Across the China Sea

Across the China Sea PDF Author: Gaute Heivoll
Publisher: Graywolf Press
ISBN: 1555979769
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 207

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Book Description
An atmospheric and affecting novel set in rural Norway, by the award-winning author of Before I Burn In the waning days of the German occupation of Norway, Karin and her husband move from Oslo to a tiny village in the south with their young son, the narrator. There they aim to live out their dream of caring for those who can’t look after themselves. They have spent months building a modest house with rooms for patients, and it’s soon filled with three adult men who are psychologically unstable—including Karin’s uncle Josef, who suffered a head injury in a carriage accident—and five siblings whose parents have been declared unfit, and who are the subjects of much conversation in the village. This small and idiosyncratic community persists for nearly three decades. After his parents’ deaths, the son returns to clean out this unusual home. The objects of his childhood retain a talisman-like power over him, and key objects—including an orange crate where he and his sister slept as infants, Josef’s medal of honor, his mother’s beloved piano, and many others—unlock vivid memories. In recounting the ways that the siblings both are and are not a part of his family, he reveals his special relationship with Ingrid, who cannot speak, and his sister's accidental death, which occurred when they were playing together, and its quiet yet tragic effects on the extended family. With warmth, gentle humor, and deep compassion, Gaute Heivoll portrays an unconventional family as it navigates an uncertain and often unkind world.

Across the China Sea

Across the China Sea PDF Author: Gaute Heivoll
Publisher: Graywolf Press
ISBN: 1555979769
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 207

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Book Description
An atmospheric and affecting novel set in rural Norway, by the award-winning author of Before I Burn In the waning days of the German occupation of Norway, Karin and her husband move from Oslo to a tiny village in the south with their young son, the narrator. There they aim to live out their dream of caring for those who can’t look after themselves. They have spent months building a modest house with rooms for patients, and it’s soon filled with three adult men who are psychologically unstable—including Karin’s uncle Josef, who suffered a head injury in a carriage accident—and five siblings whose parents have been declared unfit, and who are the subjects of much conversation in the village. This small and idiosyncratic community persists for nearly three decades. After his parents’ deaths, the son returns to clean out this unusual home. The objects of his childhood retain a talisman-like power over him, and key objects—including an orange crate where he and his sister slept as infants, Josef’s medal of honor, his mother’s beloved piano, and many others—unlock vivid memories. In recounting the ways that the siblings both are and are not a part of his family, he reveals his special relationship with Ingrid, who cannot speak, and his sister's accidental death, which occurred when they were playing together, and its quiet yet tragic effects on the extended family. With warmth, gentle humor, and deep compassion, Gaute Heivoll portrays an unconventional family as it navigates an uncertain and often unkind world.

The South China Sea

The South China Sea PDF Author: Bill Hayton
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300189540
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 317

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Book Description
China’s rise has upset the global balance of power, and the first place to feel the strain is Beijing’s back yard: the South China Sea. For decades tensions have smoldered in the region, but today the threat of a direct confrontation among superpowers grows ever more likely. This important book is the first to make clear sense of the South Sea disputes. Bill Hayton, a journalist with extensive experience in the region, examines the high stakes involved for rival nations that include Vietnam, India, Taiwan, the Philippines, and China, as well as the United States, Russia, and others. Hayton also lays out the daunting obstacles that stand in the way of peaceful resolution. Through lively stories of individuals who have shaped current conflicts—businessmen, scientists, shippers, archaeologists, soldiers, diplomats, and more—Hayton makes understandable the complex history and contemporary reality of the South China Sea. He underscores its crucial importance as the passageway for half the world’s merchant shipping and one-third of its oil and gas. Whoever controls these waters controls the access between Europe, the Middle East, South Asia, and the Pacific. The author critiques various claims and positions (that China has historic claim to the Sea, for example), overturns conventional wisdoms (such as America’s overblown fears of China’s nationalism and military resurgence), and outlines what the future may hold for this clamorous region of international rivalry.

