China Books - Page 6

The Illustrated Art of War

Sun Tzu

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 15 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

With well over a million copies sold, Sun Tzu's The Art of War is a true masterpiece, a series of brilliant aphorisms that illuminate the planning and conduct of war. Now this classic work is available in an elegant illustrated edition, featuring seventy-five color and black-and-white images. From perceptive descriptions of the nine varieties of terrain, to advice on how to gage an enemy's weaknesses and strengths, to suggestions on the employment of secret agents, here is timeless advice on combat and military strategy. Sun Tzu's writings are unsurpassed in depth of understanding, shedding light not only on battlefield maneuvers, but also on the relevant economic, political, and psychological factors that can shape the outcome of warfare. Equally important, the precepts outlined by Sun Tzu over two thousand years ago can be applied with great success outside the theater of war. Indeed, it is read avidly by corporate executives worldwide and has been touted in the movie Wall Street and the television series The Sopranos as the ultimate guide to strategy. Finally, this edition offers the definitive translation of Sun Tzu's text, by former U.S. Marine Brigadier General Samuel Griffith, who was also an authority of Mao Tse-Tung. Remarkable for its clear organization, lucid prose, and the acuity of its intellectual and moral insights, The Art of War is the definitive study of combat. It is an essential book for military history buffs, and an ideal gift for anyone who is interested in tactics and strategy, whether on the battlefield or in the boardroom.

China: A New History, Second Enlarged Edition

John King Fairbank, Merle Goldman

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 20 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Great 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful.

This book is a great overview of Chinese history. While true that Spence's Volume has more artistic qualities this volume is mor than sufficient for the student of history. Clear and concise, this book describes the major events of Chinese history while integrating a plethora of supplemental and recent scholarship. Anyone interested in diving further into Chinese history can use Fairbank and Goldman as a launching platform.

A visit to China 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 3 people found this review helpful.

Excellent and comprehensive history of China. A must read for anyone going to see this country.

Editorial Review:

John King Fairbank was the West's doyen on China, and this book is the full and final expression of his lifelong engagement with this vast ancient civilization. It remains a masterwork without parallel. The distinguished historian Merle Goldman brings the book up to date, covering reforms in the post-Mao period through the early years of the twenty-first century, including the leadership of Hu Jintao. She also provides an epilogue discussing the changes in contemporary China that will shape the nation in the years to come.

When Broken Glass Floats: Growing Up Under the Khmer Rouge

Chanrithy Him

List Price: $23.95 By: W. W. Norton & Company Amazon Marketplace: 35 new & used starting at $1.62

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Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Family & Childhood

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 44 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Every page kept my interest. 4 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

This was an entirely good read. One of the amazing things I kept realizing as I read is Chanrithy Him has condensed a number of harrowing years of into just ~300 pages, so the reader only hears about some of her experiences - there's probably much more that didn't make it to the pages of this memoir. Also, Him's story is only one out of myriad others . . . thousands of thousands of Cambodian people who could tell a story even more devastating than Him's.

When Broken Glass Floats kept me interested from cover to cover, and I enjoyed Him's writing style. It's likely I can't say anything positive that hasn't already been said, so I'll pick out a couple of things I wonder if other readers noticed.

For one, the black and white family photos included in the book did not resemble the images I had of disease-stricken, starving children Him described. For instance - granted he is wearing a shirt in the photos, none of the pictures show Map (Him's youngest sibling) with a protruding belly - although towards the end of the book Him tells her readers Map fails to lose this effect of starvation even after his diet improves. Similarly, the photo of Ra on her wedding day shows a young woman who looks healthy (nice complexion, full cheeks, hair in an up-do, clean floral shirt), so I couldn't help but feel confused because this is far from how Him described her physically weak, skinny sister who was barely recognize at times. I realize the photo was taken during better times, but do people so sick and hungry recover to that degree so quickly? Also, the memoir chronicles countless dizzying days, months, and years of walking, working, and barely surviving from severe dehydration, starvation, infection, diarrhea, disease, and depression; personal belongings (books, valuables, etc.) were stolen, taken by the Khmer Rouge, and lost along the way. Under those conditions, I couldn't help but feel a twinge of doubt as I read about the photos Him had "managed to keep safe during the Khmer Rouge time" (p. 330) and the "cream lace blouse from Phnom Penh, which she (Ra) managed to keep safe during the Khmer Rouge time" (p.286). Given the circumstances described, this just didn't seem plausible. But who knows . . . not a major problem for me, it just caught my attention - as did the typographical errors I found from time to time.

