Michael Twohey has written a book that is vast in scope, innovative in theme and clear in execution. Who would have thought Confucius irrelevant to Chinese political traditions? Who would have thought Deng Xiaoping a follower of ancient philosophical virtues? These and other revelations come to the fore as Twohey challenges one orthodoxy after another, supports his arguments with over six years of extensive research and re-positions contemporary Chinese authoritarianism on Xunzi's classical notion of welfare. The result is a must read for China specialists and non-specialists alike.

Dr. Sepideh Gharai Thornhill, Ontario Canada

Michael Twohey sets aside the long-standing disposition to see political arguments in China in the past hundred years from a liberal or Marxist point of view, argues that to call them "Confucian" is too simple, and demonstrates their strikingly pragmatic continuity from Kang through Sun Yat-sen and the early Mao and Deng to the present. The result is a clear, powerful and persuasive intellectual history, of the first importance for understanding China in the twentieth century and its likely progress into the twenty-first.

Geoffrey Hawthorn University of Cambridge

In this thought-provoking study, Michael Twohey persuasively argues that the Confucian conception of the relationship between authority and welfare, informed by Xunzi's political thought, is a pertinent frame of reference for understanding contemporary Chinese statecraft. He has demonstrated that familiarity with Xunzi's ideas of group, natural inequality and great harmony can significantly enhance our appreciation of the rhetoric and ritual of exercising power in the People's Republic of China. His analysis of the debates on New Authoritarianism offers a fresh perspective on democracy and socialism in China.

Tu Weiming Professor of Chinese History and Philosophy, Harvard University and Director, the Harvard-Yenching Institute

I've been a hobby Chinese cook for about 10 years, since I found this book for $1 on a table along NYC's Broadway on the Upper West Side. Its perfectly adapted recipes for the American kitchen are true to the original intent, and you will be able to create great meals at home with little trouble to replace that cold take-out.

Lest it sound that it's not for the serious chef, the instructions provide lots of interesting details about the true Chinese recipes and ingredients. If you live in a city or town that gives you access to the true ingredients (as I do), then you can also play authentic Chinese cook for your family or friends.

All-in-all, one of the most used cookbooks in our house, where we have well over 100, and my wife is a professional chef!

I was looking for a really good Char Shue (Chinese Bar-B-Q Pork) recipe since having this delicous treat at Chef Chew's restaurant in CA. For years, nothing came close to what I had that day. Then I found this book by Chef Chew and I wouldn't part with it for anything! It's well written and it's got some of the best authentic chinese cuisine in it *YUM!*

You won't be disappointed!

There were so many Chinese cookbooks available so I had to try something different to pick one. So I looked inside the cover and picked out the best looking Chef I could find.

That may sound wierd, but the quality of food I cooked was amazing. Chef Chu takes traditional Chinese cooking to the next level with his unique touches that can't be found in any other cookbook out there. Chef Chu not only covers how to cook great Chinese, but how to make the dishes look like artwork.

If you are serious about cooking Chinese food, this is THE book to get.

While not a substitute for direct oral instruction, it is helpful for a "refresher". Its been years since I recived the empowerment for the practice, so its a great tool to remind myself of seed syllables, colors or sounds used during the practice. I have some shorter instructions from my teacher, but the depth of the book works really well esp. with the sleep states and various stories Rinpoche uses througout. If Chenrezig is a main practice for you, I can't think of a better book to use than this one.

This text provides clear and concise instruction for deity meditation. It includes instruction for beginners on visualisation. It also has pictorial help for visualisation of HRI and for disolution of the HRI which I found very helpful.

Very few books have been written like this about an particular Yidam deity. Many American Tibetan Buddhists love to receive "advanced" practices but neglect bodhichitta - the essence of Buddha's teachings. Since Chenrezig is the Yidam deity that is the representation of bodhichitta, how can anyone go wrong by learning more about about the Chenrezig Yidam practice?

I just decorated my entire apartment in a fusion-asian style and this book was the last item I bought - to sit on my coffee table and accentuate the living room. I look at it all the time!!

Beautiful pictures throughout. What a wonderful book!!

