Author: Guy Sorman
Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com
ISBN: 1458778983
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 422
Book Description
The Western press these days is full of stories on China's arrival as a superpower, some even warning that the future may belong to her. Western political and business delegations stream into Beijing, confident in China's economy, which continues to grow rapidly. Crowning China's new status, Beijing will host the 2008 Olympic Games. But as Guy Sorman reveals in Empire of Lies China's success is, at least in part, a mirage. True, 200 million of her subjects, those fortunate enough to be working in an expanding global market, enjoy a middle-class standard of living. The remaining one billion, however, are among the poorest, most exploited people in the world. Popular discontent simmers, especially in the countryside, where it often flares into violent confrontation with Communist Party authorities. In truth, China's economic ''miracle'' is rotting from within. In this extraordinary book, Sorman explains how the West has conferred greater legitimacy on China than do the Chinese themselves. He has visited the country regularly for forty years and spent most of the past three years exploring her teeming cities and remotest corners. Empire of Lies is the culmination of these travels and perhaps the only book on China that lets the Chinese people speak for themselves.
The Empire of Lies
Author: Guy Sorman
Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com
ISBN: 1458778983
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 422
Book Description
The Western press these days is full of stories on China's arrival as a superpower, some even warning that the future may belong to her. Western political and business delegations stream into Beijing, confident in China's economy, which continues to grow rapidly. Crowning China's new status, Beijing will host the 2008 Olympic Games. But as Guy Sorman reveals in Empire of Lies China's success is, at least in part, a mirage. True, 200 million of her subjects, those fortunate enough to be working in an expanding global market, enjoy a middle-class standard of living. The remaining one billion, however, are among the poorest, most exploited people in the world. Popular discontent simmers, especially in the countryside, where it often flares into violent confrontation with Communist Party authorities. In truth, China's economic ''miracle'' is rotting from within. In this extraordinary book, Sorman explains how the West has conferred greater legitimacy on China than do the Chinese themselves. He has visited the country regularly for forty years and spent most of the past three years exploring her teeming cities and remotest corners. Empire of Lies is the culmination of these travels and perhaps the only book on China that lets the Chinese people speak for themselves.
Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com
ISBN: 1458778983
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 422
Book Description
The Western press these days is full of stories on China's arrival as a superpower, some even warning that the future may belong to her. Western political and business delegations stream into Beijing, confident in China's economy, which continues to grow rapidly. Crowning China's new status, Beijing will host the 2008 Olympic Games. But as Guy Sorman reveals in Empire of Lies China's success is, at least in part, a mirage. True, 200 million of her subjects, those fortunate enough to be working in an expanding global market, enjoy a middle-class standard of living. The remaining one billion, however, are among the poorest, most exploited people in the world. Popular discontent simmers, especially in the countryside, where it often flares into violent confrontation with Communist Party authorities. In truth, China's economic ''miracle'' is rotting from within. In this extraordinary book, Sorman explains how the West has conferred greater legitimacy on China than do the Chinese themselves. He has visited the country regularly for forty years and spent most of the past three years exploring her teeming cities and remotest corners. Empire of Lies is the culmination of these travels and perhaps the only book on China that lets the Chinese people speak for themselves.
Empire
Author: Orson Scott Card
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1429966513
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 372
Book Description
The American Empire has grown too fast, and the fault lines at home are stressed to the breaking point. The war of words between Right and Left has collapsed into a shooting war, though most people just want to be left alone. The battle rages between the high-technology weapons on one side, and militia foot-soldiers on the other, devastating the cities, and overrunning the countryside. But the vast majority, who only want the killing to stop and the nation to return to more peaceful days, have technology, weapons and strategic geniuses of their own. When the American dream shatters into violence, who can hold the people and the government together? And which side will you be on? Orson Scott Card is a master storyteller, who has earned millions of fans and reams of praise for his previous science fiction and fantasy novels. Now he steps a little closer to the present day with this chilling look at a near future scenario of a new American Civil War. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1429966513
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 372
Book Description
The American Empire has grown too fast, and the fault lines at home are stressed to the breaking point. The war of words between Right and Left has collapsed into a shooting war, though most people just want to be left alone. The battle rages between the high-technology weapons on one side, and militia foot-soldiers on the other, devastating the cities, and overrunning the countryside. But the vast majority, who only want the killing to stop and the nation to return to more peaceful days, have technology, weapons and strategic geniuses of their own. When the American dream shatters into violence, who can hold the people and the government together? And which side will you be on? Orson Scott Card is a master storyteller, who has earned millions of fans and reams of praise for his previous science fiction and fantasy novels. Now he steps a little closer to the present day with this chilling look at a near future scenario of a new American Civil War. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Britain's Empire
Author: Richard Gott
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1839764228
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 577
Book Description
A magisterial history of resistance to the rising of the British empire As the call for a new understanding of our national history grows louder, Britain’s Empire turns the received imperial story on its head. Richard Gott recounts the long-overlooked narrative of resisters, revolutionaries and revolters who stood up to the might of the Empire. In a story of almost continuous colonialist violence, Britain’s crimes unspool from the beginning of the eighteenth century to the Indian Mutiny, spanning the globe from Ireland to Australia. Capturing events from the perspective of the colonised, Gott unearths the all-but-forgotten stories excluded from mainstream histories.
