This is a wonderfully written account of a missionary's life in early 20th century China. Both educational and entertaining. Well worth the reader's time. Ed Bliss does the subject exquisite justice.

From what I've read of reviews and from what I know of the content of this beautifully written biography of a father by his son.

"Beyond the Stone Arches" is the gripping story of a pioneer missionary doctor who served for four decades in a mission station deep in the interior of Fujian province. Each chapter could stand alone, for the scene changes from Imperial China to the shaky, new Republic in 1911, to civil wars, banditry, floods, plague and cholera epidemics - but through it all, Edward Bliss, Jr. tells the story of his father's daily work, his love for China and its people, his ventures such as raising milk cows so children could have milk, and his courage in the face of danger from Communist guerrillas, bandit gangs and rampant warlords. The book reads like an autobiography, for the author draws heavily on his own extensive interviews with his father and his father's letters, plus the author's own memories of childhood in pre-modern China. This is not a stereotype "missionary book!"

An engaging adventure enfolds when Bushi escapes a gang of school yard bullies by fleeing into a karate studio. He falls, losing consciousness and dreams he meets the master who founded the school and has an adventure, in which he learns to escape a larger adversary by jumping aside during an attack. When he reawakens, he uses this technique to land the bully in a fountain and escapes again to attend Karate class. Includes small glossary of Japanese words used in the story.

Once again Mat Faulkner have brought another great book into american liture this book is the best i love his illistrations and te story line is great i hope his next book maybe a sexquil? Will be just as good.

Once again Matt Faulkner demonstrates his outstanding abilities in the literary as well as artistic realm. "Black Belt" rises to the top among his other works such as: "Amazing Voyage of Jackie Grace," and"Jack and the Beanstalk." His illustration is so beautiful you almost need no words to read the story of Bushi and his nemesis Yag yu. What child has not lived through Bushi's experience and dreamed that he would be the victor. The story has everything that makes a book exciting for a child: Magical illustrations, a real life problem, a possible solution, and a surprise ending that leaves you wishing for more. What more could you ask for?

This is simply the best book written by an American about war. Mr. Terry interviewed grunts who more often than not had been to Hell and the book captures the flailing, coughing evil of the place. Terry avoids the B.S. that goes with military ambition. His men were Black soldiers with no sense of "pro patria mori" and varying loyalty to the greater patriotic cause. This book is a dead-down opposite to William Manchester's "American Caesar," a first-rate biography of Douglas MacArthur, who is deservedly revered as a courageous soldier and brilliant general. Terry's "Oral History" reaches down into our humanity and finds a core of emotion that must have been with us when we lived in caves, fearing wild beasts. ****** The challenge is finishing "Bloods." Hell is impossible to visit; "Bloods" is as close as you're going to get. ****** This reviewer carries a VA "purple card."

I have bought this book twice and through cross country moves I have unfortunately lost both copies. It is a true tradegy to me that it is out of print. It is a sterling example of bravery, discrimination, and heart in a "tell it like it is" format. It should be required reading.

Racism in the American military helped to prevent American political objectives in Vietnam from becoming a reality. The enemy exploited white racism to the point it divided our forces and reduced our military ability to exert its full capabilities... too many Americans left the Constitution at home. "Bloods" tells it like it is. A superb collection. I applaud it.

Here Gao Yuan provides a personal account of the political insanity of China's Cultural Revolution, which he was swept up into as a teenager. Chairman Mao's instructions to the youths of the countryside to ferret out those who weren't "revolutionary" or "pure" enough quickly lead to the real-life "Lord of the Flies" scenario that we can see in this book. Now I'm certainly no expert on Chinese history, but Mao's attempt to lead the people to a glorious revolution through the elimination of so-called enemies hardly made the population stronger and ready to move forward to his glorious communist future. This would require teamwork and cooperation among all people. Instead the Cultural Revolution made everyone suspicious of everyone else, as people were desperate to prove how righteous they were by ferreting out class enemies. If you couldn't find any enemies, you just made them up. Whoever was the loudest and most violent won the battle, and proof went out the window.

