The Unknown Cultural Revolution challenges the established narrative of China's Cultural Revolution, which assumes that this period of great social upheaval led to economic disaster, the persecution of intellectuals, and senseless violence. Dongping Han offers a powerful account of the dramatic improvements in the living conditions, infrastructure, and agricultural practices of China's rural population that emerged in this period. Drawing on extensive local interviews and ...

The Unknown Cultural Revolution challenges the established narrative of China’s Cultural Revolution, which assumes that this period of great social upheaval led to economic disaster, the persecution of intellectuals, and senseless violence. Dongping Han offers a powerful account of the dramatic improvements in the living conditions, infrastructure, and agricultural practices of China’s rural population that emerged in this period. Drawing on extensive local interv...

China is emerging as a new superpower in science and technology, reflected in the success of its spacecraft and high-velocity Maglev trains. While many seek to understand the rise of China as a technologically-based power, the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s may seem an unlikely era to explore for these insights. Despite the widespread verdict of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution as an unmitigated disaster for China, a number of recent scholars have called for re-examining Maoist ...

A gripping account of China’s nineteenth-century Taiping Rebellion, one of the largest civil wars in history. Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom brims with unforgettable characters and vivid re-creations of massive and often gruesome battles—a sweeping yet intimate portrait of the conflict that shaped the fate of modern China.The story begins in the early 1850s, the waning years of the Qing dynasty, when word spread of a major revolution brewing in the provinces, led by a fail...

The Art of War is a classic of military strategy. It is ascribed to Sun Tzu, also called Sunzi or Sun Wu, a quasi-legendary figure. The work has been dated from between the 6th to the 3rd century BCE. It is known worldwide and is considered required reading for students of political and military science.As with other classics, many of its themes are timeless. Quotations from the work can be meaningful apart from the thousands of years which separate us from the time and place of it...

**A Financial Times Best Book of 2017“A shrewd and knowing book.” —Robert D. Kaplan, The Wall Street Journal“A compelling and impressive read.” —The Economist“Skillfully crafted and well-argued.” —Jeffrey Wasserstrom, Financial Times“An excellent modern history. . . . provides the context needed to make sense of the region’s present and future.” —Joyce Lau, South China Morning PostA history of the combativ...

This is an incredible collection of all of Mao's great military works. This book was originally published by the Foreign Language Press in Peking in 1967. This is all of Mao's military writings from 1928 to 1949. Including such important works as "On Protracted War" and "Problems of Strategy in China's Revolutionary War." These are the source documents from which all of the military thought and quotes attributed to Mao originates. This is an absolute must read for anyone interested in mili...

Rocket pioneer, occultist, and counterculture icon—Jack Parsons and the explosive intersection of science, sex, and magic. Sex and Rockets by John Carter is the definitive biography of John Whiteside “Jack” Parsons—rocket-fuel innovator, co-founder of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and one of the most controversial figures in twentieth-century American science. By day, Parsons helped develop the solid rocket technology that powered early U.S. missile programs and made space travel possible...

Puer tea has been grown for centuries in the “Six Great Tea Mountains” of Yunnan Province, and in imperial China it was a prized commodity, traded to Tibet by horse or mule caravan via the so-called Tea Horse Road and presented as tribute to the emperor in Beijing. In the 1990s, as the tea’s noble lineage and unique process of aging and fermentation were rediscovered, it achieved cult status both in China and internationally. The tea became a favorite among urban connoisseurs who analyzed ...

It has been said in China that a city without a wall would be as inconceivable as a house without a roof.Even the smallest village invariably had some form of defensive wall, while the Great Wall of China was an attempt to build a barrier along the most vulnerable border of the entire country. Yet the finest examples of walled communities were China's walled cities, whose defensive architecture surpassed anything along the Great Wall. This book traces the evolution...

Colonialism in China was a piecemeal agglomeration that achieved its greatest extent in the first half of the twentieth century, the last edifices falling at the close of the century. The diversity of these colonial arrangements across China’s landscape defies systematic characterization.This book investigates the complexities and subtleties of colonialism in China during the first half of the twentieth century. In particular, the contributors examine the interaction between locali...

Cambodia, 1975, Pol Pot succeeds in military vistory and ascends to a four year ablolute dictatorship. After victory, he plunges Cambodia into total isolation and inflicts genocide on 25% of his citizens, a per capita rate exceeding that of any other country in history including Germany. Pol dreams that counterrevolutionary forces will take control, thus ousting him from power. This must be stopped at all costs.To assure it never happens, a list of executable infractions (inflicted on enti...