A collection of over 80 poems from China encompassing the years 200 BC to 1100 AD, this book serves as an excellent introduction to Chinese poetry in all its myriad forms over the span of 13 centuries.Showcasing the poetry of Li Peh,Chang Kiu-ling, Wei Ying-wuh, Su Shi, Tu Fu, Eo Yang Siu and Li Ling among many others, this book should be a cherished introduction to the beauty of poetry from China.

The Kalevala is the great Finnish epic, which like the Iliad and the Odyssey, grew out of a rich oral tradition with prehistoric roots. During the first millenium of our era, speakers of Uralic languages (those outside the Indo-European group) who had settled in the Baltic region of Karelia, that straddles the border of eastern Finland and north-west Russia, developed an oral poetry that was to last into the nineteenth century. This poetry provided the basis of the Kalevala. It wa...

“So marvelously improbable, so rich in exotic detail, that if often reads more like a historical thriller than the serious work of history that it is.”—Los Angeles TimesWith the same flair for history and narrative that distinguished his bestseller, The Alienist, Caleb Carr tells the incredible story of Frederick Townsend Ward, the American mercenary who fought for the emperor of China in the Taiping rebellion, history's bloodiest civil war. T...

Discover 4 seminal masterworks of Chinese thought—Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching, the Analects of Confucius, the Chuang Tzu, and the Mencius—presented in one volume for the first time in nearly 2 centuriesAward-winning translator David Hinton offers fresh insights on the most influential texts on Taoism, Zen Buddhism, Chinese philosophy, and moreHinton’s award–winning experience translating a wide range of ancien...

This substantial collection of Tang Dynasty poetry includes extensive commentary and notes-offering insight into this rich literary heritage."Stretching out my hand I feel the pulse of the stars," wrote Li Po, one of the most famous of the T'ang dynasty poets. This superlative study of the Golden Age of Chinese poetry, based on nearly 50,000 poems written by more than 2,000 poets, captures not only the pulse of that period but also the spirit and soul.Of th...

Hong Kong’s Watershed: The 1967 Riots is the first English book that provides an account and critical analysis of the disturbances based on declassified files from the British government and recollection by key players during the events. The interviews with the participants, including Jack Cater, Liang Shangyuan, George Walden, Tsang Tak-sing, Tsang Yok-sing, and Hong Kong government officials, left irreplaceable records of oral history on the political upheaval. The book analyses the caus...

In the mid-nineteenth century, Cuba’s infamous “coolie” trade brought well over 100,000 Chinese indentured laborers to its shores. Though subjected to abominable conditions, they were followed during subsequent decades by smaller numbers of merchants, craftsmen, and free migrants searching for better lives far from home. In a comprehensive, vibrant history that draws deeply on Chinese- and Spanish-language sources in both China and Cuba, Kathleen López explores the transition of the Chines...

A Gold Orchid is a rare collection of classical Chinese erotic and love poetry translated for the first time.Chinese erotic poetry was at one time thought to be nonexistent, simply because it was considered unfit to translate from the imperial anthologies, This translation of poems of Tzu Yeh, a 4th-century wine shop girl, exposes a world the emperors may not have cared to record for posterity. But it is precisely this world that has fascination for the We...

In My Tibetan Chldhood, Naktsang Nulo recalls his life in Tibet's Amdo region during the 1950s. From the perspective of himself at age ten, he describes his upbringing as a nomad on Tibet's eastern plateau. He depicts pilgrimages to monasteries, including a 1500-mile horseback expedition his family made to and from Lhasa. A year or so later, they attempted that same journey as they fled from advancing Chinese troops. Naktsang's father joined and was killed in the little-known 1958...

Whether chanted as devotional prayers, intoned against the dangers of the wilds, or invoked to heal the sick and bring ease to the dead, incantations were pervasive features of Buddhist practice in late medieval China (600–1000 C.E.). Material incantations, in forms such as spell-inscribed amulets and stone pillars, were also central to the spiritual lives of both monks and laypeople. In centering its analysis on the Chinese material culture of these deeply embodied forms of Buddhist ritua...

Confucianism has shaped a certain perception of Chinese security strategy, symbolized by the defensive, nonaggressive Great Wall. Many believe China is antimilitary and reluctant to use force against its enemies. It practices pacifism and refrains from expanding its boundaries, even when nationally strong.In a path-breaking study traversing six centuries of Chinese history, Yuan-kang Wang resoundingly discredits this notion, recasting China as a practitioner of realpolitik and a ru...

Continuing the argument developed in the author's previous book, this exhaustively researched study describes the humiliation of the Chinese gentry at the hands of the statist Oboi regents in the 1660s and the Kangxi emperor's self-declared Confucian sagehood in the 1670s, which effectively trumped the gentry's claim to sovereignty.