Above the East China Sea

Above the East China Sea PDF Author: Sarah Bird
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0385350120
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 392

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Book Description
In her most ambitious, moving, and provocative novel to date, Sarah Bird makes a stunning departure. Above the East China Sea tells the entwined stories of two teenaged girls, an American and an Okinawan, whose lives are connected across seventy years by the shared experience of profound loss, the enduring strength of an ancient culture, and the redeeming power of family love. Luz James, a contemporary U.S. Air Force brat, lives with her strictly-by-the-rules sergeant mother at Kadena Air Base in Okianawa. Luz’s older sister, her best friend and emotional center, has just been killed in the Afghan war. Unmoored by her sister’s death and a lifetime of constant moving from base to base, Luz turns for the comfort her service-hardened mother cannot offer to the “Smokinawans,” the “waste cases,” who gather to get high every night in a deserted cove. When even pills, one-hitters, Cuervo Gold, and a growing crush on Jake Furusato aren’t enough to soften the unbearable edge, the desolate girl contemplates taking her own life. In 1945, Tamiko Kokuba, along with two hundred of her classmates, is plucked out of her elite girls’ high school and trained to work in the Imperial Army’s horrific cave hospitals. With defeat certain, Tamiko finds herself squeezed between the occupying Japanese and the invading Americans. She believes she has lost her entire family, as well as the island paradise she so loved, and, like Luz, she aches with a desire to be reunited with her beloved sister. On an island where the spirits of the dead are part of life and your entire clan waits for you in the afterworld, suicide offers Tamiko the promise of peace. As Luz tracks down the story of her own Okinawan grandmother, she discovers that, if she surrenders to the most unbrat impulse and allows herself to connect completely with a place and its people, the ancestral spirits will save not only Tamiko but her as well. Propelled by a riveting narrative and set at the very epicenter of the headline-grabbing clash now emerging between the great powers, Above the East China Sea is at once a remarkable chronicle of how war shapes the lives of conquerors as well as the conquered and a deeply moving account of family, friendship, and love that transcends time. This eBook edition includes a Reading Group Guide.

Dispatches from the South China Sea

Dispatches from the South China Sea PDF Author: James Borton
Publisher: Universal-Publishers
ISBN: 1627343709
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
The impact of continuous coastal development, reclamation, destruction of corals, overfishing and increased maritime traffic places all of us on the front lines of preserving our oceans. Marine biologists, who share a common language that cuts across political, economic and social differences, recognize that the sea’s remarkable coral reefs, which provide food, jobs and protection against storms and floods, have suffered unprecedented rates of destruction in recent decades. Dispatches from the South China Sea’s blend of participatory research and field reportage paves the way for a transformation of policy and, provides a basis for the eventual resolution of some of today’s major maritime conflicts. From overfishing, illegal and unregulated fishing, coral reef destruction and reclamations, Dispatches from the South China Sea charts science-driven cooperation opportunities. James Borton purposefully and passionately argues that the South China Sea can become a body of water that unites, rather than divides.

Major Law and Policy Issues in the South China Sea

Major Law and Policy Issues in the South China Sea PDF Author: Dr Yann-huei Song
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
ISBN: 147240159X
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 329

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Book Description
Major law and policy issues in the South China Sea are discussed mainly from the perspectives of leading American and European scholars in the study of the complex South China Sea disputes. The issues include regional maritime cooperation and regime building, Southeast Asian countries’ responses to the Chinese assertiveness, China’s historic claims, maritime boundary delimitation and excessive maritime claims, military activities and the law of the sea, freedom of navigation and its impact on the problem, the dispute between Vietnam and China, confidence-building measures and U.S.-Taiwan-China relations in the South China Sea, and Taiwan’s role in the resolution to the South China Sea issues. Over the past three years, there have been several incidents in the South China Sea between the claimants, and also between the claimants and non-claimants over fisheries, collection of seismic data, exploration for oil and gas resources, and exercise of freedom of navigation. Third party concerns and involvement in the South China Sea disputes have been increasing as manifested in actions taken by the United States, India, and Japan. It is therefore important to examine South China Sea disputes from the legal and political perspective and from the view point of American and European experts who have been studying South China Sea issues for many years.

