Showing titles in Asia

In On Xi Jinping, former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd provides an authoritative account of the ideological worldview driving Chinese behaviour both domestically and on the world stage—that of President Xi Jinping, who now holds near-total control over the Chinese Communist Party and is now, in effect, president-for-life. Rudd argues that Xi’s worldview differs significantly from those of the leaders who preceded him, and that this ideological shift is reflected in the real world of Chinese policy and behaviour.

Chinese history is nothing if not messy. Heroes are also villains; prosperity mingles with violence; cultural vibrancy coexists with censorship and repression. Modern China is seen variously as an economic powerhouse, an icon of urbanization, a propaganda state and an aggressive superpower seeking world domination. Jaivin distills this vast history into a sparkling narrative, from mythical origins to the COVID-19 pandemic. It's a story in which China's women, from the earliest warriors to 20th-century suffragettes, receive long overdue attention.

A definitive, headline-making exposé of how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has carried out the largest-scale theft of intellectual property, technology, and data in history—reshaping the global balance of power and redrawing the geopolitical map for decades to come The Great Heist exposes...

This is a book about the coming of age of four women born in China in the 1980s and 1990s, in a society about to change beyond recognition. It is about Leiya, who wants to escape the fate of the women in her village. Still underage, she bluffs her way on to the factory floor. It is about June, who at fifteen sets what her family thinks is an impossible goal: to attend university rather than raise pigs. It is about Siyue, ranked second-to-bottom of her English class, who decides to prove her teachers wrong.

THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A thrilling first-hand account by husband-and-wife CIA operatives who, against all odds, triumphed in a deadly cat-and-mouse game against a mole within the intelligence agency - an unprecedented insider view of 21st-century spycraft. Andrew and Jihi...

A comprehensive and authoritative introduction to China's political history, contemporary political system, and key policy areas, such as the environment, population management, and public health.

Zen, haiku, martial arts, sushi, anime, manga, film, video games . . . Japanese culture has long enriched our Western way of life. Yet from a Western perspective, Japan remains a remote island country that has long had a complicated relationship with the outside world. Japan—an archipelago strung like a necklace around the Asian mainland—is considerably farther from Asia than Britain is from Europe. The sea has provided an effective barrier against invasion and enabled the culture to develop in unique ways. 

More than twenty years after teaching English to China's first boom generation at a small college in Sichuan Province, Peter Hessler returned to teach the next generation. At the same time, Hessler's twin daughters became the only Westerners in a student body of about two thousand in their local primary school. Through reconnecting with his previous students now in their forties—members of China's "Reform generation"—and teaching his current undergraduates, Hessler is able to tell an intimately unique story about China's incredible transformation over the past quarter-century.

Spies and Lies a groundbreaking expose of elite influence operations by China's little-known Ministry of State Security. Revealing for the first time how the Chinese Communist Party has tasked its spies to deceive the world, it challenges the conventional account of China's past, present, and future.

The weekly column Ask a North Korean, published by NK News, invites readers from around the world to pose questions to North Korean defectors. By way of these fascinating interviews, the North Koreans themselves provide authentic firsthand testimonies about what is happening inside the "Hermit Kingdom." This book sheds critical light on all aspects of North Korean politics and society and shows that even in the world's most authoritarian regime, life goes on in ways that are very different from what you may think.

In this urgent and eye-opening book, journalist Jan Jekielek distills decades of investigations from reputable sources, combined with his own research and in-depth firsthand insight, into a compelling case for rethinking our approach to the CCP. Through the lens of grave human rights abuses—most disturbingly, the state-sanctioned harvesting of organs from prisoners of conscience—Jekielek exposes the inner workings of a regime built on deception, coercion, and control.

These early philosophical writings underpinned the Chinese revolutions and their clarion calls to insurrection remain some of the most stirring of all time. Drawing on a dizzying array of references from contemporary culture and politics, Zizek's firecracker commentary reaches unsettling conclusions about the place of Mao's thought in the revolutionary canon.

Journalist Patricia Evangelista came of age in the aftermath of a street revolution that forged a new future for the Philippines. Three decades later, in the face of mounting inequality, the nation discovered the fragility of its democratic institutions under the regime of strongman Rodrigo Duterte. Some People Need Killing is Evangelista's meticulously reported and deeply human chronicle of the Philippines' drug war.

Winner of the National Book Award 2014 A young army captain who risked execution to swim from free-market Taiwan to Communist China. A barber who made $150 million in the gambling dens of Macau. The richest woman in China, a recycling tycoon known as the 'Wastepaper Queen'. Age of Ambition describes some of the billion individual lives that make up China's story - one that unfolds on remote farms, in glittering mansions, and in the halls of power of the world’s largest authoritarian regime.

For a brief moment on December 27, 2007, life came to a standstill in Pakistan. Benazir Bhutto, the country's former prime minister and the first woman ever to lead a Muslim country, had been assassinated at a political rally just outside Islamabad. Back in Karachi--Bhutto's birthplace and Pakistan's other great metropolis--Rafia Zakaria's family was suffering through a crisis of its own: her uncle Sohail, the man who had brought shame upon the family, was near death.

An inspiring survivor of Mao’s Cultural Revolution in China makes a passionate case that history is eerily repeating itself as the Woke Revolution spreads across America. Xi Van Fleet lived through the horrors of the Chinese Cultural Revolution as a schoolgirl. Forced to the countryside with...

From the former New York Times Asia correspondent and author of China's Second Continent, an incisive investigation of China's ideological development as it becomes an ever more aggressive player in regional and global diplomacy. For many years after its reform and opening in 1978, China...

TIME’S #1 NONFICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW TOP 10 BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR “Patricia Evangelista’s searing account is not only the definitive chronicle of a reign of terror in the Philippines, but a warning to the rest of the world about the true dangers of...

Policing in Japan: 10 Facts About the Kōban System by Barnaby Sorrens offers a revealing, in-depth look into one of the most unique and quietly effective law enforcement models in the world. At the heart of Japan’s remarkably low crime rates lies an institution both humble in appearance and profound in purpose: the Kōban, or police box. Far from the outdated booths one might imagine, these neighbourhood fixtures are fully functioning police posts embedded directly into daily community life.

An economic and military superpower with twenty percent of the world's population, China has the wherewithal to transform the international system. Xi Jinping's bold calls for China to "lead in the reform of the global governance system" suggest that he has just such an ambition. But how does he plan to realize it? And what does it mean for the rest of the world? In this compelling book, Elizabeth Economy reveals China's ambitious new strategy to reclaim the country's past glory and reshape the geostrategic landscape in dramatic new ways.