Thanks to Salem sea captains, Gilded Age millionaires, curators on horseback and missionaries gone native, North American museums now possess the greatest collections of Chinese art outside of East Asia itself. How did it happen? The China Collectors is the first full account of a century-long treasure hunt in China from the Opium Wars and the Boxer Rebellion to Mao Zedong's 1949 ascent.The principal gatherers are mostly little known and defy invention. They includ...

From the romantic conflicts of the Victorian Great Game to the war-torn history of the region in recent decades, Tournament of Shadows traces the struggle for control of Central Asia and Tibet from the 1830s to the present. The original Great Game, the clandestine struggle between Russia and Britain for mastery of Central Asia, has long been regarded as one of the greatest geopolitical conflicts in history. Many believed that control of the vast Eurasian heartland was the key to w...

In a world replete with stories of sectarian violence, we are often left wondering: Are there places where people of different ethnicities, especially with significant Muslim minorities, live in peace? If so, why haven't we heard more about them, and what explains their success?To answer these questions, Karl Meyer and Shareen Brysac undertook a two-year exploration of oases of civility, places notable for minimal violence, rising life-expectancy, high literacy, and pragmatic compr...

This book examines the explosive and related technologies in the context of metallurgical and materials processing and fabrication. It is a record of the international exchange of information on the metallurgical and other material effects of shock-wave and high-strain-rate phenomena.

When Charles de Gaulle learned that France's former colonies in Africa had chosen independence, the great general shrugged dismissively, "They are the dust of empire." But as Americans have learned, particles of dust from remote and seemingly medieval countries can, at great human and material cost, jam the gears of a superpower.In The Dust of Empire, Karl E. Meyer examines the present and past of the Asian heartland in a book that blends scholarship with reportage, provid...

Kuwasi Balagoon was a participant in the Black Liberation struggle from the 1960s until his death in prison in 1986. A member of the Black Panther Party and defendant in the infamous Panther 21 case, Balagoon went underground with the Black Liberation Army (BLA). Captured and convicted of various crimes against the State, he spent much of the 1970s in prison, escaping twice. After each escape, he went underground and resumed BLA activity.Balagoon was unusual for his time in several...

A brilliant narrative history tracing today’s troubles back to the grandiose imperial overreach of Great Britain and the United States.Kingmakers is the gripping story of how the modern Middle East came to be, as told through the lives of the Britons and Americans who shaped it. Some are famous (Lawrence of Arabia and Gertrude Bell); others infamous (Harry St. John Philby, father of Kim); some forgotten (Sir Mark Sykes, Israel’s godfather, and A. T. Wilson, the territorial...

This book is about ecosystem mechanics and how to generate revenue through ecosystems and partnerships in the software industry. Topics include: economic foundations, value chains, business and partnering models as well as examples from Google, Microsoft, SAP, OpenSource among many others. Preface by Karl-Heinz Streibich, CEO of Software AG and Executive Member of BITKOM, the German Federal Association for IT, Tele-communications and New Media on "Software Clusters". Industry Comments: Tho...

In "Awakening with Ayahuasca" energy therapist and healer Alicia Benova speaks about her spiritual journey. Born in Eastern Europe, Alicia had to contend with personal pain and hardship which tested the limits of her endurance and led to her involvement with energy therapy. Driven by anguish to the far reaches of the Amazon, Alicia travelled across continents in hope of healing her wounds. Her quest culminated deep in the Peruvian jungle in her life-changing encounters with ayahuasca and s...

Kuwasi Balagoon was a participant in the Black Liberation struggle from the 1960s until his death in prison in 1986. A member of the Black Panther Party and defendant in the infamous Panther 21 case, Balagoon went underground with the Black Liberation Army (BLA). Captured and convicted of various crimes against the State, he spent much of the 1970s in prison, escaping twice. After each escape, he went underground and resumed BLA activity. Balagoon was unusual for his time in several ways. ...

Over the past 25 years, the field of innovation, entrepreneurship and commercialization has reached a critical mass and maturity. It is not only possible but also essential to scale it so that an immense amount of untapped human innovative potential can be unleashed for the benefit of our people. Further, R&D centers and existing entrepreneurial ecosystems can be made more impactful.Firstly, this book succinctly identifies the entire field of innovation into one comprehensive and m...

The prediction was part of a hypothesis seeking to investigate whether God endowed his right to liberty from school attendance and contained in a typewritten letter to the president of the United States in 1965, Lyndon Banes Johnson. Mr. Meyer was nine years old at the time and does not retain a copy of that letter, but remembers its contents due to the scientific knowledge of average survival age for men and women and the principle of thirds that governed its formation.