Asia's Cauldron

Asia's Cauldron PDF Author: Robert D. Kaplan
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0812994337
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY FINANCIAL TIMES From Robert D. Kaplan, named one of the world’s Top 100 Global Thinkers by Foreign Policy magazine, comes a penetrating look at the volatile region that will dominate the future of geopolitical conflict. Over the last decade, the center of world power has been quietly shifting from Europe to Asia. With oil reserves of several billion barrels, an estimated nine hundred trillion cubic feet of natural gas, and several centuries’ worth of competing territorial claims, the South China Sea in particular is a simmering pot of potential conflict. The underreported military buildup in the area where the Western Pacific meets the Indian Ocean means that it will likely be a hinge point for global war and peace for the foreseeable future. In Asia’s Cauldron, Robert D. Kaplan offers up a vivid snapshot of the nations surrounding the South China Sea, the conflicts brewing in the region at the dawn of the twenty-first century, and their implications for global peace and stability. One of the world’s most perceptive foreign policy experts, Kaplan interprets America’s interests in Asia in the context of an increasingly assertive China. He explains how the region’s unique geography fosters the growth of navies but also impedes aggression. And he draws a striking parallel between China’s quest for hegemony in the South China Sea and the United States’ imperial adventure in the Caribbean more than a century ago. To understand the future of conflict in East Asia, Kaplan argues, one must understand the goals and motivations of its leaders and its people. Part travelogue, part geopolitical primer, Asia’s Cauldron takes us on a journey through the region’s boom cities and ramshackle slums: from Vietnam, where the superfueled capitalism of the erstwhile colonial capital, Saigon, inspires the geostrategic pretensions of the official seat of government in Hanoi, to Malaysia, where a unique mix of authoritarian Islam and Western-style consumerism creates quite possibly the ultimate postmodern society; and from Singapore, whose “benevolent autocracy” helped foster an economic miracle, to the Philippines, where a different brand of authoritarianism under Ferdinand Marcos led not to economic growth but to decades of corruption and crime. At a time when every day’s news seems to contain some new story—large or small—that directly relates to conflicts over the South China Sea, Asia’s Cauldron is an indispensable guide to a corner of the globe that will affect all of our lives for years to come. Praise for Asia’s Cauldron “Asia’s Cauldron is a short book with a powerful thesis, and it stands out for its clarity and good sense. . . . If you are doing business in China, traveling in Southeast Asia or just obsessing about geopolitics, you will want to read it.”—The New York Times Book Review “Kaplan has established himself as one of our most consequential geopolitical thinkers. . . . [Asia’s Cauldron] is part treatise on geopolitics, part travel narrative. Indeed, he writes in the tradition of the great travel writers.”—The Weekly Standard “Kaplan’s fascinating book is a welcome challenge to the pessimists who see only trouble in China’s rise and the hawks who view it as malign.”—The Economist “Muscular, deeply knowledgeable . . . Kaplan is an ultra-realist [who] takes a non-moralistic stance on questions of power and diplomacy.”—Financial Times

Vietnam, Territoriality and the South China Sea

Vietnam, Territoriality and the South China Sea PDF Author: Hãn Nguyên Nguyễn Nhã
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429840853
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 158

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Book Description
The conflict in the South China Sea, especially the sovereignty over Paracel and Spratly Islands, is of international interest and significance. Territorial claims from various countries impact on maritime freedom and result in the exploitation of natural resources in either international waters or other claimant countries’ exclusive economic zones. This book analyses Vietnam’s claim of sovereignty over Paracel and Spratly Islands. Based on a book originally published in Vietnamese, the author offers a historical analysis to examine the sovereignty of the islands from multiple perspectives. Written in English on the topic and based on rigorous analysis of historical, legal and technical evidence, the book makes the case for Vietnam’s sovereignty over Paracel and Spratly Islands. It also provides an investigation of how Vietnam has affirmed its claim of sovereignty over the islands and a discussion of how Vietnam’s claim has been received by the international community, particularly by China. The book touches on a very sensitive, topical issue of international importance with wide-ranging and serious consequences. It will be of interest to academics in the fields of Asian security studies and Southeast Asian history and politics.