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1839764228
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 577
Book Description
A magisterial history of resistance to the rising of the British empire As the call for a new understanding of our national history grows louder, Britain’s Empire turns the received imperial story on its head. Richard Gott recounts the long-overlooked narrative of resisters, revolutionaries and revolters who stood up to the might of the Empire. In a story of almost continuous colonialist violence, Britain’s crimes unspool from the beginning of the eighteenth century to the Indian Mutiny, spanning the globe from Ireland to Australia. Capturing events from the perspective of the colonised, Gott unearths the all-but-forgotten stories excluded from mainstream histories.
Empire of the Summer Moon
Author: S. C. Gwynne
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1416597158
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 394
Book Description
*Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award* *A New York Times Notable Book* *Winner of the Texas Book Award and the Oklahoma Book Award* This New York Times bestseller and stunning historical account of the forty-year battle between Comanche Indians and white settlers for control of the American West “is nothing short of a revelation…will leave dust and blood on your jeans” (The New York Times Book Review). Empire of the Summer Moon spans two astonishing stories. The first traces the rise and fall of the Comanches, the most powerful Indian tribe in American history. The second entails one of the most remarkable narratives ever to come out of the Old West: the epic saga of the pioneer woman Cynthia Ann Parker and her mixed-blood son Quanah, who became the last and greatest chief of the Comanches. Although readers may be more familiar with the tribal names Apache and Sioux, it was in fact the legendary fighting ability of the Comanches that determined when the American West opened up. Comanche boys became adept bareback riders by age six; full Comanche braves were considered the best horsemen who ever rode. They were so masterful at war and so skillful with their arrows and lances that they stopped the northern drive of colonial Spain from Mexico and halted the French expansion westward from Louisiana. White settlers arriving in Texas from the eastern United States were surprised to find the frontier being rolled backward by Comanches incensed by the invasion of their tribal lands. The war with the Comanches lasted four decades, in effect holding up the development of the new American nation. Gwynne’s exhilarating account delivers a sweeping narrative that encompasses Spanish colonialism, the Civil War, the destruction of the buffalo herds, and the arrival of the railroads, and the amazing story of Cynthia Ann Parker and her son Quanah—a historical feast for anyone interested in how the United States came into being. Hailed by critics, S. C. Gwynne’s account of these events is meticulously researched, intellectually provocative, and, above all, thrillingly told. Empire of the Summer Moon announces him as a major new writer of American history.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1416597158
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 394
Book Description
*Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award* *A New York Times Notable Book* *Winner of the Texas Book Award and the Oklahoma Book Award* This New York Times bestseller and stunning historical account of the forty-year battle between Comanche Indians and white settlers for control of the American West “is nothing short of a revelation…will leave dust and blood on your jeans” (The New York Times Book Review). Empire of the Summer Moon spans two astonishing stories. The first traces the rise and fall of the Comanches, the most powerful Indian tribe in American history. The second entails one of the most remarkable narratives ever to come out of the Old West: the epic saga of the pioneer woman Cynthia Ann Parker and her mixed-blood son Quanah, who became the last and greatest chief of the Comanches. Although readers may be more familiar with the tribal names Apache and Sioux, it was in fact the legendary fighting ability of the Comanches that determined when the American West opened up. Comanche boys became adept bareback riders by age six; full Comanche braves were considered the best horsemen who ever rode. They were so masterful at war and so skillful with their arrows and lances that they stopped the northern drive of colonial Spain from Mexico and halted the French expansion westward from Louisiana. White settlers arriving in Texas from the eastern United States were surprised to find the frontier being rolled backward by Comanches incensed by the invasion of their tribal lands. The war with the Comanches lasted four decades, in effect holding up the development of the new American nation. Gwynne’s exhilarating account delivers a sweeping narrative that encompasses Spanish colonialism, the Civil War, the destruction of the buffalo herds, and the arrival of the railroads, and the amazing story of Cynthia Ann Parker and her son Quanah—a historical feast for anyone interested in how the United States came into being. Hailed by critics, S. C. Gwynne’s account of these events is meticulously researched, intellectually provocative, and, above all, thrillingly told. Empire of the Summer Moon announces him as a major new writer of American history.
