"Indispensable to understanding the inseparable relationship between Mao and events in China over the last century. What's more, it's fascinating reading." - Chicago Sun-Times. "Journalistic yet authoritative . . . lively and readable . . . insightful in . . . unraveling Mao's contradictions." The New York Times. "An illuminating full-length portrait . . ." Los Angeles Times. "Ross Terrill, probably this country's preeminent writer on China, has . . . given us a whole man to replace the tw...

A peculiar facet of China's history is that its greatest villains have often been women. The evil Empress Wu lives on in legend, as does another ogre: the "White-Boned Demon," Madame Mao Zedong. On January 25, 1981, Jiang Qing, widow of Mao, was sentenced to death. Two years later, that sentence was changed to life imprisonment. The daughter of a concubine, Jiang Qing grew up as an outcast in the homes of wealthy men. In her early teens, she joined a troupe of roving actors. By the age of ...

In Australian Bush to TiananmenSquare Ross Terrillapplies his personal lens to China’s historic rise and turn from Moscow to the West. This book portrays Terrill’s correspondence with Zhou Enlai, Henry Kissinger, Guo Moruo, Chinese farmers, President Bush, students, Daoist monks, and dozens more. Chinese voices light up every paragraph as Terrill links turbulent events to his own exploration of China’s cities and villages.

Some observers expect China to become an economic superpower. Others expect it to fragment into pieces. Is China nationalistic and on the march, or is it a stumbling Communist dinosaur? Is it already a billion-citizen member of the global village? Is it, as the Clinton administration claimed, a "strategic partner" of the U.S.? Ross Terrill addresses the question upon which all these others depend: Is the People's Republic of China, whose polity is a hybrid of Chinese tradition and Western ...

In Napoleon, National Book Award winner J. Christopher Herold tells the fascinating story of a legendary leader who changed the world in every aspect - political, cultural, military, and commercial. Napoleon Bonaparte's rise from common origins to the pinnacle of power, as well as his defeat at Waterloo, still influences our daily lives, from the map of Europe to the metric system. Here's the fascinating story of the great soldier-statesman.

For two weeks in the summer of 1945, Winston Churchill, Harry Truman, and Josef Stalin gathered to reconstruct the world out of the ruins of World War II. They met "only a few miles," as President Truman noted, "from the war-shattered seat of Nazi power" - around a baize-covered table in the Cecilienhof Palace at Potsdam, a suburb of Berlin. The Allied powers had met twice before, engaging in the cordial horse-trading of properties and promises, to perpetuate a united military front agains...

Until now he has remained a mystery, leaving only a few sentences, the letters of his bankruptcy, a mistress's notarized complaint - and the most glorious, compassionate paintings ever to astonish the eye. The first pure biography of this enigmatic legend is a fascinating detective story in which, clue by clue, the man himself emerges. Charles Mee, historian and playwright, renders a finely textured portrait of the artist against a richly described background of seventeenth-century life. H...

Some of America's foremost historians - including James M. McPherson, Allan Nevins, and Stephen B. Oates - recount the extraordinary life of Abraham Lincoln in this collection of the best essays from sixty years of American Heritage. Lincoln, the book argues, "evolved into nothing less than an apostle for the sanctity of the Union, the ethic of majority rule, and the dreams of freedom and equality of opportunity. Who could have so predicted when Lincoln had seemed the least qualified candi...

Winston Churchill possessed an iron will and a subtle conscience. His staunch patriotism, tenacity, appetite for a fight, and, above all, his towering rhetoric inspired the British people to mount a gallant defense of their island nation. Having set a new bar for national heroism, he earned a place in the pantheon of the world's greatest leaders. Churchill, a fearless soldier, was a veteran of countless battles and a rider in one of Britain's last cavalry charges. He was also a gifted writ...

Looking into the past, the Crusades seem incomprehensible. What combination of religious fervor, hatred of people of different faiths, and gall led Europeans of 1100 A.D. to make their way thousands of miles to conquer the Holy Land? Why did they continue for 200 years? How did the Crusades change the world? The intriguing story is peppered with colorful characters. Over the centuries, this well-researched and written book argues, crusaders saw - and participated in - the evolution of warf...

It is no exaggeration to say that Margaret Thatcher remade Britain in her own image. She deregulated industry, brought the unions to their knees, privatized state-owned enterprises, waged war to defend the Falkland Islands, and teamed up with Ronald Reagan to win the Cold War. Her courage was remarkable and her character larger than life. She was a woman who brooked no fools, and her tongue could be rapier sharp. Here is the inspiring story of Britain's first and only woman prime minister....

Marco Polo's thirteenth-century journey from Italy to Asia marked a turning point for Western civilization. He returned with stories of exotic people, tremendous riches, and the most powerful ruler in the world Kublai Khan. The explorer told of inventions ranging from gunpowder to paper money. The intellectual ferment and cultural diversity he described helped move Europe out of the Dark Ages and into the Renaissance. In his lifetime, people scoffed at his stories. But as this book explain...