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Sources of Chinese Tradition, Vol. 1 Review

This book gets the majority of its bulk from direct translations of actual Chinese texts, and as such it is an indespensible tool for any student interested in Chinese religions and philosohpies. There is very little input on the part of the editors and I, personally, was very thankful this. It can be dreadfully difficult trying to find sources that aren't mired in thousands of pages of theory and speculation, and sometimes a person just needs the root text! An awesome book.

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32% Off Discounts: Best Buy for Investment Biker: Around the World with Jim Rogers Review

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Investment Biker: Around the World with Jim Rogers Review

This is a travel book, not a financial book, period. It's 90% travel to 10% international finance/investment 101. And it's interesting because Jim gives us a glimpse of the current, recent and distant-pasts of these exotic and intriguing places he visits on his motorcycle journey which spanned 22 months. He didn't look up influential people in the places he visited. He writes about his conversations and experiences from people he "bumped into" during his trip. That's where one learns what a place is really like. He also "put his bike down" a couple of times, and spent a lot of time wrenching on it. He's no schlep.
A success on Wall Street, he has a lot of knowledge about many different parts of the world in a historical, and "future possiblility" sense in the political, economic, and cultural context. Because his experiences on this journey, which comprise this book were penned in the early 1990s, the reader can: see if Jim was right about his take on the future of these nations. Overall he's on track.
For example, the rise of Islamic extremism in poor Islamic countries that have been left behind in the technological advances and globalization of the planet. Religious resurgences in the former Soviet republics, the lack of common sense and wastefulness of the communistic system, and the then-and-now shrinking of our world via telecommunications, freer international trade, regulations, technology, and business/trade agreements.
For the ten-percent of the book that discusses general international investment, for the layman he discusses U.S. Gold and monetary policy, that are short and easy to read, as well as basic Monetary policy and Macro-economic functions. How does someone buy and sell currency? What do folks look for when the invest in a nation? Why do some countries have currency and foreign exchange controls? And, what are the positives and negatives of these monetary policies?
One historical insight Jim noted on his long trek across Russia and the former Soviet republics on his bike is that communism and Stalin in the Soviet Union were greatly helped by the invasion of Germany in WWII. Hypothetical of course, but what if Germany hadn't attacked the USSR which led to the deaths of 1/6th of the Soviet population? The invasion, loss of life, hardship and subsequent "heroic" victory helped the USSR substantially. In addition to defeating the Germans, the Soviet's victory meant the subjugation of Eastern Europe, which enabled it to extract its resources and industries which the USSR didn't immenselyviously this helped Stalin tyrannical. How long would Stalin's tyannical murder spree, with his own people starving in the 1920s, have lasted with out it? His forever-lasting economic policies were not sound, as we found out in 1991. With the subsequent victory in '45, he was a "hero." The glue that held this multi-ethnic and geographically gargantuan empire together until is collapse in 1991.
Many of his insights about where the U.S. economy and culture are headed are worthy of being considerate of. In the last several decades the U.S. currency has lost a full 1/3 of its value. Why? What is the result, both good and bad? Find out here. Jim also notes, from a rational investor standpoint that the American economy is past its glory days, and like every other nation or culture in history it will diminish in the same likes of the British and Roman Empires as examples. According to Jim, it has already begun. The world changes. Demographics change. Cultures and populations change over time. Our world and its history culturalism and not static.
Multi-cultralism: good, right? Wrong. We simply don't know. It hasn't worked anywhere else in the world. It may very well (or may not) cause a lot of problems in the United States in the future after we're dead. Multi-culturalism is a natural demographic historical process that has affected, Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union, Italy, Rwanda, Switzerland, Nigeria, China, Canada, and Latin America (among many more). Americans are too myopic to realize what ethnic, linguistic, and geographical "nationalism" can become over decades and centuries. He points out correctly the deep similarities of the folks in Alaska, the Yukon Territories, and Pacific Northwest in the U.S. What does the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia have in common with DC and Ottawa? Not much. But they do have much in common with each other.

