Asia Books - Page 6

The Web That Has No Weaver : Understanding Chinese Medicine

Ted J. Kaptchuk

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 34 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

the web that has no weaver 5 out of 5 stars.
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Very good introduction to Traditional Chinese Medicine. The autor explains very clearly the difference between Oriental and Western thinking.

Best authority on chinese medicine i have ever read 5 out of 5 stars.
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This book is great for the student and profesional alike. It explanes everything in a way that is easy to get a grasp on. Im a second year student of T.C.M and recomend this book to anyone desiring a better knowledge of the practice.

a great book for conventional physicians 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

i'm still busy reading the book (final chapters).
dr. kaptchuk succeeds in presenting the chinese phylosophy to physicians reared on conventional ideas and practice.
the book is very efficient in pacifying any conflict between the two schools of thought.
great book, great purchase.

Turns TCM more interesting by demystifiing it 5 out of 5 stars.
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five stars because could't give more. Definitely interesting. It is a good source for the non oriental student of chinese medicine. Not abstract mysticism but instead a non passionate discourse of the phylosophical background of TCM

Editorial Review:

Completely and thoroughly revised, The Web That Has No Weaver is the classic, comprehensive guide on the theory and practice of Chinese medicine. This accessible and invaluable resource has earned its place as the foremost authority in the synthesizing of Western and Eastern healing practices.

Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia

Ahmed Rashid

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 145 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Shrouding themselves and their aims in deepest secrecy, the leaders of the Taliban movement control Afghanistan with an inflexible, crushing fundamentalism. The most extreme and radical of all Islamic organizations, the Taliban inspires fascination, controversy, and especially fear in both the Muslim world and the West. Correspondent Ahmed Rashid brings the shadowy world of the Taliban into sharp focus in this enormously interesting and revealing book. It is the only authoritative account of the Taliban and modern day Afghanistan available to English language readers.

Based on his experiences as a journalist covering the civil war in Afghanistan for twenty years, traveling and living with the Taliban, and interviewing most of the Taliban leaders since their emergence to power in 1994, Rashid offers unparalleled firsthand information. He explains how the growth of Taliban power has already created severe instability in Russia, Iran, Pakistan, and five Central Asian republics. He describes the Taliban’s role as a major player in a new “Great Game”—a competition among Western countries and companies to build oil and gas pipelines from Central Asia to Western and Asian markets. The author also discusses the controversial changes in American attitudes toward the Taliban—from early support to recent bombings of Osama Bin Laden’s hideaway and other Taliban-protected terrorist bases—and how they have influenced the stability of the region.

River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze (P.S.)

Peter Hessler

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Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Politics -> International -> Relations

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 164 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A fast and engaging read 5 out of 5 stars.
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Hessler writes candidly about his experiences in China as if he were writing to a friend back home. His accounts of conversations between himself and the locals are priceless, both funny and sad. This book really brings to light the hardships of Chinese farmers and their children, who seek to escape their rural lives by getting an education and joining the Communist Party.

Hessler's self-deprecating tone and funny anecdotes about his cultural mishaps make this book entertaining and touching. I strongly recommend it for anyone who wants to visit China or is interested in learning more about what makes this complex society tick.

Editorial Review:

A New York Times Notable Book

Winner of the Kiriyama Book Prize

In the heart of China's Sichuan province, amid the terraced hills of the Yangtze River valley, lies the remote town of Fuling. Like many other small cities in this ever-evolving country, Fuling is heading down a new path of change and growth, which came into remarkably sharp focus when Peter Hessler arrived as a Peace Corps volunteer, marking the first time in more than half a century that the city had an American resident. Hessler taught English and American literature at the local college, but it was his students who taught him about the complex processes of understanding that take place when one is immersed in a radically different society.

Poignant, thoughtful, funny, and enormously compelling, River Town is an unforgettable portrait of a city that is seeking to understand both what it was and what it someday will be.

Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam

John A. Nagl

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 50 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Invariably, armies are accused of preparing to fight the previous war. In Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife, Lieutenant Colonel John A. Nagl—a veteran of both Operation Desert Storm and the current conflict in Iraq—considers the now-crucial question of how armies adapt to changing circumstances during the course of conflicts for which they are initially unprepared. Through the use of archival sources and interviews with participants in both engagements, Nagl compares the development of counterinsurgency doctrine and practice in the Malayan Emergency from 1948 to 1960 with what developed in the Vietnam War from 1950 to 1975.