Great book . . . would have enjoyed a bit more of a history lesson. If that's what you're seeking you might look elsewhere, because this is a tale focused on a very strong and intelligent young girl's survival.

Editorial Review:

In this mesmerizing story, finalist for the Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize, Chanrithy Him vividly recounts her trek through the hell of the "killing fields." She gives us a child's-eye view of a Cambodia where rudimentary labor camps for both adults and children are the norm and modern technology no longer exists. Death becomes a companion in the camps, along with illness. Yet through the terror, the members of Chanrithy's family remain loyal to one another, and she and her siblings who survive will find redeemed lives in America. 15 b/w photographs.

When Heaven & Earth Changed Places

Le Ly Hayslip

List Price: $18.95 By: Doubleday Amazon Marketplace: 61 new & used starting at $0.46

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 44 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

I get it now, Le Ly. Thank you. 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

Not having lived a very memorable life, my own writing has leaned toward fiction. Nevertheless, I tend to judge memoirs--and this is a good one--by the same standards I use for great literary fiction. One of those standards is the opener, or first line, in this case, "SUFFOCATE HER!" the midwife told my mother when I came into the world.

This is what we in the business call a 'zinger,' the equal of Camus' "Mother died today." or Melville's "Call me Ishmael." What a beginning! On trial for her life right from the git-go. This opener effectively signalled the continuous trials and potential consequences Le Ly would face for the rest of her life. She would have to come from stern stock if she were to survive, and her mother held her genetic end up with her smokin' response to the midwife, "I will bury her when she stops breathing. Now get out of here."

I have been a student of the Vietnam War since I first joined the Army as a chopper pilot in 1967--ironic because I've never set foot in that unfortunate land. I suppose I'm motivated by survivor's guilt. Anyway, Le Ly's fine memoir anchors a good bit of my newly won understanding of that longest and strangest of American wars. Coming from a Republican military family and growing up in the Cold War as I did, I believed at the time that everybody knew about and accepted the Domino Theory. And with my father a Korean War veteran (as well as WWII and Vietnam) I believed that any communists that were brazen enough to encroach from the north could be pushed back with a proper dose of American military muscle. I served in S. Korea myself many years after that war and things seemed to be plugging along rather nicely, thus preserving in my mind the validity of the Domino Theory. Then came Vietnam and the awful realization that we were not invincible. Hell, we got our butts kicked! Initial study from an unbiased source--General Westmoreland--suggested that America didn't lose the war, the South Vietnamese did. And he was right in a sense. Marvin the ARVN was quite content to sit back and let Joe slug it out with the VC and the NVA. I couldn't understand this. How could they take such a lackadaisical attitude about the fate of their nation when they had so much at stake? Did this mean they were for communism??? How could anybody with half a brain be FOR communism? I am not and never have been a practicioner of 'Jane Fonda logic' wherein if America makes a few mistakes, then the injured party must be lily-white, Q.E.D. I could see what rats the VC and NVA were. I knew they were just a front for a repressive dictatorship. Why couldn't the South Vietnamese see that? I was baffled.

Well, along comes a nice lady with the incongruous name of Le Ly Hayslip, who writes a book about those very South Vietnamese who didn't care about their government, or their nation (at least as we Americans tried to define it for them), or to my great surprise, communism or democracy or freedom (again as we defined that term). All they really cared about was getting the rice crop in and raising a few sons to do the same. Then the VC came into their village and beat everybody up, so they felt obliged to follow communism. Most of them didn't really know what that meant, but if the VC would stop beating them up, they'd learn a few songs and dig a few bunkers, then get back to the rice crop. The VC would leave and the Vietnamese Republicans would come in and beat them up again. So they were obliged to pay a few bribes and act 'patriotic' so the new bully would go away and again they could get back to the rice crop. This bizarre pattern only seemed normal to them. Throughout their recent past they had always been plagued by one bully or another--the French with their Morrocan allies, the VC, the NVA, the Republicans, the Americans--they were all the same to them. There was always somebody trying to get between them and their rice paddies. Deep down inside they were as apolitical as the grains of rice they were so diligently trying to harvest. You can eat rice. you can't eat dogma. The rice had fed them for generations. The VC et al. only fed them baloney. I get it now, Le Ly. Thank you.

--Ejner Fulsang, author of "A Knavish Piece of Work." Aarhus Publishing, 2006

Editorial Review:

A Vietnamese woman describes her journey from war-torn central Vietnam to the United States, recounting how she endured imprisonment, torture, rape, near-starvation, and the deaths of members of her family. Reprint. Movie tie-in.