He explained some international investment and financial models, so the layman can understand what he's saying. It's a presursor to an International finance/investment Intro class. This is why it's not a financial book. Many of his friends at "Worth" and "Money" magazine, and Wall Street (even Peter Lynch), gave a sound-bite for this book. But it won't attract the type of folks who'd read it, because it's a Travel Book and travelers read travel books, not investment books (generally speaking). So, why is Lynch's "Beating the Street" put in the same category as "Investment Biker?" Because the person in charge apparantley hasn't studied much Marketing....
He's gotta a biker-like name, Jim Rogers. He's wearing a leather jacket and chaps and has a smile on his face in the company of a good looking girlfriend. After he returned home from this trip, he drove his motorbike to Alaska. He's a biker at heart and schrewd investor in mind. Jim and Pirsig out to get together. Boy, wouldn't that be a book?

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Best Buy for Snow Flower and the Secret Fan: A Novel Review

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Snow Flower and the Secret Fan: A Novel Review

Lisa See's Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is an engrossing and fascinating story of women's friendships in nineteenth century rural China. This is an excellent, well-written novel--fascinating on so many levels. Lily, the narrator of the novel is in her eighties, looking back on her life. She shares the stories of her foot binding, nu shu, the secret women's writing, and the various formally women's friendships that society enforced. Lily's sister participated in a sworn sisterhood, where a group of young women formed a friendship that was to last until marriage, but Lily is paired with one girl, Snow Flower, her laotong or "old same." Lily and Snow Flower have a love that is stronger than all of her other relationships--and it causes them both more heartbreak. The novel is really the story of their friendship, its depths, its deceits, its strengths--and it is a fascinating read about a society so different from our own. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan reminds me in many ways of The Red Tent in that it explores female friendship in a setting much different than any contemporary one. A fascinating read.

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43% Off Discounts: Lowest Price The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts Review

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The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts Review

The Woman Warrior, by Maxine Hong Kingston, captures readers with her own interpretation of what it was like to grow up as a female Chinese American. As a little girl, she came to America with her family. Despite being in a new country, she had to deal with the old traditions from her homeland. Kingston hears different legends which she pieces together to create her woman warrior. It becomes her source of strength in a society that rejected both her sex as well as her race. The book, divided into five interwoven stories, is at times confusing as it jumps around. Nevertheless she does a great job explaining her life while growing up. The first story, called "No Name Woman," tells of her paternal aunt who bears a child out of wedlock and is harried by the villagers and by her family into drowning herself. The family now punishes this taboo-breaker by never speaking about her and by denying her name. However, Kingston breaks the family silence by writing about this rebel whom she calls "my forebear." The next story is called "White Tigers." It is a myth about a heroine named Fa Mu Lan, who fights in place of her father and saves her village. This story became the Disney movie, Mulan."Sharman" is a story of Kingston's mother. It explores what it was like to study as a woman to become a doctor in China. "At the Western Palace" is about Kingston's aunt who comes to America and discovers that her husband has remarried in America. Finally, the last story, "A Song for a Barbarian Reed Pipe" is about Kingston's own experience in America when she first arrived. She explains what it was like to be a newcomer in a strange culture. Kingston constantly mentions that her friends and she are ghosts because they are American. All of the people who surround her family are ghosts, except for the Chinese people who live on the Gold Mountain, a section of Chinatown in San Francisco. Kingston feels like a ghost herself, " .... We had been born among ghosts, were taught by ghosts, and were ourselves ghost-like. The Americans call us a kind of ghosts" (p.183). The interpretation of what ghosts mean in this book is difficult to figure out. It could show how some people view a person from a different culture with ignorance as if she doesn't exist. Kingston's The Woman Warrior has some similarities with The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan. First of all, both stories are written by Chinese American authors about their cultural heritage. Both novels deal with major concerns faced by Chinese American women. Living with their traditional culture in American society, Chinese-American women suffer problems of cultural conflicts. However, there are differences that make each work distinct. The Joy Luck Club is fiction and is not personal. It is also more likely to be read for pleasure. The Woman Warrior portrays a first hand view of the cultural differences between the United States and China. Also, Kingston succeeds in combining her emotions with her experiences. The Woman Warrior is a fascinating book. One of the most amazing aspects of this book is Kingston's ability to show how silence is a form of communication and how it shaped her being. Her mother tells her to be silent, yet she goes against her cultural standards by talking about her aunt. This act of will on Kingston's part offers the readers her ancestry. The expectation of silence can be simplified into a symbol of oppression. As a Korean-American, I felt the emotions and understood how Kingston felt for being a stranger to a new culture. Her internal struggle to fit into two different societies is difficult. I personally recommend this book to anyone interested in reading about the experience of one Chinese-American woman. It is not the definitive story of Chinese-American women's experience, but it is a very vivid and well-written account of one woman's life. Pg. 209. Published in the United States by Random House, Inc., New York