How to Hide an Empire
Author: Daniel Immerwahr
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374715122
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 382
Book Description
Named one of the ten best books of the year by the Chicago Tribune A Publishers Weekly best book of 2019 | A 2019 NPR Staff Pick A pathbreaking history of the United States’ overseas possessions and the true meaning of its empire We are familiar with maps that outline all fifty states. And we are also familiar with the idea that the United States is an “empire,” exercising power around the world. But what about the actual territories—the islands, atolls, and archipelagos—this country has governed and inhabited? In How to Hide an Empire, Daniel Immerwahr tells the fascinating story of the United States outside the United States. In crackling, fast-paced prose, he reveals forgotten episodes that cast American history in a new light. We travel to the Guano Islands, where prospectors collected one of the nineteenth century’s most valuable commodities, and the Philippines, site of the most destructive event on U.S. soil. In Puerto Rico, Immerwahr shows how U.S. doctors conducted grisly experiments they would never have conducted on the mainland and charts the emergence of independence fighters who would shoot up the U.S. Congress. In the years after World War II, Immerwahr notes, the United States moved away from colonialism. Instead, it put innovations in electronics, transportation, and culture to use, devising a new sort of influence that did not require the control of colonies. Rich with absorbing vignettes, full of surprises, and driven by an original conception of what empire and globalization mean today, How to Hide an Empire is a major and compulsively readable work of history.
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374715122
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 382
Book Description
Named one of the ten best books of the year by the Chicago Tribune A Publishers Weekly best book of 2019 | A 2019 NPR Staff Pick A pathbreaking history of the United States’ overseas possessions and the true meaning of its empire We are familiar with maps that outline all fifty states. And we are also familiar with the idea that the United States is an “empire,” exercising power around the world. But what about the actual territories—the islands, atolls, and archipelagos—this country has governed and inhabited? In How to Hide an Empire, Daniel Immerwahr tells the fascinating story of the United States outside the United States. In crackling, fast-paced prose, he reveals forgotten episodes that cast American history in a new light. We travel to the Guano Islands, where prospectors collected one of the nineteenth century’s most valuable commodities, and the Philippines, site of the most destructive event on U.S. soil. In Puerto Rico, Immerwahr shows how U.S. doctors conducted grisly experiments they would never have conducted on the mainland and charts the emergence of independence fighters who would shoot up the U.S. Congress. In the years after World War II, Immerwahr notes, the United States moved away from colonialism. Instead, it put innovations in electronics, transportation, and culture to use, devising a new sort of influence that did not require the control of colonies. Rich with absorbing vignettes, full of surprises, and driven by an original conception of what empire and globalization mean today, How to Hide an Empire is a major and compulsively readable work of history.
Empire
Author: Jeremy Paxman
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0670919608
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 437
Book Description
From the bestselling author of The English comes Empire, Jeremy Paxman's history of the British Empire accompanied by a flagship 5-part BBC TV series, for readers of Simon Schama and Andrew Marr. The influence of the British Empire is everywhere, from the very existence of the United Kingdom to the ethnic composition of our cities. It affects everything, from Prime Ministers' decisions to send troops to war to the adventurers we admire. From the sports we think we're good at to the architecture of our buildings; the way we travel to the way we trade; the hopeless losers we will on, and the food we hunger for, the empire is never very far away. In this acute and witty analysis, Jeremy Paxman goes to the very heart of empire. As he describes the selection process for colonial officers ('intended to weed out the cad, the feeble and the too clever') the importance of sport, the sweating domestic life of the colonial officer's wife ('the challenge with cooking meat was "to grasp the fleeting moment between toughness and putrefaction when the joint may possibly prove eatable"') and the crazed end for General Gordon of Khartoum, Paxman brings brilliantly to life the tragedy and comedy of Empire and reveals its profound and lasting effect on our nation and ourselves. 'Paxman is witty, incisive, acerbic and opinionated . . . In short, he carries the whole thing off with panache bordering on effrontery' Piers Brendon, Sunday Times 'Paxman is a magnificent historian, and Empire may be remembered as his finest work' Independent on Sunday Jeremy Paxman was born in Yorkshire and educated at Cambridge. He is an award-winning journalist who spent ten years reporting from overseas, notably for Panorama. He is the author of five books including The English. He is the presenter of Newsnight and University Challenge and has presented BBC documentaries on various subjects including Victorian art and Wilfred Owen.