Gao Yuan was swept up in this insanity, and in the beginning of his narrative he enjoyed proving his revolutionary zeal by "outing" the teachers at his school who supposedly were not righteous or revolutionary enough, and participated in destroying many of their careers. But Gao stopped having so much fun when the lives of his friends, his family, and finally himself were destroyed. Instead of the unified force of revolutionary youth that Mao envisioned, the logical outcome was the disintegration of the youth movement into smaller and smaller factions, who merely used Mao's instructions as an excuse to bully each other and consolidate power. Gao is not afraid to admit to his own evil acts, such as when he participated in the beating of a teenage girl, pulled a meat cleaver on his own father, or when he helped destroy a hospital, all because he was lead to believe that his politics were more righteous than everyone else's. He then watches helplessly as the countryside descends into factionalism and anarchy. Some parts of this book are quite alarming, as the youths digress into torture and warfare, and many of Gao's friends are severely injured or killed in the factional fighting.

One interesting side effect of this book is Gao's descriptions of the personality cult Chairman Mao built around himself, and how he bullied the people into worshipping him as a supreme deity. This man succeeded in making a billion people think he was a god. That's an interesting study in politics and sociology.

"Born Red" is not a broad historical account of the Cultural Revolution, but the autobiography of a man who was a young student in an elite "middle school" at the outset of this tumultuous and destructive period of recent Chinese history. The students were urged to ferret out "counter-revolutionaries" and given almost free reign over their decisions and punitive actions. I agree with the prior reviewer that this book brings to mind a real "Lord of the Flies," and would add to that the Salem Witch Trials.

Although their actions were encouraged, at the outset, by their teachers, the students quickly turned their attentions to their instructors and "found" counter-revolutionary, "bourgeouis" and other improper behavior. Nearly all the teachers were branded, even after the Communist party instructed the students that most teachers should be considered good or "relatively good." When the students ran out of teachers and local petty officials to attack, they turned on each other, forming alliances which accused their opponents of non-revolutionary behavior. The mounting violence and resulting chaos are, on a certain level, surreal. The author's "postscript," while brief, ties the account to the present with its description of the "where they are now" of his friends, and enemies, during this time.

This amazing tale is seen through the eyes of the child the author was at the time, rather than through the filter of adult wisdom and judgement. That is what gives this terrifying and funny book its power.

As a fourteen year-old boy Gao Yuan attended a boarding school that became caught up in the wildness of the Cultural Revolution. He experienced the foolishness of the children and their terrible violence as they turned on each other. At the same time his father was being pilloried at home.

This is a great yarn about a surreal world, as well as an important historical document.

I loved this book so much that I developed a Thematic Unit around it. The book has some of the most outstanding pictures one has ever seen. Through these pictures we get to see Japan's culture, customs, and landscape. The story is great too. Through this book I taught Reading, English, Math, Social Studies, Science, Art, and used the internet to go on a field trip. This is a wonderful book and keeps the reader guessing. Enjoy!

My son's third grade class has been studying Japan. They had a "Japan Day" with lots of Japanese activities. His teacher asked me to read this book to the class. I hadn't read it before and only one child had heard it. They loved it. I have come right home and am purchasing the book for our "library" right now. Highly recommended!

This is a very classic story from Nagoya region, I believe. Taro was as lazy as he can be. He wants to do nothing but laying on the tatami-mats and sleeping where he received his nickname, Three-Year Nap Taro. Pictures and story are full of Japanese culture and your children would like the twisted ending to learn being lazy is NOT good.

Here is a short, simple book examining the role and place of the ever-growing Japanese-Brazilian population in Japan. Overall, it is a well written piece of work that I found helpful in my reseach. Although it is not the most comprehensive book on Japan's new ethnic minoritiy population,the Brazilians, Roth's work is worthwhile nonetheless.

It's a very good book, good analysis of Nikkei life in Japan.

I read this book and I found that it was more than a simple academic book with statistics, and numbers...It's a realy good view of what is a migrant life in Japan .

In Japan, a country that is thought to be "ethnically pure", the new phenomenon of return migration poses an interesting problem. Nikkei (those who are of Japanese ancestry outside of Japan) Brazilian nationals began migrating to Japan for economic reasons in the 1990s (the government made it particularly easy for them to enter the country, assuming they would adapt to Japanese culture better than those with no ties to the country), and many decided to stay, creating minority enclaves with a culture distinctly their own and NOT Japanese. Joshua Hotaka Roth provides an analysis of Nikkei life in Japan.