In examining these two events, Nagl—the subject of a recent New York Times Magazine cover story by Peter Maass—argues that organizational culture is key to the ability to learn from unanticipated conditions, a variable which explains why the British army successfully conducted counterinsurgency in Malaya but why the American army failed to do so in Vietnam, treating the war instead as a conventional conflict. Nagl concludes that the British army, because of its role as a colonial police force and the organizational characteristics created by its history and national culture, was better able to quickly learn and apply the lessons of counterinsurgency during the course of the Malayan Emergency.

With a new preface reflecting on the author's combat experience in Iraq, Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife is a timely examination of the lessons of previous counterinsurgency campaigns that will be hailed by both military leaders and interested civilians.

(20060328)

Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway

Jonathan Parshall, Anthony Tully

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Subjects -> History -> Military -> Naval
Subjects -> History -> Military -> World War II -> Naval

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 115 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Many consider the Battle of Midway to have turned the tide of the Pacific War. It is without question one of the most famous battles in history. Now, for the first time since Gordon W. Prange’s bestselling Miracle at Midway, Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully offer a new interpretation of this great naval engagement.

Unlike previous accounts, Shattered Sword makes extensive use of Japanese primary sources. It also corrects the many errors of Mitsuo Fuchida’s Midway: The Battle That Doomed Japan, an uncritical reliance upon which has tainted every previous Western account. It thus forces a major, potentially controversial reevaluation of the great battle. The authors examine the battle in detail and effortlessly place it within the context of the Imperial Navy’s doctrine and technology. With a foreword by leading WWII naval historian John Lundstrom, Shattered Sword will become an indispensable part of any military buff’s library. Winner of the 2005 John Lyman Book Award for the "Best Book in U.S. Naval History" and cited by Proceedings as one of its "Notable Naval Books" for 2005.

Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of Energy Independence

Robert Bryce

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 39 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

A surprising, irreverent, and scrupulously reported deconstruction of today's fashions in energy policy.

Everybody is talking about "energy independence." But is it really achievable? Is it actually even desirable? In this controversial, meticulously researched book, Robert Bryce exposes the false promises behind the rhetoric while blasting nearly everybody--Republicans, Democrats, environmentalists, and war-mongering neoconservatives--for misleading voters about our energy needs.

Gusher of Lies explains why the idea of energy independence appeals to voters while also showing that renewable sources like wind and solar cannot meet America's growing energy demand. Along the way, Bryce eviscerates the ethanol scam. Whether the issue is cost, water consumption, or food prices, corn ethanol is one of the longest-running robberies ever perpetrated on American taxpayers.

Consumers concerned about peak oil and the future of global energy supplies need to understand that energy security depends on embracing free markets and the realities of interdependence. Gusher of Lies is illuminating, vital reading.

The Ghost Mountain Boys: Their Epic March and the Terrifying Battle for New Guinea---The Forgotten War of the South Pacific

James Campbell

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 21 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

So close you can almost feel it... 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful.

Over the past few years I've tried to expand my knowledge of America's early struggle in WWII, before we were the arsenal of freedom. One of my focus points has been the war in the South West Pacific (for those not familiar, New Guinea). To further this effort, I picked up The Ghost Mountain Boys.

The Ghost Mountain Boys deals with the 32nd Infantry Division (ID) (the 32nd ID was made up of Michigan and Wisconsin National Guardsmen who were Federalized), their training, deployment to Australia, and exploits in the battle for Buna (Buna is a small village on the north coast of New Guinea). While Mr. Campbell tells us the story of the 32nd ID, the real focus is on the 2nd Battalion, 126th Regiment and the supporting units that hiked over the Owen Stanley Mountains via native trails. The reason for this focus is the grueling nature of the hike; going from sea-level to about 10000 feet, then back down to sea-level while carrying your equipment in a tropical jungle environment was exceedingly grueling. This merged with the telling of the battle for Buna makes for an excellent read.

For the New Guinea portion, The Ghost Mountain Boys covers the Japanese advance down the Kokodo and their eventual halt (due to the Australians and the 5th Air Force). In writing about the Australian contribution, Mr. Campbell relies solely on documented historical record. This is an interesting counter-point to the rest of the book because there Mr. Campbell weaves an interesting blend of documented history with oral and letters and diaries from soldier to tell this story. Most sections open with Mr. Campbell setting the stage and then bringing in the additional material to complete the story (always at the appropriate moment. This mixture paints a very desperate environment where war is at its worst; soldiers suffering from malaria and other tropical disease crawling thru the kuni grass without a machete to take out dug-in Japanese positions makes for something of a heart wrenching story (yes, it's shocking at times the conditions the men were in and expected to fight). Making matters worse was that General MacArthur (nick-named Dug-out Doug) was putting incredible pressure on Generals Harding and Eichelberger to capture Buna at the soonest (later General MacArthur said schedule was not a factor) without being aware of the situation (MacArthur never came north of Port Moresby).