Before I Burn

Before I Burn PDF Author: Gaute Heivoll
Publisher: Atlantic Books
ISBN: 0857892185
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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Book Description
In the late 1970s, a pyromaniac runs amok in a close-knit community in rural Norway. Homes are burnt to a cinder, and panic spreads, as neighbors wonder who amongst them could be wreaking such fear and anguish. And slowly, almost imperceptibly, a mother comes to realize that her son is lighting the fires. Born into this time of chaos, Gaute Heivoll is indelibly linked to the arsonist intent on such destruction. By juxtaposing the pyromaniac's story with his own, Heivoll explores memory, loss, and the agonizing separation of child from parent that it is a rite of passage for us all. Written in fluid, luminous prose, Before I Burn is a literary sensation, by the foremost Norwegian writer of his generation.

Voices from the Bottom of the South China Sea the Untold Story of America's Largest Chinese Emigrant Disaster

Voices from the Bottom of the South China Sea the Untold Story of America's Largest Chinese Emigrant Disaster PDF Author: Robert S. Wells
Publisher: Fortis Publishing
ISBN: 9781937592431
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Voices from the Bottom of the South China Sea is the remarkable, untold illustration of the bonds between Americans and Chinese, brought to life in the true story of a deadly 1874 shipwreck off Southern China that killed hundreds and scattered treasure in the South China Sea. When a midnight coal fire burst across the deck of the SS Japan, the Chinese emigrants perished, just hours away from being reunited with their families after years. Voices captures the Chinese passengers' lives in California, where they built America's railroads, mined its silver, and grew its food, only to see public sentiment turn against them with an anti- immigrant, racist fervor. Their lives were entrusted to a veteran China Sea trader-the erstwhile Captain Edward Warsaw-an American captain whose vigilance and courage in command of the world's largest wooden passenger vessel were sorely tested when his ship caught fire and sank on that fateful return voyage to China. Nearly 400 of his Chinese passengers on the Japan, a side-wheel steamship that Mark Twain called a "perfect palace of a ship," would perish. Cut off from their lifeboats by the raging fire, many would drown when they were forced to jump into the sea, only to be dragged down with their money belts of gold, their earning from their years spent laboring in America. This amazing history involves a shipwreck, pirates, and lost treasure. But most of all, Voices captures the shared passions, ambitions, and animosities of Chinese and Americans seeking fortune in nineteenth century California. With the lost records of the event recently discovered and pieced together by the author, a former navy captain who commanded a warship in the waters where Captain Warsaw's ship went down, this book allows the lost voices to tell their story to the world from the bottom of the South China Sea.

China Goes to Sea

China Goes to Sea PDF Author: Andrew S. Erickson
Publisher: Naval Institute Press
ISBN: 161251152X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 530

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Book Description
In modern history, China has been primarily a land power, dominating smaller states along its massive continental flanks. But China’s turn toward the sea is now very much a reality, as evident in its stunning rise in global shipbuilding markets, its vast and expanding merchant marine, the wide offshore reach of its energy and minerals exploration companies, its growing fishing fleet, and indeed its increasingly modern navy. Yet, for all these achievements, there is still profound skepticism regarding China’s potential as a genuine maritime power. Beijing must still import the most vital subcomponents for its shipyards, maritime governance remains severely bureaucratically challenged, and the navy evinces, at least as of yet, little enthusiasm for significant blue water power projection capabilities. This volume provides a truly comprehensive assessment of prospects for China’s maritime development by situating these important geostrategic phenomena within a larger world historical context. China is hardly the only land power in history to attempt transformation by fostering sea power. Many continental powers have elected or been impelled to transform themselves into significant maritime powers in order to safeguard their strategic position or advance their interests. We examine cases of attempted transformation from the Persian Empire to the Soviet Union, and determine the reasons for their success or failure. Too many works on China view the nation in isolation. Of course, China’s history and culture are to some extent exceptional, but building intellectual fences actually hinders the effort to understand China’s current development trajectory. Without underestimating the enduring pull of China’s past as it relates to threats to the country’s internal stability and its landward borders, this comparative study provides reason to believe that China has turned the corner on a genuine maritime transformation. If that proves indeed to be the case, it would be a remarkable if not singular event in the history of the last two millennia.