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0670919608
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 437
Book Description
From the bestselling author of The English comes Empire, Jeremy Paxman's history of the British Empire accompanied by a flagship 5-part BBC TV series, for readers of Simon Schama and Andrew Marr. The influence of the British Empire is everywhere, from the very existence of the United Kingdom to the ethnic composition of our cities. It affects everything, from Prime Ministers' decisions to send troops to war to the adventurers we admire. From the sports we think we're good at to the architecture of our buildings; the way we travel to the way we trade; the hopeless losers we will on, and the food we hunger for, the empire is never very far away. In this acute and witty analysis, Jeremy Paxman goes to the very heart of empire. As he describes the selection process for colonial officers ('intended to weed out the cad, the feeble and the too clever') the importance of sport, the sweating domestic life of the colonial officer's wife ('the challenge with cooking meat was "to grasp the fleeting moment between toughness and putrefaction when the joint may possibly prove eatable"') and the crazed end for General Gordon of Khartoum, Paxman brings brilliantly to life the tragedy and comedy of Empire and reveals its profound and lasting effect on our nation and ourselves. 'Paxman is witty, incisive, acerbic and opinionated . . . In short, he carries the whole thing off with panache bordering on effrontery' Piers Brendon, Sunday Times 'Paxman is a magnificent historian, and Empire may be remembered as his finest work' Independent on Sunday Jeremy Paxman was born in Yorkshire and educated at Cambridge. He is an award-winning journalist who spent ten years reporting from overseas, notably for Panorama. He is the author of five books including The English. He is the presenter of Newsnight and University Challenge and has presented BBC documentaries on various subjects including Victorian art and Wilfred Owen.
Inglorious Empire
Author: Shashi Tharoor
Publisher: Penguin Group
ISBN: 9780141987149
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Inglorious Empire' tells the real story of the British in India from the arrival of the East India Company to the end of the Raj, revealing how Britain's rise was built upon its plunder of India. In the eighteenth century, India's share of the world economy was as large as Europe's. By 1947, after two centuries of British rule, it had decreased six-fold. Beyond conquest and deception, the Empire blew rebels from cannon, massacred unarmed protesters, entrenched institutionalised racism, and caused millions to die from starvation. British imperialism justified itself as enlightened despotism for the benefit of the governed, but Shashi Tharoor takes on and demolishes this position, demonstrating how every supposed imperial "gift" - from the railways to the rule of law -was designed in Britain's interests alone. He goes on to show how Britain's Industrial Revolution was founded on India's deindustrialisation, and the destruction of its textile industry.
Publisher: Penguin Group
ISBN: 9780141987149
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Inglorious Empire' tells the real story of the British in India from the arrival of the East India Company to the end of the Raj, revealing how Britain's rise was built upon its plunder of India. In the eighteenth century, India's share of the world economy was as large as Europe's. By 1947, after two centuries of British rule, it had decreased six-fold. Beyond conquest and deception, the Empire blew rebels from cannon, massacred unarmed protesters, entrenched institutionalised racism, and caused millions to die from starvation. British imperialism justified itself as enlightened despotism for the benefit of the governed, but Shashi Tharoor takes on and demolishes this position, demonstrating how every supposed imperial "gift" - from the railways to the rule of law -was designed in Britain's interests alone. He goes on to show how Britain's Industrial Revolution was founded on India's deindustrialisation, and the destruction of its textile industry.
