China's Galaxy Empire

China's Galaxy Empire PDF Author: John Keane
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197629113
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
In China's Galaxy Empire, John Keane and Baogang He target a development of enormous significance: China's return, after two centuries of decline and subjugation, to a position of prominence in world affairs. The daring thesis is that China is a newly rising empire of a kind never before witnessed: a galaxy empire. The galaxy empire interpretation rejects clichéd misdescriptions of China as a "big power", and it explains why China defies older definitions of land, sea, and air-based empires. The book warns against the perils of simple-minded, friend-versus-enemy thinking and "Big China, Bad China" politics, but it also proffers a forewarning to China's rulers: no empire lasts forever, and some are stillborn, because they indulge illusions of greatness and reckless power adventures.

China's Galaxy Empire

China's Galaxy Empire PDF Author: John Keane
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197629113
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
In China's Galaxy Empire, John Keane and Baogang He target a development of enormous significance: China's return, after two centuries of decline and subjugation, to a position of prominence in world affairs. The daring thesis is that China is a newly rising empire of a kind never before witnessed: a galaxy empire. The galaxy empire interpretation rejects clichéd misdescriptions of China as a "big power", and it explains why China defies older definitions of land, sea, and air-based empires. The book warns against the perils of simple-minded, friend-versus-enemy thinking and "Big China, Bad China" politics, but it also proffers a forewarning to China's rulers: no empire lasts forever, and some are stillborn, because they indulge illusions of greatness and reckless power adventures.

China's Russian Princess:the Silent Wife

China's Russian Princess:the Silent Wife PDF Author: Mark O’Neill
Publisher: 三聯書店(香港)有限公司
ISBN: 9620446186
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : zh-TW
Pages : 236

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Book Description
香港小學生常見病句大可以分成三大類:(一)措詞不當類;(二)違反邏輯思維類及(三)違反漢語語法類。 本書根據上述分點,收錄了香港小學生最常見的一百五十句病例。作者在每條病句下,並列出對應的粵口語和書面語,簡明分析孩子寫作時的心理狀況,如何受各種因素的影響,循循善誘,為家長與中文導師講述如何幫助孩子糾正錯誤,讓他們輕輕鬆鬆學習寫作。

Spies and Scholars

Spies and Scholars PDF Author: Gregory Afinogenov
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674246578
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Book Description
A Financial Times Best Book of the Year The untold story of how Russian espionage in imperial China shaped the emergence of the Russian Empire as a global power. From the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, the Russian Empire made concerted efforts to collect information about China. It bribed Chinese porcelain-makers to give up trade secrets, sent Buddhist monks to Mongolia on intelligence-gathering missions, and trained students at its Orthodox mission in Beijing to spy on their hosts. From diplomatic offices to guard posts on the Chinese frontier, Russians were producing knowledge everywhere, not only at elite institutions like the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg. But that information was secret, not destined for wide circulation. Gregory Afinogenov distinguishes between the kinds of knowledge Russia sought over the years and argues that they changed with the shifting aims of the state and its perceived place in the world. In the seventeenth century, Russian bureaucrats were focused on China and the forbidding Siberian frontier. They relied more on spies, including Jesuit scholars stationed in China. In the early nineteenth century, the geopolitical challenge shifted to Europe: rivalry with Britain drove the Russians to stake their prestige on public-facing intellectual work, and knowledge of the East was embedded in the academy. None of these institutional configurations was especially effective in delivering strategic or commercial advantages. But various knowledge regimes did have their consequences. Knowledge filtered through Russian espionage and publication found its way to Europe, informing the encounter between China and Western empires. Based on extensive archival research in Russia and beyond, Spies and Scholars breaks down long-accepted assumptions about the connection between knowledge regimes and imperial power and excavates an intellectual legacy largely neglected by historians.

When Trees Fall, Monkeys Scatter: Rethinking Democracy In China

When Trees Fall, Monkeys Scatter: Rethinking Democracy In China PDF Author: John Keane
Publisher: #N/A
ISBN: 1786343614
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 195

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Book Description
Predictions of the coming collapse of Chinese politics are today commonplace, however this thought-provoking book explores a radically different alternative. China, it argues, is a one-party-dominated political system whose surprising levels of public support and resilience in the face of serious economic, environmental and social problems suggest that it is more durable than most outside observers suppose. China is not an ailing 'autocracy', a case of 'crony capitalism' or a blindly repressive 'authoritarian regime'. The rulers of China are in fact experimenting with a wide range of locally-made democratic tools designed to win the trust and loyalty of their subjects. Examples probed in this book include the injection of accountability mechanisms into state bureaucracy, the toleration of independent public opinion leaders, the growing reliance of Party officials and corporate executives on public opinion polls and 'democratic style', and the calculated use by Party officials of digitally networked media as early warning devices.Written for students and teachers, researchers and general readers fascinated by the rising global power of China, When Trees Fall, Monkeys Scatter shows why locally-made democratic practices often favour one-party rule and why China is becoming a globally significant political laboratory: a 21st century testing ground for a new type of top-down popular government at odds with power-sharing democracy as it was known during the past generation.