Rating wise, this one's a solid 4.5 star book that I'm rounding up to 5. First, this is a fairly unique subject to write on. The only other book I've read on this campaign was Bloody Buna and this one blows Bloody Buna away in many ways. This leads directly to Mr. Campbell's writing style; it's compelling, you can't wait to turn the page to see what happens next. I found myself sucked into the story of Major Stuttering Smith, Private Jastrzembski, Sgt. Bottcher and the rest. Yes, the Ghost Mountain Boys are compelling and so are the rest of the 32nd ID. The only real weakness is the maps. There're four maps, one showing the Pacific, one showing the path from Port Moresby to Buna, and two show the general situation around Buna. What really would have completed this book though is a couple of maps that showed the tactical situation where the 32nd Id was attacking and the Japanese defensive positions. Other than that though, this is a superb book documenting a little known subject in American history.

Editorial Review:

Reminiscent of classics like Band of Brothers and The Things They Carried, this harrowing portrait of a largely overlooked campaign is part war diary, part extreme adventure tale, and---through letters, journals, and interviews---part biography of a group of men who fought to survive in an environment every bit as fierce as the enemy they faced.

The Bin Ladens

Steve Coll

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 26 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Important and Valuable Read on Globalization's Trappings 5 out of 5 stars.
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With his "The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century" Steve Coll has written something relevant and valuable. In his meticulous reporting of a powerful Middle Eastern family that spawned the world's most famous terrorist Steve Coll has, more important, revealed the trappings of globalization.

The Bin Ladens is the Saud royal family's contractors, and they have literally built most of Saudi Arabia. They are a large and expansive, devout and traditional Muslim family but before anything else they are businessmen. That's why they will assiduously cultivate good relations with the corrupt and tyrannical Saud royal family, whose very whim rests the fate of the family. They will also tear down and bulldoze to a fault the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, and transfer their capital and assets out of Saudi Arabia in times of uncertainty. By being absolutely loyal to the Saud royal family, even acting as one of their largest creditors, the Bin Ladens has prospered, even though because their private and business dealings are so blurred together and because the thorny web of personal relationships that constitute business in Saudi Arabia means everyone owe and is owed money to someone else, they have no idea how much they're worth.

As a mighty tome this book discusses many topics but ultimately it's about, as the subtitle suggests, the Bin Ladens and globalization. And while this is a family epic the patriarch was much too prodigious (fathering at least 54 children), and the story centers around two Bin Laden scions: the eldest and heir Salem and his younger half-brother Osama.

Sent to English boarding schools at a young age the very large and personable Salem, as the heir apparent to this family's construction empire, must have learned quickly that wealth in a global free market means he can live his life like a wet dream. After his father died Salem did much to globalize his company, and retained many foreigners -- lawyers and advisors, pilots and girlfriends -- in his retinue. Yet, out of necessity, Salem was staunchly loyal to the Saud royal family, even doing intelligence work for them -- such as supplying the mujahedeen arms, money, and Osama in their fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan. Freely moving between the West and his homeland Salem's ultimate dream was to have four Western women from different countries as his wives: for him this was the true meaning of globalization.

Osama Bin Laden led a very different life from Salem. His mother had him when she was fifteen, and, because there were so many wives already in the Bin Laden household and as was the custom, she re-married, and it was in junior high that the Osama became involved tangentially with the Muslim Brotherhood and radical Islam. At that time many young boys in Saudi Arabia were drawn to radical Islam, and it's possible that like fatherless black teenagers in New York who joined gangs they were drawn in because they desperately wanted authority and structure in their lives. When Middle Eastern patriarchs decide to have dozens of sons they in fact sentence all of them to a fatherless existence. And while Osama had a kind stepfather his Bin Laden name meant he was in fact superior to his stepfather, and therefore could never look up to him.

Besides providing Osama with structure and order Islam also sated his second most immediate need: sex. Islam permitted Osama at 17 to marry a younger cousin of 14, and would permit him to marry three more times. And fighting the jihad in Afghanistan Osama may have been motivated by yet another mundane reason: respect from his half-brothers. The Saudi royal family supported the war, and thus the Bin Laden family supported the war -- and here was an opportunity for Osama to finally prove himself to the Bin Ladens. Ultimately, it did not but in Afghanistan he created a new family for himself: Al-Qaeda.

"Ambition, energy, natural talent, and a gift for managing people had made [the patriarch] Mohamed Bin Laden wealthy," Steve Coll writes. "Reinterpreted by Salem, these characteristics had girded a secular life of singular creativity and financial success. Reinterpreted through a prism of Islamic radicalism by Osama, they would soon prove just as transforming."

