Asian Memoir

Gandhi's nonviolent struggles against racism, violence and colonialism in South Africa and India had brought him to such a level of notoriety and adulation that when asked to write an autobiography midway through his career, he took it as an opportunity to explain himself. He feared the enthusiasm for his ideas tended to exceed a deeper understanding of his quest for truth rooted in devotion to God.

Dr Kalam, who was India's 11th president and has been a scientist and a teacher, has written more than 20 books. Ranging from inspirational and spiritual thoughts, to autobiographical reflections, to his vision statements for a developed India, these works bear the imprint of a mind that is deeply reflective. For the first time, some of the most thoughtful, inspiring and educative of these writings have been compiled in one place in The Righteous Life.

When Anna Broinowski learned that fracking had invaded downtown Sydney, she had a brilliant idea: she would seek guidance for a kryptonite-powerful, anti-fracking movie from the world's greatest propaganda factory - apart from Hollywood. After two years of trying, she was allowed to make her case in Pyongyang and was granted full permission to film. She worked closely with the leading lights of North Korean cinema, even playing an American in a military thriller.

Midlife crisis, his life’s dreams at an early end, it was time to bust out and see the world. Nowick Gray sets out with backpack and drum to find out what he’s been missing. Tropical warmth, better health, inner peace… He scours Asia and the Pacific, Europe and Latin America for that perfect beach, a new tribe, a winter home. Will ayahuasca heal his woes, or an ayurvedic cleanse? Beset by desperate touts on an abandoned Bali shore, he knows he’s a dying breed: the last tourist. With this fourth book in the My Country series, Nowick’s travels extend across the globe, caught in ...

Mao Zedong es reconocido, junto con Chiang Kai-Shek y Sun Yat-Sen, como una de las figuras más influyentes de la historia China moderna. Su control político de la nación declinó durante sus últimos años, pero permaneció como el presidente del Partido Comunista de China desde su fundación en 1949 hasta el día en que murió (9 de septiembre de 1976). Como el padre fundador de la República Popular China y el eje central de uno de los cultos de personalidad más intensos del mundo, el alcance de su influencia no se puede subestimar.

When Confucius spoke, people listened, and they still listen today. The wisdom of this Chinese philosopher, teacher, politician, and writer still rings as true today as it did over 2,000 years ago. Who was the legend who has become revered as a sage throughout the ages? To put it shortly, he was a simple man. Confucius was born into poverty, but at an early age he came to value education, integrity, and moral behavior. This audiobook tells the story of the life of the world-renowned philosopher and scholar, and it describes the tenets of his philosophy in a succinct manner.

John Auden was a pioneering geologist of the Himalayas. Michael Spender was the first to survey the northern approach to the summit of Mount Everest. While their younger brothers - W. H. Auden and Stephen Spender - achieved literary fame, they vied for a place on an expedition that would finally conquer Everest, a quest that had become a metaphor for Britain’s efforts to maintain power over India. To this rivalry was added another: in the summer of 1938 both men fell in love with a painter named Nancy Sharp. Her choice would determine each man’s wartime loyalties.

Throughout the world, oppressive regimes are being uprooted and replaced by budding democracies, but one exception remains: The People's Republic of North Korea. The Kim family has clung to power for three generations by silencing dissidents, ruling with an iron fist, and holding its neighbors hostage with threats of war. Under the leadership of Kim Jong Un, North Korea has come closer than ever to creating a viable nuclear arsenal, but widespread famine and growing resistance are weakening his regime's stability.

Gandhi. The name conjures the image of a man, unimpressive in appearance, simple in his lifestyle, who spent his life pursuing independence for India. Months after the country achieved that independence from Great Britain, Gandhi’s life ended when an assassin killed him. But Gandhi’s legacy lives on. Gandhi’s rise to political and spiritual leadership is the incredible saga of a man who, in his youth, showed no signs of greatness but who became one of the most influential men of all time.

Author Lauren Hilgers captures the joys and indignities of building a life in a new country - and the stubborn allure of the American dream - in this deeply reported story of one indelible family transplanted from rural China to New York City.

Prince Saionji Kinmochi was the last genro of Japan who played a leading role in Japanese politics during the Meiji Restoration. Having served as prime minister of Japan twice, his insights into the matter of Manchuria were crucial in understanding the invasion of China during World War 2. The introduction contextualizes Japan's relationship with Manchuria and China along with the politicized military to set the socio-political backdrop for the memoir. In addition, the genro's cultural and political significance is described to demonstrate Saionji's own cultural status. A detailed ...

Bill Birtles was rushed out of China in September 2020, forced to seek refuge in the Australian Embassy in Beijing while diplomats delicately negotiated his departure in an unprecedented standoff with China's government. Five days later, he was on a flight back to Sydney, leaving China without any Australian foreign correspondents on the ground for the first time in decades. A journalist's perspective on this rising global power has never been more important, as Australia's relationship with China undergoes an extraordinary change.

Genghis Khan was the most unlikely of conquerors. An orphan of the Mongolian Steppes, his rise went all but unnoticed by all the great powers around him. His people had been divided and discounted by the Chinese dynasties to his south and completely dismissed by the encroaching Islamic empires to his west. Known as little more than bandits and nomads, Genghis Khan and his Mongolian horde would shake kings and emperors to their very core as they descended like locusts upon all four corners of the known world.

In 1998, Val arrives in Beijing expecting to find freedom - but she finds her traditional relatives instead. She discovers a city rebelling against its roots, struggling to find a new, modern identity like her. A thriving avant-garde subculture makes art out of the chaos in Beijing's gritty outskirts.

Munoz provides new insight into Benazir Bhutto’s unprecedented rise and an unflinching, minute-by-minute narrative of the assassination itself. With impeccable research, Munoz also situates Bhutto in the decades-long history of U.S.-Pakistan relations and the emergence of global terrorism, pinpointing her death as the moment when those relations changed forever. The result is a gripping narrative of Pakistan’s turbulent political realities and the death of its leading politician.

John Masters was a soldier before he became a best-selling novelist. He went to Sandhurst in 1933 at the age of 18 and was commissioned into the Fourth Gurkha Rifles in time to take part in some of the last campaigns on the turbulent North-West Frontier of India. John Masters joined a Gurhka regiment on receiving his commission, and his depiction of garrison life and campaigning on the North-West Frontier has never been surpassed. Bugles and a Tiger is a matchless evocation of the British Army in India on the eve of the Second World War.

This is a captivating account of a Marine Rifle Squad as it prepared for deployment to Vietnam, and establishing the enclave south of Da Nang, Vietnam. Mentored by Korean Veterans, the Marine Riflemen become veterans tested in the rice paddies at Da Nang, Phu Bai, and the highlands of Khe Sanh.

Adventurer Sylvain Tesson has led a restless life, riding across Central Asia on horseback, freeclimbing the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame, and traversing the Himalayas by foot. But while recovering from an accident that left him in a coma, and nursing his wounds from a lost love, he found himself domesticated, his lust for life draining with each moment spent staring at a screen. An expedition to the mountains of Tibet, in search of the famously elusive snow leopard, presented itself as a cure.

A luminous memoir-in-essays exploring place, identity, and what it means to grow up queer and Asian in the American South.

It's a sure sign of fame when a man is known simply by his first name, and Mao Zedong, often referred to simply as Mao or Chairman Mao, was one of the most influential men of the 20th century. He was also arguably the most controversial; as the founder of the People's Republic of China, Mao rose from being a communist revolutionary to successfully overthrowing a regime and transforming China into a communist powerhouse in Asia.