This book is an engagingly written critical genealogy of the idea of "love" in modern Chinese literature, thought, and popular culture. It examines a wide range of texts, including literary, historical, philosophical, anthropological, and popular cultural genres from the late imperial period to the beginning of the socialist era. It traces the process by which love became an all-pervasive subject of representation and discourse, as well as a common language in which modern notions of self, gender, family, sexuality, and nation were imagined and contested. Winner of the Association for Asian Studies 2009 Joseph Levenson Book Prize for the best English-language academic book on post-1900 China
If you were to travel the world, you would quickly come to realize that the vast majority of humanity has the same list of wants and needs: food, shelter, water, education, justice and safety, to name a few. Joys and sorrows, hopes and desperations are also similar in many ways. Even though it sometimes justifies our personal paradigm to believe differently, WE ARE ALL FUNDAMENTALLY THE SAME. If at the core we are all the same, why then is it that we collectively are having such a hard time? Essentially, this last question is where the inspiration for this book comes from. The content of the book comes from the author’s decades of research, observations and experiences gained while living and working in more than nine different countries, visiting over sixty countries spread on six continents. A love, a passion and ultimately, a belief that humanity has the power to choose to create a better life for all is the driving force behind this exploration of human suffering and how to ultimately rise above it. This need for a better life for all has never been as apparent as it is now. Our collective denial of the reality of suffering is being confronted. We are starting to realize that there is no choice but to deal with it: problems are not going away but rather, they seem to be multiplying exponentially. Perhaps we live in times where it has become luxurious thinking to believe that someone else will fix the environment, the economy, social injustices, international conflicts, human trafficking, or poverty. It is time for greatness on a mass level to be expressed. This book is meant to appeal to the heart more than the mind. The expression ‘analyzing something to death’ couldn’t be more appropriate than now. All potential progress seems to be continuously stalled with the belief that there is a need to generate more data to really understand the problems. Will we die as a species because of our mind’s obsession for analysis or will our hearts see through the smoke of insanity, put out the fires so that at some point, hopefully sooner than later, the mind will be able to see clearly through its confusion. Ultimately, the question is how will we individually and collectively deal with the problems currently facing humanity? This question is essentially addressed to the vast majority of humanity as most are suffering from the excessive greed that has swept the planet. There are countless ways one can contribute to the betterment of the world. It always starts with people taking one small step to make a difference. It starts with YOU! Never underestimate the power that one person has to change the world. The purpose of the book is threefold: to bring about an awareness of the current situation on the planet so that people can start to question their current paradigm and see how they feed into the problems rather than help solve them; to encourage a new level of personal responsibility that is necessary in any time of change or crisis; and provide information and tools to help in the transformational process by empowering people. The book is divided into three parts: Part 1: It’s All About Me, Isn’t It? – The Individual Part 2: What About the Others? – The Collective Part 3: Together – The Individual and the Collective Each part has a different number of chapters. The general book outline follows: Foreword: This part introduces why the book was written. The foreword sets the stage for what is to come in the book and encourages the reader to read right through as some chapters are more challenging than others and that the solutions proposed are spread throughout the book. Part 1: It’s All About Me, I
What will the fracturing of the United States look like? After the Revolution is an edge-of-your-seat answer to that question. In the year 2070, twenty years after a civil war and societal collapse of the "old" United States, extremist militias battle in the crumbling Republic of Texas. As the violence spreads like wildfire and threatens the Free City of Austin, three unlikely allies will have to work together in an act of resistance to stop the advance of the forces of the white Christian ethnostate known as the "Heavenly Kingdom." Out three protagonists include Manny, a fixer that shuttles journalists in and out of war zones and provides footage for outside news agencies. Sasha is a teenage woman that joins the Heavenly Kingdom before she discovers the ugly truths behind their movement. Finally, we have Roland: A US Army vet kitted out with cyberware (including blood that heals major trauma wounds and a brain that can handle enough LSD to kill an elephant), tormented by broken memories, and 12,000 career kills under his belt. In the not-so-distant world Evans conjures we find advanced technology, a gender expansive culture, and a roving Burning Man-like city fueled by hedonistic excess. This powerful debut novel from Robert Evans is based on his investigative reporting from international conflict zones and on increasingly polarized domestic struggles. It is a vision of our very possible future.