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On China Review

Prior to the publication of this book the definitive resource on China was Jonathan Spence's "In Search of Modern China". Spence the Yale Professor, is still indispensible to a modern understanding of this remarkable country. Now there is a second more up to date source and that is Henry Kissinger. The former Secretary of State who is now 88 years fortunately has taken the time to put together this incredible piece of work that only he could have created. The book demonstrates the necessity of having lived a very long productive life and generating wisdom capable of distilling his understanding of a country down to a 530 page volume of work. It is as good as any of his previous works (13 with this one) and for my money I now put this book in Kissinger's top three, along with WHITE HOUSE YEARS and DIPLOMACY. First the MECHANICS of the BookIf you are going to read the hard copy as opposed to digital, you are in for a treat. The font is beautiful, and the paper used to print the volume is delicious. I say this because if you are a heavy reader; you really appreciate turning the pages of beautifully textured pages. I annotate all of my books, writing in margins, in the back on blank pages and just about everywhere, and I love writing on beautiful page that take the ink nicely. This book was crafted professionally as good as it gets. The ORGANIZATION of On ChinaThe Secretary has made 40 trips to China in his lifetime, enough that he should be the Honorary Ambassador to the country. He is thoroughly infused in the history of China, and he certainly does give you the history. There are 18 chapters plus an epilogue spread over 531 pages. There are 36 pages of footnotes and it is obvious that the Secretary had considerable organizational help with the footnotes which is to be expected.
The first three chapters or 91 pages are devoted to the nation's history and Kissinger gets it right. I have made many trips to China, but I still have problems with the language. When you read any book on China, you will have problems with pronunciation. What I do is quickly scan the book writing down 50 or a 100 names or terms I can't pronounce, and then head for the first Chinese restaurant in town, and ask for help with the words. People love to help, especially when you are taking an interest in their culture and language. The guts of the book begins on page 91 or Chapter 4 which is Mao's Continuous Revolution. This chapter is superb and superbly written. If you study American China relations, the question that is always stipulated is whether or not America lost China in 1949. Kissinger correctly reminds us that China might never have been ours to lose, so we asking the wrong question. Mao always believed that the Confucian order had for thousands of years kept China a weak China. Confucius preached HARMONY, and Mao believed that progress could only come from brutal confrontations both in China and with outside adversaries for China to advance. Mao also believed that these confrontations would happen naturally, but if they did not, he was not beyond creating confrontations even if they had to be within the Communist party to kept progress going, as he understood progress.

Chapter 6 which deals with China Confronts Both Superpowers is another section that only Kissinger could have written. It is here that China confronts the Soviet Union creating the Sino-Soviet split, and the United States with the Taiwan Strait Crisis. The chapter is riveting, and will affect and change your understanding of history. MY ANALYSIS The book is indispensible. You cannot understand China and modern Asia without having this book under your belt. One would have to be foolish to visit China and not read this book first to truly benefit from such a trip. Mao was famous for the Long March, and this book is a long journey for the reader but it is very rewarding. The Secretary takes us through the Road to Reconciliation in Chapter 8, and then the first encounters with Nixon, himself and the Chinese leadership in Chapter 9. It is a fascinating portrayal of power meeting power head to head, and the respect that even enemies can hold for each other. It is now generally accepted that only Nixon the hardened right winger could have opened the door to China and brought the American people along with him, because he Nixon was viewed as tough. Perhaps in a decade or two, Harvard will accept what most historians have already accepted.