Although I read this book as part of a research project, I found that it was much, much more than a dry academic book with lots of statistics (although there certainly were plenty of statistics for anyone looking for solid numerical data). Roth didn't just write about this subject; he experienced it: he worked in a factory side by side with Nikkei Brazilians, lived and associated with Nikkei, and truly participated in his subjects' way of life in Japan. The result is an intimate view of the "return" migrant's experience, including sections on the actual factory work, injury and health insurance issues, and some ways in which Brazilian Nikkei in Japan maintain Brazilian identities while adapting to Japan.

This book is great for anyone who wants to know more about Japan in this time of internationalization, anyone who is interested in international migration, issues of national identity, or anyone who just wants an interesting non-fiction read.

Mr. Gottesman paints a vivid picture of Cambodia after 1979 that is particularly relevant in this time of reconstruction and nation building in Iraq. This is on my all time top 10 books right after the Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing.

This is a fascinating telling of the politics of the PRK. The author has adroitly woven a tapestry of the give and take between the ideologically rigid Vietnamese liberators and the ideologically-opportunistic Khmer Rouge. The irony of the title is that there was no "after the Khmer Rouge:" indeed, they are still alive and well and running the PRK's successor state, which could be called the Democratic People's Republic of Royal Camobodia, an amalgam of ex-Pol Potists, Sihounoukists and genuine deomocrats.
Gottesman is to be congratulated on his shrewd observations and the skillful way he merged the ever-morphing political landscape in Phnom Penh with the relatively static, self-serving and corrupt provinical politics that tended to ignore any central dictums that reduced local prerogatives. In sum, pretty much the story of all socialist states; proclaim endless drivel ex cathedra from the capital and pray that somebody out there listens.
This is a must read for anyone interested in a little known asterisk in the cold war and anyone interested in third world politics. Foe all American ideologues eager to proclaim Iraq the next Japan, read, learn and repent!

Evan Gottesman's three years of field work in Cambodia with the American Bar Association Law and Democracy Project gave him an exceptionally solid base from which he launched this study of the history of the PRK and SOC regimes. His use of documents dug out of the National Archives is, as David Chandler has remarked, "masterful." His interviews with the former holders of power provide fascinating insights into the minds of key personalities seldom reached by Westerners. The epilogue is chock full of understated, reasonable, fair, and on-the-mark assessments of the reality on the ground in Cambodia today -- "Cambodian democracy often seems an abstraction...Although the methods of control have changed, the personnel governing the country remain largely the same ... (they) have accepted a new level of political discourse, but they do so only to the extent that it does not jeopardize their power." Life and work in Cambodia as a lawyer would frustrate all but the most idealistic of men. That Mr. Gottesman came away with such a patient and objective look at Cambodia says much about both his character and his intellect. This book is a must read for our new generation of "nation builders." It will allow them to bring to bear a better sense of time scale regarding their grand plans to democratize the world, clearly a task for multiple generations of good men like Evan Gottesman, not one to be attempted by one or two four-year administrations of ambitious politicians.

If you're seeking to extend your knowledge of Chinese history, you'll found a solid foundation in The Cambridge History of Ancient China, which covers China from prehistory down to the First Empire. With fourteen chapters by specialists, it presents a diversity of viewpoints and approaches, but without changes so frequent as to be disorienting. And it is not just a collection of disparate essays: a consistent style and spelling are maintained throughout, there is an integrated bibliography, and what overlap there is has obviously been coordinated. The Cambridge History of Ancient China does a good job of capturing regional variation and temporal depth (keeping in mind that an equivalent period in Mediterranean history would stretch from the Egyptian New Kingdom down to the Roman Empire) and the following summary does little justice to it.

An introduction touches briefly on historiography, the physical environment of ancient China, and calendar systems. A chapter by William Boltz provides background on language and writing (this was quite technical, but I found it comprehensible without much background in Chinese linguistics). And Kwang-chih Chang covers the prehistory of China, concentrating on the archaeological evidence but looking also at the debates over the historicity of the Xia dynasty.

The core of The Cambridge History of Ancient China uses the traditional Shang / Western Zhou / Spring and Autumn / Warring States chronological framework, with paired chapters on each of the periods, one covering material culture (archaeology and art) and the other more historical in approach. This provides an important historiographical and methodological balance. A chapter by Robert Bagley on "Shang archaeology", for example, tries to avoid the biases of traditional history, presenting a fascinating twenty page introduction to the archaeology of bronze metallurgy and using that to highlight the breadth of Chinese culture outside the Shang areas, in the Yangzi valley, Sichuan, and the north. In contrast to this, David Keightley's chapter on the Shang focuses on written inscriptions (bronzes and oracle bones) and what they tell us about politics, religion, and society in the nascent dynastic state.