Galactic Empires

Galactic Empires PDF Author: Neil Clarke
Publisher: Start Publishing LLC
ISBN: 159780617X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 864

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Book Description
Neil Clarke, publisher of the award-winning Clarkesworld magazine, presents a collection of thought-provoking and galaxy-spanning array of galactic short science fiction. From E. E. "Doc" Smith’s Lensman, to George Lucas’ Star Wars, the politics and process of Empire have been a major subject of science fiction’s galaxy-spanning fictions. The idiom of the Galactic Empire allows science fiction writers to ask (and answer) questions that are shorn of contemporary political ideologies and allegiances. This simple narrative slight of hand allows readers and writers to see questions and answers from new and different perspectives. The stories in this book do just that. What social, political, and economic issues do the organizing structure of “empire” address? Often the size, shape, and fates of empires are determined not only by individuals, but by geography, natural forces, and technology. As the speed of travel and rates of effective communication increase, so too does the size and reach of an Imperial bureaucracy.Sic itur ad astra—“Thus one journeys to the stars.” At the beginning of the twentieth century, writers such as Kipling and Twain were at the forefront of these kinds of narrative observations, but as the century drew to a close, it was writers like Iain M. Banks who helped make science fiction relevant. That tradition continues today, with award-winning writers like Ann Leckie, whose 2013 debut novel Ancillary Justice hinges upon questions of imperialism and empire. Here then is a diverse collection of stories that asks the questions that science fiction asks best. Empire: How? Why? And to what effect? Table of Contents: - “Winning Peace” by Paul J. McAuley - “Night’s Slow Poison” by Ann Leckie - “All the Painted Stars” by Gwendolyn Clare - “Firstborn” by Brandon Sanderson - “Riding the Crocodile” by Greg Egan - “The Lost Princess Man” by John Barnes - “The Waiting Stars” by Aliette de Bodard - “Alien Archeology” by Neal Asher - “The Muse of Empires Lost” by Paul Berger - “Ghostweight” by Yoon Ha Lee - “A Cold Heart” by Tobias S. Buckell - “The Colonel Returns to the Stars” by Robert Silverberg - “The Impossibles” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch - “Utriusque Cosmi” by Robert Charles Wilson - “Section Seven” by John G. Hemry - “The Invisible Empire of Ascending Light” by Ken Scholes - “The Man with the Golden Balloon” by Robert Reed - “Looking Through Lace” by Ruth Nestvold - “A Letter from the Emperor” by Steve Rasnic Tem - “The Wayfarer’s Advice” by Melinda M. Snodgrass - “Seven Years from Home” by Naomi Novik - “Verthandi’s Ring” by Ian McDonald

Imperial Death Star

Imperial Death Star PDF Author: Ryder Windham
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780857333728
Category : Space vehicles in motion pictures
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The Death Star is a spherical space station, the size of a small moon, highly armoured and armed to destroy anything from enemy spaceships to whole planets. Using cutaway drawings, exploded diagrams and photographs, backed by detailed technical specifications and descriptions of the onboard systems, this owner's manual reveals the technology contained within and lays bare the awesome power (and weaknesses) of the Empire's ultimate weapon.

The Life and Death of Democracy

The Life and Death of Democracy PDF Author: John Keane
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1847377602
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 717

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Book Description
John Keane's The Life and Death of Democracy will inspire and shock its readers. Presenting the first grand history of democracy for well over a century, it poses along the way some tough and timely questions: can we really be sure that democracy had its origins in ancient Greece? How did democratic ideals and institutions come to have the shape they do today? Given all the recent fanfare about democracy promotion, why are many people now gripped by the feeling that a bad moon is rising over all the world's democracies? Do they indeed have a future? Or is perhaps democracy fated to melt away, along with our polar ice caps? The work of one of Britain's leading political writers, this is no mere antiquarian history. Stylishly written, this superb book confronts its readers with an entirely fresh and irreverent look at the past, present and future of democracy. It unearths the beginnings of such precious institutions and ideals as government by public assembly, votes for women, the secret ballot, trial by jury and press freedom. It tracks the changing, hotly disputed meanings of democracy and describes quite a few of the extraordinary characters, many of them long forgotten, who dedicated their lives to building or defending democracy. And it explains why democracy is still potentially the best form of government on earth -- and why democracies everywhere are sleepwalking their way into deep trouble.

