Xi Jinping has made his ambitions for the People's Liberation Army (PLA) perfectly clear, there is no mystery what he wants, first, that China should become a "great maritime power" and secondly, that the PLA "become a world-class armed force by 2050." He wants this latter objective to be largely completed by 2035. China as a Twenty-First-Century Naval Power focuses on China's navy and how it is being transformed to satisfy the "world class" goal. Beginning with an exploration of why China...

This is the first systematic study of modern China's military campaigns and the actual fighting conducted by the People's Liberation Army since the founding of the People's Republic. It provides a general overview of the evolution of PLA military doctrine, and then focuses on major combat episodes from the civil war with the Nationalists to the last significant combat in Vietnam in 1979, in addition to navy and air operations through 1999. In contrast to the many works on the specifics and...

Xi Jinping has made his ambitions for the People's Liberation Army (PLA) perfectly clear, first, that China should become a "great maritime power" and secondly, that the PLA "become a world-class armed force by 2050." China as a Twenty-First-Century Naval Power focuses on China's navy and how it is being transformed to satisfy the "world class" goal.Beginning with an exploration of why China is seeking to become such a major maritime power, author Michael McDevitt first ex...

Collected here are three hundred and twenty short poems by Rabindranath Tagore. They were written in Bengali before being translated into English by Tagore. These poems are beautiful, thought provoking, and somewhat reminiscent of Haiku. Stray birds of summer come to my window to sing and fly away. And yellow leaves of autumn, which have no songs, flutter and fall there with a sigh.

On December 13, 1937, the Japanese army attacked and captured the Chinese capital city of Nanjing, planting the rising-sun flag atop the city's outer walls. What occurred in the ensuing weeks and months has been the source of a tempestuous debate ever since. It is well known that the Japanese military committed wholesale atrocities after the fall of the city, massacring large numbers of Chinese during the both the Battle of Nanjing and in its aftermath. Yet the exact details of the war cri...

How science in medieval Europe originated in Buddhist AsiaWarriors of the Cloisters tells how key cultural innovations from Central Asia revolutionized medieval Europe and gave rise to the culture of science in the West. Medieval scholars rarely performed scientific experiments, but instead contested issues in natural science, philosophy, and theology using the recursive argument method. This highly distinctive and unusual method of disputation was a core f...

Tensions over the "Tibet Question"—the political status of Tibet—are escalating every day. The Dalai Lama has gained broad international sympathy in his appeals for autonomy from China, yet the Chinese government maintains a hard-line position against it. What is the history of the conflict? Can the two sides come to an acceptable compromise? In this thoughtful analysis, distinguished professor and longtime Tibet analyst Melvyn C. Goldstein presents a balanced and accessible view of the co...

What will the future look like? To judge from many speculative fiction films and books, from Blade Runner to Cloud Atlas, the future will be full of cities that resemble Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Shanghai, and it will be populated mainly by cold, unfeeling citizens who act like robots. Techno-Orientalism investigates the phenomenon of imagining Asia and Asians in hypo- or hyper-technological terms in literary, cinematic, and new media representations, while criticall...

Since the days of Troy historic lands of Asia Minor have been home to Greeks. They are steeped in a rich fusion of Greek and Turkish culture and the histories of both are irrevocably entwined, fatefully connected. "Children of Achilles" tells the epic and ultimately tragic story of the Greek presence in Anatolia, beginning with the Trojan War and culminating in 1923 with the devastating population exchange that followed the Turkish War of Independence. The once magnificent, now ruined, cit...

In the next decade China's actions on the world stage will affect us all. A new superpower, with the largest population and GDP on the globe, there are now fears that China is becoming more assertive. Here, award-winning China expert Kerry Brown guides us through China's foreign policy, from its skirmishes with US Navy destroyers in the South China Sea to its arguments with Japan over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands and its increased displays of military prowess - including huge investments in ...

A "fascinating" story of espionage that "fills a blank space in the hidden history of the Cold War" ( Houston Chronicle).Into Tibet is the incredible story of a 1949–1950 American undercover expedition led by America's first atomic agent, Douglas S. Mackiernan—a covert attempt to arm the Tibetans and to recognize Tibet's independence months before China invaded.A Nepal-based American journalist reveals how the clash between the State Depar...

"The Scourge of God" tells the tale of the terrible Tartar invasion of Hungary during the reign of Bela IV. (1235-1270), when the Mongol hordes devastated Magyarland from end to end. Baron Miklos Josika (1796–1865), the Walter Scott of Hungary, was born at Torda, in Transylvania, on April 28th, 1796. While a child, he lost both his parents, and was brought up at the house and under the care of his grandmother, Anna Bornemissza, a descendant of Jokai's heroine of the sam...