The Glory of the Empire
Author: Jean D'Ormesson
Publisher: New York Review of Books
ISBN: 1590179668
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 433
Book Description
The Glory of the Empire is the rich and absorbing history of an extraordinary empire, at one point a rival to Rome. Rulers such as Basil the Great of Onessa, who founded the Empire but whose treacherous ways made him a byword for infamy, and the romantic Alexis the bastard, who dallied in the fleshpots of Egypt, studied Taoism and Buddhism, returned to save the Empire from civil war, and then retired “to learn to die,” come alive in The Glory of the Empire, along with generals, politicians, prophets, scoundrels, and others. Jean d’Ormesson also goes into the daily life of the Empire, its popular customs, and its contribution to the arts and the sciences, which, as he demonstrates, exercised an influence on the world as a whole, from the East to the West, and whose repercussions are still felt today. But it is all fiction, a thought experiment worthy of Jorge Luis Borges, and in the end The Glory of the Empire emerges as a great shimmering mirage, filling us with wonder even as it makes us wonder at the fugitive nature of power and the meaning of history itself.
Publisher: New York Review of Books
ISBN: 1590179668
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 433
Book Description
The Glory of the Empire is the rich and absorbing history of an extraordinary empire, at one point a rival to Rome. Rulers such as Basil the Great of Onessa, who founded the Empire but whose treacherous ways made him a byword for infamy, and the romantic Alexis the bastard, who dallied in the fleshpots of Egypt, studied Taoism and Buddhism, returned to save the Empire from civil war, and then retired “to learn to die,” come alive in The Glory of the Empire, along with generals, politicians, prophets, scoundrels, and others. Jean d’Ormesson also goes into the daily life of the Empire, its popular customs, and its contribution to the arts and the sciences, which, as he demonstrates, exercised an influence on the world as a whole, from the East to the West, and whose repercussions are still felt today. But it is all fiction, a thought experiment worthy of Jorge Luis Borges, and in the end The Glory of the Empire emerges as a great shimmering mirage, filling us with wonder even as it makes us wonder at the fugitive nature of power and the meaning of history itself.
Ghosts of Empire
Author: Kwasi Kwarteng
Publisher: PublicAffairs
ISBN: 1610391217
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 590
Book Description
Kwasi Kwarteng is the child of parents whose lives were shaped as subjects of the British Empire, first in their native Ghana, then as British immigrants. He brings a unique perspective and impeccable academic credentials to a narrative history of the British Empire, one that avoids sweeping judgmental condemnation and instead sees the Empire for what it was: a series of local fiefdoms administered in varying degrees of competence or brutality by a cast of characters as outsized and eccentric as anything conjured by Gilbert and Sullivan. The truth, as Kwarteng reveals, is that there was no such thing as a model for imperial administration; instead, appointees were schooled in quirky, independent-minded individuality. As a result the Empire was the product not of a grand idea but of often chaotic individual improvisation. The idiosyncrasies of viceroys and soldier-diplomats who ran the colonial enterprise continues to impact the world, from Kashmir to Sudan, Baghdad to Hong Kong.
Publisher: PublicAffairs
ISBN: 1610391217
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 590
Book Description
Kwasi Kwarteng is the child of parents whose lives were shaped as subjects of the British Empire, first in their native Ghana, then as British immigrants. He brings a unique perspective and impeccable academic credentials to a narrative history of the British Empire, one that avoids sweeping judgmental condemnation and instead sees the Empire for what it was: a series of local fiefdoms administered in varying degrees of competence or brutality by a cast of characters as outsized and eccentric as anything conjured by Gilbert and Sullivan. The truth, as Kwarteng reveals, is that there was no such thing as a model for imperial administration; instead, appointees were schooled in quirky, independent-minded individuality. As a result the Empire was the product not of a grand idea but of often chaotic individual improvisation. The idiosyncrasies of viceroys and soldier-diplomats who ran the colonial enterprise continues to impact the world, from Kashmir to Sudan, Baghdad to Hong Kong.
The Secret History of the American Empire
Author: John Perkins
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 9780525950158
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 392
Book Description
In this riveting memoir, bestselling author Perkins details his former role as an economic hit man. This stunning, behind-the-scenes expos reveals a conspiracy of corruption that has fueled instability and anti-Americanism around the globe.
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 9780525950158
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 392
Book Description
In this riveting memoir, bestselling author Perkins details his former role as an economic hit man. This stunning, behind-the-scenes expos reveals a conspiracy of corruption that has fueled instability and anti-Americanism around the globe.