And what Osama realized was that the very tools of globalization -- mobile phones, Internet, and international finance -- could be used against globalization itself with devastating effect.

Unfortunately, globalization's prophets were so enamored of their creation they could not imagine this was possible. During the late Clinton administration federal agents tried to ascertain the funds available to Osama by hacking into Swiss banks but their overlords overruled this, arguing this would compromise confidence in the European banking system.

What was so traumatic about the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks was not the degree of damage but how it shattered our very sense of the world -- of what is fixed, true, and right. By turning the very symbols of modernity and globalization against itself Osama Bin Laden showed how messy and precarious our world really is, and that's a sort of metaphysical trauma almost impossible to recover from.

Globalization indeed is a messy and complicated process, as the Bin Laden family would discover. Yes, globalization meant cheap access to German prostitutes and German cars but it also brought many complications. While in America Bin Laden family members were swindled out of their money, and harassed by the police about if they were treating their household help properly. When one Bin Laden son found himself in American divorce court, and constantly harassed about his actual finances -- which he knew nothing about -- by his wife's divorce lawyers he yearned for the ease and simplicity of patriarchal Muslim law. Not at all strange that while reared in modern and progressive Western society most Bin Laden sons in the end chose the comfort and certainty of their corrupt and close-minded homeland.

Globalization, like the Internet and modernity, is neither good nor bad. It just is -- it promises and it imperils, it strengthens and weakens, it creates and destroys. Many are turned off by globalization's inherent messiness and complication, and thus it's not surprising many -- in every society -- will seek comfort and consolation in religion, the simplest and most dogmatic thing available to them.

And so Osama Bin Laden is not globalization's enemy. He is, like his other brother Salem and like the Bin Laden family and like all of us, ensnared and overwhelmed by globalization, desperately trying in his own way to best make sense of it.

Coldest Winter, The: America and the Korean War

David Halberstam

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Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

"In a grand gesture of reclamation and remembrance, Mr. Halberstam has brought the war back home."
--The New York Times

David Halberstam's magisterial and thrilling The Best and the Brightest was the defining book about the Vietnam conflict. More than three decades later, Halberstam used his unrivaled research and formidable journalistic skills to shed light on another pivotal moment in our history: the Korean War. Halberstam considered The Coldest Winter his most accomplished work, the culmination of forty-five years of writing about America's postwar foreign policy.

Halberstam gives us a masterful narrative of the political decisions and miscalculations on both sides. He charts the disastrous path that led to the massive entry of Chinese forces near the Yalu River and that caught Douglas MacArthur and his soldiers by surprise. He provides astonishingly vivid and nuanced portraits of all the major figures-Eisenhower, Truman, Acheson, Kim, and Mao, and Generals MacArthur, Almond, and Ridgway. At the same time, Halberstam provides us with his trademark highly evocative narrative journalism, chronicling the crucial battles with reportage of the highest order. As ever, Halberstam was concerned with the extraordinary courage and resolve of people asked to bear an extraordinary burden.

The Coldest Winter is contemporary history in its most literary and luminescent form, providing crucial perspective on every war America has been involved in since. It is a book that Halberstam first decided to write more than thirty years ago and that took him nearly ten years to complete. It stands as a lasting testament to one of the greatest journalists and historians of our time, and to the fighting men whose heroism it chronicles.

The Bridge at Dong Ha (Bluejacket Books)

John Grider Miller

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A "Well Done" Presentation of A Marine Legend 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

This is one of the best written "Marine Legend" books that this former Marine has ever read.

John Grider Miller did an excellent job of interviewing Colonel (then Captain) John Ripley and his other sources. He presents what Colonel Ripley, his U.S. Army counterpart Major Jim Smock, and the Vietnamese Marines did at Dong Ha in 1972 in a fascinating story that is a quick and easy read. He also includes some of those intangible details that civilians may not notice, but that any Marine who served in Vietnam (or anywhere else) will recognize and appreciate.

Colonel Ripley's exploits are legendary in the U.S. Marine Corps. So too the courage of those Vietnamese Marines he served with as a "trusted friend" on that Easter Sunday. Colonel Ripley's visit to the gravesite near Di An tells it all. The bond between these "brothers in arms" was formed by honor, courage, commitment, mutual respect and sacrifice.

This book is on the Commandant's Reading list for all Marines, Private through General. And rightly so. It sets the standard high for all of us. It has an honored place in the "Read Again" section of my personal library.

Editorial Review:

In his desperate attempt to blow up the bridge at Dong Ha and keep some 30,000 men and 200 tanks at bay, Ripley endured three hours of direct fire to rig some 500 pounds of explosives. Such a story of raw courage and personal resolve is rarely encountered.