China Great

Odd Arne Westad and Chen Jian chronicle how an impoverished and terrorized China experienced radical political changes in the long 1970s and how ordinary people broke free from the beliefs that had shaped their lives during Mao’s Cultural Revolution. These changes, and the unprecedented and sustained economic growth that followed, transformed China and the world.

Between 1958 and 1962, 45 million Chinese people were worked, starved or beaten to death. Mao Zedong threw his country into a frenzy with the Great Leap Forward, an attempt to catch up with and overtake the West in less than fifteen years. It led to one of the greatest catastrophes the world has ever known. Dikotter's extraordinary research within Chinese archives brings together for the first time what happened in the corridors of power with the everyday experiences of ordinary people, giving voice to the dead and disenfranchised.

The United States of America has been the most powerful country in the world for more than 70 years, but recently the US National Security Strategy declared that the return of great power competition with Russia and China is the greatest threat to US national security. Further, many analysts predict that America's autocratic rivals will have at least some success in disrupting - and, in the longer term, possibly even displacing - US global leadership. Brilliant and engagingly written, The Return of Great Power Rivalry argues that this conventional wisdom is wrong.

The United States and China are engaged in a broad-gauged and global competition for power. While this competition ranges across the entire world, it is centered in Asia. In this book, David Shambaugh focuses on the critical sub-region of Southeast Asia. The United States and China constantly vie for position and influence across this enormously significant area - and the outcome of this contest will do much to determine whether Asia leaves the American orbit after seven decades and falls into a new Chinese sphere of influence.

A dive into one of China's great poets by the first great populariser of Chinese literature, Arthur Waley.

When did globalisation begin? Most observers have settled on 1492, the year Columbus discovered America. But as celebrated Yale professor Valerie Hansen shows, it was the year 1000, when for the first time new trade routes linked the entire globe, so an object could in theory circumnavigate the world. This was the 'big bang' of globalisation, which ushered in a new era of exploration and trade, and which paved the way for Europeans to dominate after Columbus reached America.

Taking listeners from the snows of the Pamir Mountains to the backstreets of Kashgar—a Central Asian city that could be the setting for One Thousand and One Nights—to the Tian Shan Mountains to the endless Taklamakan and Gobi Deserts of China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, Bernard Ollivier continues his epic foot journey along the Great Silk Road hoping to make his way to Han China and reach, at long last, the legendary city of Xi'an.

Nach 40 Jahren enthüllt die chinesische Regierung ihre unglaubliche Entdeckung. Die Reptilien-Expertin CJ Cameron wird nach China eingeladen. Sie soll den größten Zoo, der jemals gebaut wurde, begutachten. Und sie darf sie mit eigenen Augen sehen: gewaltige, Feuer speiende Drachen. Es gibt diese Fabelwesen wirklich.

The relationship between Britain and China has shaped the modern world. Chinese art, philosophy, and science have had a profound effect upon British culture, while the long history of British exploitation is still bitterly remembered in China today. But how has their interaction changed over time? From the early days of the East India Company through the violence of the Opium Wars to present-day disputes over Hong Kong, Kerry Brown charts this turbulent and intriguing relationship in full.

Franz Kafka se dedicó intensamente a la literatura. Su escritura se caracteriza por una síntesis entre el absurdo, la ironía y la lucidez. Un mundo de sueños que, paradójicamente, describe con un realismo minucioso. Kafka sólo publicó, en vida, algunas historias cortas. Su obra pasó casi inadvertida. Ella nos ha llegado en contra de su voluntad, pues ordenó a su íntimo amigo y albacea literario Max Brod que, a su muerte, quemara todos sus manuscritos.

In The Great Great Wall, architectural historian and critic Ian Volner takes a deep dive into the story of Donald Trump’s wall. Volner follows the conception, selling, design, and construction (or lack thereof) of this expensive and consequential barrier, giving listeners a detailed description of what’s happening in Washington, DC - and along the border. He also travels far afield, to China, the Middle East, northern England, and back to our border to examine the barriers we’ve been building for centuries.

A century ago, Europe's diplomats mismanaged the crisis triggered by the murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and the continent plunged into World War I, which killed millions, toppled dynasties, and destroyed empires. Today, as the 100th anniversary of the Great War prompts renewed debate about the war's causes, scholars and policy experts are also considering the parallels between the present international system and the world of 1914. Are China and the United States fated to follow in the footsteps of previous great power rivals?