The historical chapters generally avoid becoming enmeshed in the details of particular wars, successions, and the like, addressing instead larger scale social and administrative changes. Edward Shaughnessy probes the origins of the Western Zhou and their conquest of the Shang, then describes their subsequent history. Though cautious about the use of historical detail from later texts, he highlights the significance of Western Zhou political theory for subsequent Chinese historiography. Cho-yun Hsu describes the multi-state system that evolved in the Spring and Autumn period (with recognition of a shifting Ba or "senior state") and sketches its social, administrative, and economic developments. And for the Warring States period Mark Lewis focuses on the institutional and military development of the various states and their consolidation into progressively larger units, laying the groundwork for the imperial unification.

The chapters on material culture are longer than their historical counterparts, largely due
to the space taken up by illustrations. Jessica Rawson begins with a general introduction to Western Zhou archaeology, then proceeds from pre-Conquest Shaanxi (and the uncertainty about Zhou origins) down to the Ritual Revolution, providing details of key sites. Lothar von Falkenhausen covers late Bronze Age archaeology, describing finds from cemeteries and tombs in the different states and regional cultures. With more detailed information available, Wu Hung deals with Warring States art and architecture in a more systematic survey. Four chapters supplement these eight. Nicola Di Cosmo surveys the northern frontier area from Manchuria across to Xinjiang, covering the archaeological and historical record down to the development of pastoral nomadism and the first contacts between the Chinese core and a nomadic kingdom (the Xiongu empire) towards the end of the Warring States period. David Nivison presents a historical account of the classical philosophical schools and texts, in an approach which makes the relationships between the great philosophers clearer than more abstract presentations. Donald Harper uses excavated manuscripts to present a balanced view of Warring States occult thought and natural philosophy (astrology, divination, magic, medicine, and so forth), too often veiled behind the much better-known philosophical tradition and the later orthodoxy of Han yin-yang and five phases correlative cosmology. And Michael Loewe describes the legacy left to the Qin and Former Han empires: views of the past, religious and philosophical traditions, institutional and administrative systems, and other unifying strands (he also provides a general sketch of law and legal history, something not covered in other chapters).

I have only two minor complaints about The Cambridge History of Ancient China. It is well provided with half-tones (an essential part of the chapters on archaeology and art), but it badly needs more and better quality maps: you will find yourself floundering, especially with place names that don't appear in modern atlases. It is also too large and expensive a volume to be as widely read as it deserves. There are arguments for a single volume - I'm glad I had the chance to read it cover to cover - but if The Cambridge History of Ancient China were published as four or five separate paperback volumes it would be a better proposition for students interested in (say) Warring States occult thought but not Shang archaeology.

But all Cambridge History of China are consistently good, so I assume this to be as good too. If you don't want to sell your wedding ring as suggested by Bryan, there is another option: wait 5-10 years for the Chinese version to come out at the price of less than USD10!

For too long there has been no up-to-date, general historical introduction to ancient China. This book remedies that deficiency, and does so in a wonderful way!

The book is topically organized, with each chapter written by a leading scholar on that topic. The list of contributors reads like a "Who's Who" of contemporary Sinology: K.C. Chang on Chinese "pre-history"; David Keightley on the Shang Dynasty; Hsu Cho-yun on the Spring and Autumn Period; David Lewis on the Warring States Period; David S. Nivison (see his _The Ways of Confucianism_) on ancient Chinese philosophy, etc.

The general reader should be warned that the scholarship here is sometimes a little intimidating. However, careful reading will be well repaid. As you can see, the price is a real problem. Perhaps it will come out in paperback some day, but I wouldn't count on it happening any time soon.

If you are seriously interested in ancient China, hock your wedding ring and buy this book!

If you believe in Lord Acton's dictum that "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely," this book is for you. There have been a variety of theories why some countries have prospered and some have not. Some say it depends on allowing free trade; some argue it depends on the degree of democracy as opposed to socialism or communism. Douglass North won a Nobel prize for his work to prove that the key is having the right societal institutions. Certainly it takes more than having natural resources.