In Chapter 11 we witness the End of the Mao Era. Zhou Enlai falls and Deng's first return to power begins. Kissinger loves writing about Deng and calls him the indestructible Deng throughout chapter 12. Keep in mind that it was Deng who opened up modern China and began the reforms that were necessary for China to assert itself years later internationally and economically. For those readers that know very little of China, this book is a whirlwind tour of a country fast gaining hegemony over Asia. You need to read Chapter 13 on the Third Viet Nam to understand how China is capable of dealing with its neighbors. Had we handled Viet Nam this way, the outcome and history would have been different. CONCLUSION:Henry Kissinger ON CHINA is destined to become a best seller and in the process will greatly help an America that knows very little about China except for newspapers, to understand not just the history of this vital country, but its future and the nexus of that future with America's future. No one can ignore China, so the sooner we as Americans gain the understanding that we need to make intelligent decisions, the better off we will all be. If you have an interest in China whatsoever, run to read this book, and do not put it down until you are finished with it. Good luck and thank you for reading this review. Richard C. Stoyeck ASSIDE: I will share something extraordinary with you. When you read a book like this, you will have a better understanding of China than 98% of the people living in China and 95% of the Chinese people living in America. I am still shocked when I meet Chinese people in this country young and old who have next to no understanding of Chinese history prior to Mao. They do not know the name Sun Yat-sen, or even Zhou Enlai, and forget about the Cultural Revolution unless they lived through it. Even the tragedy of Tiananmen Square is fast fading from memory.

It reminds me of German history in the post Hitler period. Anybody in Germany who was educated post 1950 has very little to no understanding of the Hitler period. It is simply glossed over as a dark period in German history; the teachers do not know what to say. Just amazing.

On China Overview

In this sweeping and insightful history, Henry Kissinger turns for the first time at book-length to a country he has known intimately for decades, and whose modern relations with the West he helped shape. Drawing on historical records as well as his conversations with Chinese leaders over the past forty years, Kissinger examines how China has approached diplomacy, strategy, and negotiation throughout its history, and reflects on the consequences for the global balance of power in the 21st century. Since no other country can claim a more powerful link to its ancient past and classical principles, any attempt to understand China's future world role must begin with an appreciation of its long history. For centuries, China rarely encountered other societies of comparable size and sophistication; it was the "Middle Kingdom," treating the peoples on its periphery as vassal states. At the same time, Chinese statesmen-facing threats of invasion from without, and the contests of competing factions within-developed a canon of strategic thought that prized the virtues of subtlety, patience, and indirection over feats of martial prowess. In On China, Kissinger examines key episodes in Chinese foreign policy from the classical era to the present day, with a particular emphasis on the decades since the rise of Mao Zedong.He illuminates the inner workings of Chinese diplomacy during such pivotal events as the initial encounters between China and modern European powers, the formation and breakdown of the Sino-Soviet alliance, the Korean War, Richard Nixon's historic trip to Beijing, and three crises in the Taiwan Straits.Drawing on his extensive personal experience with four generation of Chinese leaders, he brings to life towering figures such as Mao, Zhou Enlai, and Deng Xiaoping, revealing how their different visions have shaped China's modern destiny. With his singular vantage on U.S.-China relations, Kissinger traces the evolution of this fraught but crucial relationship over the past 60 years, following its dramatic course from estrangement to strategic partnership to economic interdependence, and toward an uncertain future.With a final chapter on the emerging superpower's 21st-century world role, On China provides an intimate historical perspective on Chinese foreign affairs from one of the premier statesmen of the 20th century.

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Special Prices for The Art of Public Speaking with Connect Lucas Review

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The Art of Public Speaking with Connect Lucas Review

this is a great book, i've really enjoyed reading it. i had to buy this for my public speaking class, but its not like a textbook. it reads like a regular informational book, and has a lot of useful information. recommended for anyone who wants some professional advise on how to improve on your public speaking.

The Art of Public Speaking with Connect Lucas Overview

By far the leading speech textbook of our time, The Art of Public Speaking has defined the art of being the best for more than 10 million students and instructors. Whether a novice or an experienced speaker, every student will learn how to be a better public speaker through Lucas' clear explanations of classical and contemporary theory and thorough coverage of practical applications.


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