The Jesuit and the Skull: Teilhard de Chardin, Evolution, and the Search for Peking Man

Amir Aczel

Amazon Price: $7.49 List Price: $24.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Riverhead Hardcover Amazon Marketplace: 13 new & used starting at $7.34

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Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

In December 1929, in a cave near Peking, a group of anthropologists and archaeologists that included a young French Jesuit priest named Pierre Teilhard de Chardin uncovered a pre-human skull. The find quickly became known around the world as Peking Man and was acclaimed as the missing link between erect hunting apes and our Cro-Magnon ancestors. It also became a provocative piece of evidence in the roiling debate over creationism versus evolution.

For Teilhard, both a scientist and man of God, the discovery also exposed a deeply personal conflict between the new science and his faith. He was commanded by his superiors to deny all scientific evidence that went against biblical teachings, and his writing and lectures were censored by the Vatican. But his curiosity and desire to find connections between scientific and spiritual truth kept him investigating man's origins. His inner struggle, and, in turn, his public rebuke by the Catholic Church personified one of the central debates of our time: How to reconcile an individual's commitment to science and his commitment to his faith.

In The Jesuit and the Skull, bestselling author Amir D. Aczel vividly recounts the discovery of Peking Man and its repercussions, and how Teilhard de Chardin's scientific work helped to open the eyes of the world to new theories of humanity's origins that alarmed the traditionalists within the Church. A deft mix of narrative history and a poignant personal story, The Jesuit and the Skull brings fresh insight to a debate that still rages today.

Red Azalea

Anchee Min

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 58 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Excellent. 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

I finished the book in 2 days...I could've finished it in one but I'm a student so I couldn't finish it as early as planned. However, I love this book! I love Anchee Min..she is definetly my favorite author. I bought almost all her books. One of the book I really liked is Empress Orchid.

Editorial Review:

Red Azalea is Anchee Min’s celebrated memoir of growing up in the last years of Mao’s China. As a child, she was asked to publicly humiliate a teacher; at seventeen, she was sent to work at a labor collective. Forbidden to speak, dress, read, write, or love as she pleased, she found a lifeline in a secret love affair with another woman. Miraculously selected for the film version of one of Madame Mao’s political operas, Min’s life changed overnight. Then Chairman Mao suddenly died, taking with him an entire world. A revelatory and disturbing portrait of China, Anchee Min’s memoir is exceptional for its candor, its poignancy, its courage, and for its prose which Newsweek calls "as delicate and evocative as a traditional Chinese brush painting."

Lonely Planet Mongolia

Robert Storey

List Price: $16.95 By: Lonely Planet Publications Amazon Marketplace: 12 new & used starting at $0.20

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 21 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Excellent 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

In the past year I have spent six months in rural Mongolia. There is not much choice of guidebooks in English and we are fortunate that Lonely Planet has put out a small book that nevertheless conveys an awful lot of really good information. My copy was in constant use. On my visits to Ulaan Baatar I found the guide to be indispensable. Practically everything worth visiting was listed and described.

For a lot of western travellers, Mongolia will be a fairly daunting experience. The book identifies potential difficulties and suggests how to minimise problems. That being said, Mongolia is a great place to visit - fascinating coutry and wonderful people.

If you are going to Mongolia, "Don't leave home without it!"

Pretty much your only choice.... 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This guide is pretty much your only choice when it comes to travel guides of Mongolia. Nevertheless, I found it helpful and up to date everytime I came to rely it during my time in Mongolia.

Mongloia is indeed a huge country and this guide is small, but seemed complete and well researched and presented. Mongolia is indeed a remote place with little in the way of modern conveniences. This book is a good place to start when planning your trip or to find what you are looking for when you are on the road.

Editorial Review:

48 Maps

Return to Dragon Mountain: Memories of a Late Ming Man

Jonathan D. Spence

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Pleasurable trip back in time 5 out of 5 stars.
7 of 7 people found this review helpful.

This book is an evocative depiction of Ming society in China through the eyes of contemporary historian Zhang Dai. It's not a history book or a biography, but rather a snapshot of life in the late Ming dynasty. Particularly fascinating are the details of everyday gentry life, particularly in its varied and colorful amusements and hobbies, such as staging plays, tea connoisseurship, how people celebrated holidays, music, boating, antique collecting, poetry, etc., and in the duties expected of gentry, such as studying for and passing the bureaucratic exams to hold office. Also very interesting were the descriptions of Zhang's various relations (grandfathers, uncles and cousins) who varied to extremes in character and revealed much about different expressions of human nature within the social norms of the times. I felt this book truly brought ancient China alive for the reader and that alone makes this book a worthwhile read.