Empires of the Silk Road

Empires of the Silk Road PDF Author: Christopher I. Beckwith
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400829941
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 506

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Book Description
An epic account of the rise and fall of the Silk Road empires The first complete history of Central Eurasia from ancient times to the present day, Empires of the Silk Road represents a fundamental rethinking of the origins, history, and significance of this major world region. Christopher Beckwith describes the rise and fall of the great Central Eurasian empires, including those of the Scythians, Attila the Hun, the Turks and Tibetans, and Genghis Khan and the Mongols. In addition, he explains why the heartland of Central Eurasia led the world economically, scientifically, and artistically for many centuries despite invasions by Persians, Greeks, Arabs, Chinese, and others. In retelling the story of the Old World from the perspective of Central Eurasia, Beckwith provides a new understanding of the internal and external dynamics of the Central Eurasian states and shows how their people repeatedly revolutionized Eurasian civilization. Beckwith recounts the Indo-Europeans' migration out of Central Eurasia, their mixture with local peoples, and the resulting development of the Graeco-Roman, Persian, Indian, and Chinese civilizations; he details the basis for the thriving economy of premodern Central Eurasia, the economy's disintegration following the region's partition by the Chinese and Russians in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the damaging of Central Eurasian culture by Modernism; and he discusses the significance for world history of the partial reemergence of Central Eurasian nations after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Empires of the Silk Road places Central Eurasia within a world historical framework and demonstrates why the region is central to understanding the history of civilization.

To Kill A Democracy

To Kill A Democracy PDF Author: Debasish Roy Chowdhury
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192588273
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
India is heralded as the world's largest democracy. Yet, there is now growing alarm about its democratic health. To Kill a Democracy gets to the heart of the matter. Combining poignant life stories with sharp scholarly insight, it rejects the belief that India was once a beacon of democracy but is now being ruined by the destructive forces of Modi-style populism. The book details the much deeper historical roots of the present-day assaults on civil liberties and democratic institutions. Democracy, the authors also argue, is much more than elections and the separation of powers. It is a whole way of life lived in dignity, and that is why they pay special attention to the decaying social foundations of Indian democracy. In compelling fashion, the book describes daily struggles for survival and explains how lived social injustices and unfreedoms rob Indian elections of their meaning, while at the same time feeding the decadence and iron-fisted rule of its governing institutions. Much more than a book about India, To Kill A Democracy argues that what is happening in the country is globally important, and not just because every third person living in a democracy is an Indian. It shows that when democracies rack and ruin their social foundations, they don't just kill off the spirit and substance of democracy. They lay the foundations for despotism.

The Three-Body Problem

The Three-Body Problem PDF Author: Cixin Liu
Publisher: Tor Books
ISBN: 1466853441
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
The inspiration for the Netflix series 3 Body Problem! WINNER OF THE HUGO AWARD FOR BEST NOVEL Over 1 million copies sold in North America “A mind-bending epic.”—The New York Times • “War of the Worlds for the 21st century.”—The Wall Street Journal • “Fascinating.”—TIME • “Extraordinary.”—The New Yorker • “Wildly imaginative.”—Barack Obama • “Provocative.”—Slate • “A breakthrough book.”—George R. R. Martin • “Impossible to put down.”—GQ • “Absolutely mind-unfolding.”—NPR • “You should be reading Liu Cixin.”—The Washington Post The Three-Body Problem is the first novel in the groundbreaking, Hugo Award-winning series from China's most beloved science fiction author, Cixin Liu. Set against the backdrop of China's Cultural Revolution, a secret military project sends signals into space to establish contact with aliens. An alien civilization on the brink of destruction captures the signal and plans to invade Earth. Meanwhile, on Earth, different camps start forming, planning to either welcome the superior beings and help them take over a world seen as corrupt, or to fight against the invasion. The result is a science fiction masterpiece of enormous scope and vision. The Three-Body Problem Series The Three-Body Problem The Dark Forest Death's End Other Books by Cixin Liu Ball Lightning Supernova Era To Hold Up the Sky The Wandering Earth A View from the Stars At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.