Professor Powelson (Economics at the U. of Colorado) has worked extensively in developing countries and observed that despite all the good advice these countries received, and had been receiving for 50 years, they were making very little progress. To find out why, he decided to study history, going back over ten centuries in every important region of the world to see what lessons could be learned. His conclusions are startlingly simple: People prosper and societies thrive where there is genuine diffusion of power -- power earned, not bestowed by a ruler. Where power is centralized among a ruling few, the ruling few are able to take care of themselves, but their nations fail to grow and prosper and the people stay poor.

This book explains why every college freshman should be required to study Western Civilization before studying any other. As George Santayana has said already, "Those who ignore the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them." Professor Powelson has written the most important history book of the past century for anyone interested in the lessons to be learned from the histories of Northern Europe, Japan, China, India, Russia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, all covered beautifully in this one book.

Jack Powelson's book, Centruies of Economic Endeavour, gives a clear explanation of why some countries (like the U.S. and Japan) are so much better at providing economic resources to its citizens than other countries, like in Eastern Europe, Africa and South America. His many years in business as well as academia results in relevant and clearly detailed notes for the reader to follow up. This book helped me understand why, even today, so many countries with large amounts of natural resources, cannot seem to get their people out of poverty. Must reading. Highly recomended.

Powelson turns to the historical experience of nations for an answer to the central question of economic development: why do some nations grow rich while others do not? The answer lies in the relationship between the decentralization of power and the ability of economic actors to play a role in the formation of transactional institutions. Absolutely necessary for students of development.

Have you ever wondered what life has been like since 'the people of China stood up' in 1949? If so then ' China Remembers' is the book for you.

Cleverly constructed by husband and wife team it provides a highly readable personal account of the defining moments in the lives of a variety of people. By interviewing hundreds of people and eliciting their stories they have painted a rich and vivid picture of 50 years in China. The characters endear themselves to the reader as they tell their stories. People such as a Chinese soldier in the Korean War, a farmer who lost almost all her family in China's terrible famine, a red guard in Shanghai during the cultural revolution to a modern day self-made business tycoon and a village carpenter striving to win democratic election to his village committee.

But what adds immeasurably to the charm and interest of this book are the linking introductions to each section and chapter. Written in a different, more academic style, the authors have set the historical, political and economic scene so that the reader can more readily identify and empathise with the achievements and problems related by each storyteller.

This book entertains as it educates, makes you laugh as well as cry and as China continues to rejoin the world, it enlightens understanding of a mysterious, enigmatic yet wholly human people. A great read!

'China Remembers' by Zhang Lijia and Calum MacLeod groups 33 contributions from Chinese and foreign residents in China, arranged to give insight into the history of the People's Republic and leavened with introductions to guide the reader through the complexities of its political campaigns.

It is hard to imagine an editorial team better equipped for the task. Zhang Lijia's metamorphosis from Nanjing factory worker to freelance writer itself reflects China's heady leap from planned economy to sink-or-swim capitalism. Calum MacLeod, who I have counted a friend since we shared a mouldy hotel room in Xi'an in 1989, earns his living bridging the gap between international investors and newly corporate China.

The testimonies this Anglo-Chinese joint venture couple have gathered come as an antidote to the efforts by Mao Zedong and his communist comrades to force the world's most populous nation to march to a single beat. China Remembers bursts with human contradictions and surprises a world away from the tyranny of Marxist class truths.

"China Remembers", a collection of individual eyewitness accounts from a wide variety of participants in the last 50 years of Chinese history, vividly and poignantly portrays the realities of those years.

Divided into five "periods" - from "Consolidating Power:1949-1956" right up to the present day with "Entering the World:1990-1999", each of the "periods"comes to life through the voices of such witnesses as diverse as an interpreter of Mao Zedong, a young woman's experience of the Cultural Revolution in the remote countryside,a student who participated in the 1989 "Beijing Spring", a legal expert who returned to her native China after 10 years in the US, and a rubbish collector...among the 33 different "voices" of this vivid volume. Each very personal account is preceded by the authors' introduction.

The voices from the heart recount the turmoil of recent Chinese history - of the often unspoken horrors and unfathomable personal tragedies. The recollections are told in the first person and dwell with courage upon the past experiences, struggles and success against all odds and the opportunities and hope for the future.

Authors Zhang Lijia - born and raised in China - and Calum Macleod have memorably captured the emotion, complexity and contradictions of China's recent history in a work that provides gripping reading.