Editorial Review:

The renowned historian captures a critical moment in Chinese history

Celebrated China scholar Jonathan Spence vividly brings to life seventeenth-century China through this biography of Z hang Dai, recognized as one of the finest historians and essayists of the Ming dynasty. Born in 1597, Z hang Dai was forty-seven when the Ming dynasty, after more than two hundred years of rule, was overthrown by the Manchu invasion of 1644. Having lost his fortune and way of life, Z hang Dai fled to the countryside and spent his final forty years recounting the time of creativity and renaissance during Ming rule before the violent upheaval of its collapse. This absorbing tale of Z hang Dai’s life illuminates the transformation of a culture and reveals how China’s history affects its place in the world today.

Quotations From Chairman Mao Tse-Tung

Mao Tse-Tung

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Total reviews: 27 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Comrade Mao Tse-tung is the greatest Marxist-Leninist of our era. He has inherited, defended and developed Marxism-Leninism with genius, creatively and comprehensively, and has brought it to a higher and completely new stage.

Mao Tse-tung's thought is Marxism-Leninism of the era in which imperialism is heading for total collapse and socialism is advancing to world-wide victory. It is a powerful ideological weapon for opposing imperialism and for opposing revisionism and dogmatism. Mao Tse-tung's thought is the guiding principle for all the work of the Party, the army and the country.

Therefore, the most fundamental task in our Party's political and ideological work is at all times to hold high the great red banner of Mao Tse-tung's thought, to arm the minds of the people throughout the country with it and to persist in using it to command every field of activity. The broad masses of the workers, peasants and soldiers and the broad ranks of the revolutionary cadres and the intellectuals should really master Mao Tse-tung's thought; they should all study Chairman Mao's writings, follow his teachings, act according to his instructions and be his good fighters.

In studying the works of Chairman Mao, one should have specific problems in mind, study and apply his works in a creative way, combine study with application, first study what must be urgently applied so as to get quick results, and strive hard to apply what one is studying. In order really to master Mao Tse-tung's thought, it is essential to study many of Chairman Mao's basic concepts over and over again, and it is best to memorize important statements and study and apply them repeatedly. The newspapers should regularly carry quotations from Chairman Mao relevant to current issues for readers to study and apply.

The experience of the broad masses in their creative study and application of Chairman Mao's works in the last few years has proved that to study selected quotations from Chairman Mao with specific problems in mind is a good way to learn Mao Tse-tung's thought, a method conducive to quick results.

We have compiled Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung in order to help the broad masses learn Mao Tse-tung's thought more effectively. In organizing their study, units should select passages that are relevant to the situation, their tasks, the current thinking of their personnel, and the state of their work.

In our great motherland, a new era is emerging in which the workers, peasants and soldiers are grasping Marxism-Leninism, Mao Tse-tung's thought. Once Mao Tse-tung's thought is grasped by the broad masses, it becomes an inexhaustible source of strength and a spiritual atom bomb of infinite power. The large-scale publication of Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung is a vital measure for enabling the broad masses to grasp Mao Tse-tung's thought and for promoting the revolutionization of our people's thinking. It is our hope that all comrades will learn earnestly and diligently, bring about a new nation-wide high tide in the creative study and application of Chairman Mao's works, and, under the great red banner of Mao Tse-tung's thought, strive to build our country into a great socialist state with modern agriculture, modern industry, modern science and culture and modern national defence!

One Billion Customers: Lessons from the Front Lines of Doing Business in China

James McGregor

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 46 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A Must Read for Doing Business in China 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

One Billion Customers teaches by example. This book contains modern-day stories of foreigners doing business in China; some do it well, some poorly and some in between. But behind each story is a theme of what can, should, and should never be done when dealing with the Chinese, especially on their turf. There is no doubt that James McGregor is one of the foremost experts in the field given his time and experience in China and his journalism and research skills shine in the stories he relates to the reader. This book is also useful from a historical perspective given the historical details of modern-day China McGregor includes in One Billion Customers. Admittedly, I am not in a position to currently do business in China and as such, this book dragged on a bit for me. But if I ever were to be in China with a specific business task at hand, this book would never be more than an arm's length away.

Editorial Review:

Companies from around the globe are flocking to China to buy, sell, manufacture, and create new products, but as former Wall Street Journal China bureau chief turned successful corporate executive James McGregor explains, business in China is never quite what it seems. One Billion Customers offers compelling narratives of personalities, business deals, and lessons learned, creating a coherent pictures of China's emergence as a global economic power with a dog-eat-dog business climate that has turned bureaucrats into billionaires and left many foreign business executives with their pockets turned inside out.