THIS BOOK WILL HELP YOU• to appreciate the variety, subtlety and wisdom of a unique philosophical tradition• to understand the major schools of thought that have shaped Chinese civilization• to draw on a rich cultural resource for different perspectives on questions of our time• to recognize traditional concepts that continue to inform Chinese thinking today China, an emerging superpower, is heir to an ancient civilization that owes little to outside influences....

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • An “irresistible” (The Washington Post) true story of love, murder, and the last moments of the “great hush” before wireless radio connected the world, from the renowned author of The Devil in the White City and The Demon of Unrest“Gripping . . . an edge-of-the-seat read.”—PeopleIn Thunderstruck, Erik Larson tells the interwoven stories of two men—Hawley Cripp...

An authoritative account of five thousand years of Chinese history.**"Exquisitely written." —**GuardianMany nations define themselves in terms of territory or people; China defines itself in terms of history. Taking into account the country's unrivaled, voluminous tradition of history writing, John Keay has composed a vital and illuminating overview of the nation's complex and vivid past.Keay's authoritative history examine...

“A wonderful job! So lucid, beautfully written, with greatrange and insight. This will set a new standard for shortgeneral histories of China.”—Michael Gasster,professor emeritus of history at Rutgers UniversityNewly updated and revised, China: Its History and Culture,Fourth Edition, incorporates the crucial social and economicchanges that have taken place in China over the last decade.Through rich detail and engaging illustrations, the book tracesChina’s ...

Religious ideas and actors have shaped Asian cultural practices for millennia and have played a decisive role in charting the course of its history. In this engaging and informative book, Thomas David DuBois sets out to explain how religion has influenced the political, social, and economic transformation of Asia from the fourteenth century to the present. Crossing a broad terrain from Tokyo to Tibet, the book highlights long-term trends and key moments, such as the expulsion of Catholic m...

Confucius—“Master Kung” (551–479 BCE), the Chinese thinker and social philosopher—originated teachings that have deeply influenced Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Vietnamese thought and life over many centuries. His philosophy emphasized personal and governmental morality, justice, and appropriateness in social relationships. In time these values gained prominence in China over other doctrines, such as Taoism and even Buddhism. His thoughts later developed into a system of philosophy known ...

Here is an introduction to the magical and mystical realm of Taoism through biographical and historical sketches of Taoist adepts over two thousand years. This panoramic view of the many faces of Taoism and its intimate connection with Chinese culture and society includes intriguing accounts of the Taoist secret societies that carried out mystical exercises and powerful consciousness-altering techniques, including sensory deprivation, incantation, visualization, and concentration.T...

Through biographies of China's most colorful and famous personalities, John Wills displays the five-thousand-year sweep of Chinese history from the legendary sage emperors to the tragedy of Tiananmen Square. This unique introduction to Chinese history and culture uses more than twenty exemplary lives--biographies of China's most colorful and famous personalities--including those of statesmen, philosophers, poets, and rulers, to provide the focus for accounts of key historical trends and pe...

Feng Shui has been known in the West for the last 150 years but has mostly been regarded as a primitive superstition. During the modern period successive regimes in China have suppressed its practice. However, in the last few decades Feng Shui has become a global spiritual movement with professional associations, thousands of titles published on the subject, countless websites devoted to it and millions of users. In this book Ole Bruun explains Feng Shui's Chinese origins and meanings as w...

Through a systematic introduction of Confucius as a historical figure, a spiritual leader, a philosopher, a political reformer, an educator, and a person, this book offers a comprehensive, lucid, and in-depth articulation of Confucius and his teachings for Western students. It explains how his ideas are different from their Western counterparts as well as challenging the orthodox Western understandings of Confucianism. The book reveals clearly how Confucius’s insights can be a rich resourc...

An internationally recognized authority on Chinese history and a leading innovator in its telling, Cho-yun Hsu constructs an original portrait of Chinese culture. Unlike most historians, Hsu resists centering his narrative on China's political evolution, focusing instead on the country's cultural sphere and its encounters with successive waves of globalization. Beginning long before China's written history and extending through the twentieth century, Hsu follows the content and expansion o...

In the global world of the twenty-first century, martial arts are practised for self-defense and sporting purposes only. However, for thousands of years, they were a central feature of military practice in China and essential for the smooth functioning of society. This book, which opens with an intriguing account of the very first female martial artist, charts the history of combat and fighting techniques in China from the Bronze Age to the present. This broad panorama affords fascinating ...