Showing results by publisher "----RM Alexander" in Asia

From the first agricultural settlement more than 7,000 years ago to the Indian campaign of Alexander the Great and the vast Maurya Empire, ancient India tells a story interweaved with captivating legends and cultural legacy.

In traditional China, dynasties rewrote history to justify their rule by proving that their predecessors were unworthy of holding power. Marxism gave this a modern gloss, describing history as an unstoppable force heading toward Communism's triumph. The Chinese Communist Party builds on these ideas to whitewash its misdeeds and justify its rule. But in recent years, a network of independent writers, artists and film-makers have challenged this state-led disremembering.

The Masks of God is a four-volume study of world religion and myth that stands as one of Joseph Campbell’s masterworks. In this second volume of The Masks of God - Campbell’s major work of comparative mythology - the preeminent mythologist looks at Asian mythology as it developed over the course of five thousand years into the distinctive religions of Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, China, and Japan.

In 1975, at the height of Indira Gandhi’s “Emergency”, V. S. Naipaul returned to India, the country his ancestors had left 100 years earlier. Out of that journey he produced this concise masterpiece: a vibrant, defiantly unsentimental portrait of a society traumatized by centuries of foreign conquest and immured in a mythic vision of its past.

A character-driven history that describes the bizarrely ill-suited alliance between America and Pakistan, written by a uniquely insightful participant: Pakistan's former ambassador to the US. The relationship between America and Pakistan is based on mutual incomprehension, and always has been. Pakistan - to American eyes - has gone from being a stabilizing friend to an essential military ally to a seedbed of terror.

The jagged mountains dividing China and Burma belong to the Wa, an indigenous group who have outwitted the CIA to create the world's mightiest narco-state, controlling more territory than Israel and with more troops than Sweden. Are they crime lords? Or visionaries?

Noted Japan expert Professor Mark J. Ravina of the University of Texas at Austin covers the politics, economics, and culture of the island nation since World War II - a conflict that saw the end of Japan’s dream of regional conquest, which Professor Ravina calls Empire 1.0. The country’s postwar leaders radically changed course, renouncing a strong military to pursue Empire 2.0 - Japan as an economic colossus.

In 1943 Winston Churchill and the British Empire needed millions of Indian troops, all of India's industrial output, and tons of Indian grain to support the Allied war effort. Such massive contributions were certain to trigger famine in India. Because Churchill believed that the fate of the British Empire hung in the balance, he proceeded, sacrificing millions of Indian lives in order to preserve what he held most dear. The result: the Bengal Famine of 1943-44, in which millions of villagers starved to death.

By midsummer 1945, Japan had long since lost the war in the Pacific. The people were not told the truth, and neither was the emperor. Japanese generals, admirals, and statesmen knew, but only a handful of leaders were willing to accept defeat. Most were bent on fighting the Allies until the last Japanese soldier died and the last city burned to the ground.

This deeply researched book describes one of the great forgotten battles of the 20th century. At its height it involved nearly a million Chinese and Japanese soldiers, while sucking in three million civilians as unwilling spectators and, often, victims. It turned what had been a Japanese adventure in China into a general war between the two oldest and proudest civilizations of the Far East. Ultimately, it led to Pearl Harbor and to seven decades of tumultuous history in Asia. The Battle of Shanghai was a pivotal event that helped define and shape the modern world.

An in-depth biography of the towering 20th-century Chinese military and political figure who led the government, first on the mainland and then in exile in Taiwan, from the acclaimed New Yorker correspondent who lived in China when he was head of state.

Bushido: The Soul of Japan is a seminal study on the way of the samurai by the Japanese educator Inazo Nitobe. From 1868, the beginning of the Meiji Era, Japan rapidly transformed itself from an isolated feudal society into a modern, industrialised nation state, influenced by Western philosophical and scientific ideas. Nitobe wrote Bushido in English to explain the samurai way to a western audience; it was later translated into Japanese.

In this remarkable WWII story by New York Times best-selling author John R. Bruning, a renegade American pilot fights against all odds to rescue his family - imprisoned by the Japanese - and revolutionizes modern warfare along the way. From the knife fights and smuggling runs of his youth to his fiery days as a pioneering naval aviator, Paul Irving "Pappy" Gunn played by his own set of rules and always survived on his wits and fists. But when he fell for a conservative Southern belle, her love transformed him from a wild and reckless airman to a cunning entrepreneur.

Uncover the historical and social roots of caste discrimination in Who Were the Shudras? by Dr. B. R. Ambedkar. This groundbreaking work challenges the traditional narratives of Hindu society, offering a meticulous examination of the origins and status of the Shudra caste. Ambedkar's critical analysis and visionary insights call for a re-evaluation of social hierarchies and advocate for equality and justice.

Every day, three times a day, the students march in two straight lines, singing praises to Kim Jong-il and North Korea: Without you, there is no motherland. Without you, there is no us. It is a chilling scene, but gradually Suki Kim, too, learns the tune and, without noticing, begins to hum it. It is 2011, and all universities in North Korea have been shut down for an entire year, the students sent to construction fields - except for the 270 students at the all-male Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST).

If you are planning to learn all you can about Chinese Mythology, then check this audiobook out. It will give you insights into: The story of Pangu and the creation of the Earth, Nu Gua and the creation of mankind, how Nu Gua repaired the sky, myths of the Chinese festivals, the two Classic Chinese Myths: The Monkey King and The Lady White Snake, and more! If you are interested in culture and Eastern practices, then this audiobook is a great way to learn those myths and festival information.

During the peak of the Afghanistan War, a group of soldiers is dropped by helicopter into the remote mountains outside of Kandahar City. Mismanaged and overlooked by command, the squad must rely on each other to survive. Their mission is to train and advise the Afghan National Police and help rebuild the country of Afghanistan. The Afghan Police station they are assigned to live in is falling apart and disease-ridden.

In the closing months of the Second World War hundreds of thousands of Japanese, mostly civilians, died. American planes were beginning to run low on plausible targets when it was decided to use two atomic weapons in a final flourish to try to end the war. Richard Overy’s remarkable book rethinks how we should regard this last stage of the war and the role of the bombs. The popular view that bombing worked in this case has now to be set in a broader context of what was happening in Japan in the months before surrender. The easy equation ‘bombing equals surrender’ is no longer viable.

From the Yangtze to the Yellow River, China is traversed by great waterways, which have defined its politics and ways of life for centuries. Water has been so integral to China's culture, economy, and growth and development that it provides a window on the whole sweep of Chinese history. In The Water Kingdom, renowned writer Philip Ball opens that window to offer an epic and powerful new way of thinking about Chinese civilization. Water, Ball shows, is a key that unlocks much of Chinese culture.

The deadliest animal of all time meets the world's most legendary hunter in a classic battle between man and wild. But this pulse-pounding narrative is also a nuanced story of how colonialism and environmental destruction upset the natural order, placing man, tiger and nature on a collision course.