This award-winning foreign correspondent’s vivid account of Central Asia’s recent history “reads like a novel but is the stuff of hard-won journalism” (Gary Shteyngart, author of Absurdistan). Here are the stories of two revolutions, a massacre of unarmed civilians, a civil war, a drug-smuggling highway, brazen corruption schemes, contract hits, and larger-than-life characters who may be villains, heroes, or possibly both. Restless Valley is a gripping, contemporary chronicle of Central Asia from a veteran journalist with extensive experience in the region. Both Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan have struggled with the challenges of post-Soviet, independent statehood, and both became entangled in America’s Afghan campaign when the United States built military bases within their borders. Meanwhile, the region was becoming a key smuggling hub for Afghanistan’s booming heroin trade. Through the eyes of local participants—the powerful and the powerless—Shishkin reconstructs how Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan have ricocheted between extreme repression and democratic strivings; how alliances with the United States and Russia have brought mixed blessings; and how Stalin’s legacy of ethnic gerrymandering continues to incite conflict today. “The weird, the strange, the corrupt, and the grand are all evident . . . [Shishkin] relentlessly pursues and then tells the stories of the most corrupt and powerful and also the most sincere and admirable characters who inhabit these mountains.” —Ahmed Rashid, The New York Review of Books
A call for the nonprofit sector to become self-sustaining by adopting rigorous business standards and for citizens to assume direct responsibility for their communities by contributing their skills and time.
From a debut author, an intimate, multigenerational narrative of the Russian and Chinese revolutions through the eyes of the Chinese youth who traveled to the Soviet Union and the fate of their blended offspring
If you were to travel the world, you would quickly come to realize that the vast majority of humanity has the same list of wants and needs: food, shelter, water, education, justice and safety, to name a few. Joys and sorrows, hopes and desperations are also similar in many ways. Even though it sometimes justifies our personal paradigm to believe differently, WE ARE ALL FUNDAMENTALLY THE SAME. If at the core we are all the same, why then is it that we collectively are having such a hard time? Essentially, this last question is where the inspiration for this book comes from. The content of the book comes from the author’s decades of research, observations and experiences gained while living and working in more than nine different countries, visiting over sixty countries spread on six continents. A love, a passion and ultimately, a belief that humanity has the power to choose to create a better life for all is the driving force behind this exploration of human suffering and how to ultimately rise above it. This need for a better life for all has never been as apparent as it is now. Our collective denial of the reality of suffering is being confronted. We are starting to realize that there is no choice but to deal with it: problems are not going away but rather, they seem to be multiplying exponentially. Perhaps we live in times where it has become luxurious thinking to believe that someone else will fix the environment, the economy, social injustices, international conflicts, human trafficking, or poverty. It is time for greatness on a mass level to be expressed. This book is meant to appeal to the heart more than the mind. The expression ‘analyzing something to death’ couldn’t be more appropriate than now. All potential progress seems to be continuously stalled with the belief that there is a need to generate more data to really understand the problems. Will we die as a species because of our mind’s obsession for analysis or will our hearts see through the smoke of insanity, put out the fires so that at some point, hopefully sooner than later, the mind will be able to see clearly through its confusion. Ultimately, the question is how will we individually and collectively deal with the problems currently facing humanity? This question is essentially addressed to the vast majority of humanity as most are suffering from the excessive greed that has swept the planet. There are countless ways one can contribute to the betterment of the world. It always starts with people taking one small step to make a difference. It starts with YOU! Never underestimate the power that one person has to change the world. The purpose of the book is threefold: to bring about an awareness of the current situation on the planet so that people can start to question their current paradigm and see how they feed into the problems rather than help solve them; to encourage a new level of personal responsibility that is necessary in any time of change or crisis; and provide information and tools to help in the transformational process by empowering people. The book is divided into three parts: Part 1: It’s All About Me, Isn’t It? – The Individual Part 2: What About the Others? – The Collective Part 3: Together – The Individual and the Collective Each part has a different number of chapters. The general book outline follows: Foreword: This part introduces why the book was written. The foreword sets the stage for what is to come in the book and encourages the reader to read right through as some chapters are more challenging than others and that the solutions proposed are spread throughout the book. Part 1: It’s All About Me, I
"In 1784 peace has been declared, but war still rages in the heart of Lark Benton. Never did Lark think she'd want to escape Emerson Fielding, the man she's loved all her life, but then he betrays her with her cousin. She flees to Annapolis, Maryland, the country's capital, and throws herself into a new circle of friends who force her to examine all she believes. Emerson follows, determined to reclaim his betrothed. Surprised when she refuses to return with him, he realizes that in this new country he has come to call his own, duty is no longer enough. He must learn to open his heart and soul to something greater... before he loses all he should have been fighting to hold."--P. [4] of cover.
In 1961, Richard Goldstein saw Bob Dylan perform for the first time at Carnegie Hall. Rock music was in its infancy, and revolution was in the air. Criticism of the genre didn't yet exist but, as it began to change music and politics for ever, the serious discussion of rock became a thriving institution. Aged just twenty-two in 1966, and the first rock critic in New York, Goldstein became a pivotal figure in the industry. Forging close relationships with huge names – Jim Morrison, Brian Wilson and Janis Joplin to name just three – his life became a whirlwind of politics, sex and rock and roll. Another Little Piece of My Heart is an unparalleled document of rock and revolution.
