spawned a wealth of extraordinary fictional creations, from Puccini's Madame Butterfly to Arthur Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha. But as denizens of a world defined by silence and mystery, real geisha are notoriously difficult to meet and even to find. As a result, their history has long been cloaked in secrecy. Lesley Downer, an award-winning writer, Japanese scholar, and consummate storyteller, gained more access to this world than almost any other Westerner, and spent several months living in it. In Women of the Pleasure Quarters, she weaves together intimate portraits of modern geisha with the romantic legends and colorful historical tales that shape their fascinating past. Contrary to popular opinion, geisha are not prostitutes but, literally, "arts people." Accomplished singers, dancers, and musicians, they are, above all, masters of the art of conversation, soothing the worries and stroking the egos of wealthy businessmen who can afford their attentions. Looking into such traditions as mizuage, the ritual deflowering that was once a rite of passage for all geisha, and providing colorful descriptions of their dress, training, and homes, Downer transforms their reality into a captivating narrative, and reveals an enthralling world unlike any other.

    S. Lewis—the great British writer, scholar, lay theologian, broadcaster, Christian apologist, and bestselling author of Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, The Great Divorce, The Chronicles of Narnia, and many other beloved classics—was one of the foremost religious philosophers of the twentieth century; a thinker whose far-reaching influence on Christianity continues to be felt today.Demonstrating Lewis’s wide range of interests, Present Concerns includes nineteen essays that reveal his thoughts about democratic values, threats to educational and spiritual fulfillment, literary censorship, and other timely topics, offering invaluable wisdom for our own times.

    Offering accurate, comparative descriptions of religions, it gives background material on religious theory and study, while exploring the historical and cultural factors. Unlike other texts, Religions of the World includes chapters on Native American and African religions as well as Jainism, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism, and Baha'i.

    In this revised edition of his essential book, Starr focuses his shrewd attention on them all. He furnishes additional material on China's relations with Taiwan and Tibet, the transfer of Hong Kong to Chinese rule, China's nuclear weapons program, and its environmental and human rights records.

    This iconic journey changed the world forever, and the truths revealed continue to influence every corner of the globe today.A young man in line for the throne is trapped in his father's kingdom and yearns for the outside world. Betrayed by those closest to him, Siddhartha abandons his palace and princely title. Alone and face-to-face with his demons, he becomes a wandering monk and embarks on a spiritual fast that carries him to the brink of death. Ultimately recognizing his inability to conquer his body and mind by sheer will, Siddhartha transcends his physical pain and achieves enlightenment.Although we recognize Buddha today as an icon of peace and serenity, his life story was a tumultuous and spellbinding affair filled with love and sex, murder and loss, struggle and surrender. From the rocky terrain of the material world to the summit of the spiritual one, Buddha captivates and inspires—ultimately leading us closer to understanding the true nature of life and our selves.

    Written in the same anecdote-rich, page-turning style as Paulson's bestselling memoir, On the Brink , DEALING WITH CHINA is certain to become the classic and definitive examination of engaging an economic superpower. Hank Paulson has dealt with China unlike any other foreigner. As head of Goldman Sachs, Paulson had a pivotal role in opening up China to private enterprise. Then, as Treasury secretary, he created the Strategic Economic Dialogue with what is now the world's second-largest economy. While negotiating with China on economic reforms, he safeguarded the teetering U.S. financial system. Paulson has worked with scores of top Chinese leaders, including Xi Jinping, China's most powerful man in decades. Now, in DEALING WITH CHINA, he takes readers behind closed doors to witness the future of China's state-controlled capitalism.

    This entrenched view continues to dominate western ideas and, because it does not allow the East to represent itself, prevents true understanding. Essential, and still eye-opening, Orientalism remains one of the most important books written about our divided world.

    Historian Paul Ropp combines vivid story-telling with astute analysis to shed light on some of the larger questionsof Chinese history. What is distinctive about China in comparison with other civilizations? What have been the major changes and continuities in Chinese life over the past four millennia? Offering a global perspective, the book shows how China's nomadic neighbors to the north and west influencedmuch of the political, military, and even cultural history of China. Ropp also examines Sino-Indian relations, highlighting the impact of the thriving trade between India and China as well as the profound effect of Indian Buddhism on Chinese life. Finally, the author discusses the humiliation ofChina at the hands of Western powers and Japan, explaining how these recent events have shaped China's quest for wealth, power and respect today, and have colored China's perception of its own place in world history.

    He convincingly conveys the unique appeal and gifts of each of the traditions and reveals their hold on the human heart and imagination.

    House of Representatives, 1989-2002 “Without question, the best 60 minutes you will spend on China.” - Jonathan Anderson, Emerging Markets Advisors This is the China book for everyone - whether an expert or novice. It can be read in an hour and gives you most of what you need to know about China business today - and its increasing impact on the rest of the world. This "speed-read" book is the distilled knowledge of two Peking University business professors with over 30 years of experience on the ground in China and the emerging markets. According to authors Jeffrey Towson and Jonathan Woetzel, "if we had the undivided attention of someone from Ohio, Brighton or Lima for just one hour, this little book is what we would say." Author Jonathan Woetzel is a senior partner of McKinsey & Company. He opened McKinsey's Shanghai location in 1995 and has been resident since then. He currently the global leader of its Cities Special Initiative and the Asia-based Director of the McKinsey Global Institute. He has led many of the Firm’s most significant projects in China including the first major international listing of a Chinese company and the development of the economic plans for the cities of Shanghai, Wuhan, Shenzhen, Xian and Harbin among others. He co-chairs the Urban China Initiative along with Tsinghua University and Columbia University to catalyze the next stage of China’s urbanization. Author Jeffrey Towson is a private equity investor, professor and best-selling author. His area of expertise is developing economy investing and cross-border strategies – primarily US-China deals in healthcare and consumer products. He was previously Head of Direct Investments for Middle East North Africa and Asia Pacific for Prince Alwaleed, nicknamed by Time magazine the “Arabian Warren Buffett” and arguably the world’s first private global investor.

    Americans all, they were among the famous figures whose paths intertwined with the mystical and esoteric movement broadly known as the occult. Brought over from the Old World and spread throughout the New by some of the most obscure but gifted men and women of early U.S. history, this “hidden wisdom” transformed the spiritual life of the still-young nation and, through it, much of the Western world.Yet the story of the American occult has remained largely untold. Now a leading writer on the subject of alternative spirituality brings it out of the shadows. Here is a rich, fascinating, and colorful history of a religious revolution and an epic of offbeat history. From the meaning of the symbols on the one-dollar bill to the origins of the Ouija board, Occult America briskly sweeps from the nation’s earliest days to the birth of the New Age era and traces many people and episodes, including:•The spirit medium who became America’s first female religious leader in 1776 •The supernatural passions that marked the career of Mormon prophet Joseph Smith •The rural Sunday-school teacher whose clairvoyant visions instigated the dawn of the New Age •The prominence of mind-power mysticism in the black-nationalist politics of Marcus Garvey•The Idaho druggist whose mail-order mystical religion ranked as the eighth-largest faith in the world during the Great Depression Here, too, are America’s homegrown religious movements, from transcendentalism to spiritualism to Christian Science to the positive-thinking philosophy that continues to exert such a powerful pull on the public today. A feast for believers in alternative spirituality, an eye-opener for anyone curious about the unknown byroads of American history, Occult America is an engaging, long-overdue portrait of one nation, under many gods, whose revolutionary influence is still being felt in every corner of the globe.