If you are interested in Chinese art, culture, clothing, and history, then this is your Bible. Chalked full of photos that pop off the page. This witty and interesting book takes you from Ming to present day China. Vivienne Tam reflects on her life, born in mainland China, raised in Hong Kong, then moving to New York. She tells charming stories about what has influenced and inspired her and her collections. Great interviews with members of China's creative community, and who can forget Mao? The book is designed like a large coffee table version of Mao's little red book! This is simply stunning.

Big book with stunning and bright photo illustrations that "bleed" off the page.

Ms. Tam understands the style of Hong Kong and China (especially Shanghai) like few others; the best of that style is all here. She writes with enthusiasm and love for many essential aspects of the appeal of a culture known for its centuries-old aesthetic and for its mass-production and other mass sensibilities.

Tam's education at the Hong Kong Polytechnic gives her a unique vantage point for isolating Chinese chic. She can view Cultural Revolution paraphrenalia with the eye of a designer, collector, and artist, rather than with painful memories. In a show of global sophistication, she understands East-meets-West sensibility (her chapter on Chinglish is told with an appealing tenderness). The text comes off without a shimmer of self-consciousness or compulsion to 'be Chinese.' There is camp, sex, zen, pizzazz and beauty, exploding off of every page and augmented by Tam's tales of exploration and appreciation.

Bonus interviews with composer Tan Dun and choreographer/visionary Danny Yung are painfully short, but the reader still gets a healthy dose of young Chinese intelligensia. The text is endearingly personal, Vivienne Tam sharing with the reader what her senses take in. It's quite delightful.

Great keepsake for people who have visited Hong Kong or Shanghai!

This is one of my favorite books of all time, definitely in my personal Top 10, one I recommend to everyone who's a serious reader of fiction. To those uninitiated into Godden's unique writing style, it might seem stilted, aging badly, a typical mid-century "women's novel," but there is something wonderful in store for those who take the plunge. For a non-science-fiction novel, this book deals with time in an almost-magical-realism manner. Yes, in some ways it's just one more of those multi-generational-family novels, but the 100-plus years covered all seem to take place simultaneously, the past informing the present, the future humming softly in the shadows. On one page, in one paragraph, even, you might hear dialogue from any one of the vast cast of characters, living at any point of the house's existence. Something else I like very much about this book---the way we get to know this fictional family slowly, intimately, secrets and warts and all, echoing the way you might get become familiar with any new set of friends...As a bonus, there are lovely, intricate, twining, twisting plot-lines about rare books, beautiful gardens, destiny, love, and the wild Cornish countryside. I can't recommend it highly enough, even though I know perfectly well that there are philistines out there who will dislike it...and I think it's criminal that it's gone out of print again. Hunt it down! Buy it! Read it! You won't be sorry.

I fell into this book as into water and didn't come up until the last word. I cannot say enough about Rumer Godden's gift for words. I keep hoping I will find something I haven't read by her. I would encourage anyone to read every word she has ever written. It is like being in the middle of riches! Read the children's books!! The child in us loves all of her books. Enjoy!

I read China Court first as a teen. It has always meant so much to me that it became my favorite.The strong thread of family and the sense of family traditions continuing in the house has been its biggest appeal. I have seen myself as Ripsie the outsider but probably sympathize with Eliza much more as I grow older. She had such frustrations over her limited life as a Victorian woman. I still read it now and then just for the beauty of the language.

Beyond ranking this fantastic work, there isn't much I can add that previous reviewers haven't admirably covered. It is necessary for our country to understand the needs that motivates the calculations Pillsbury illustrates in his book. It is essential for the American debate about our relationship with China to include texts such as these, which highlight important concerns for Americans, but transcend the current dichotomy of right-wing paranoia and left-wing romanticism toward China.

While Pillsbury's book is devoted to a very specific topic, the tone and quality of his work helps illustrate China's foreign policy communities in ways that are absent in the sterotyped visions of China usually constructed. Instead of having to fall in with one or the other viewpoint that is more an argument about domestic ideology than about China, we ought to remember that it is the clarity of our vision that is the most important technique for ensuring American security. Public relations gestures of saber-rattling or apologia accomplish just the obvious. That is why careful attention paid to work such as Pillsbury's book makes us better off in the long run.

The work of Michael Pillsbury has been almost as popular in Chinese military circles as it is in the United States. His previous report on Chinese views of future warfare was noted enthusiastically by Chinese military scholars, although there was some concern over his liberal reference to high ranking Chinese sources.

Nevertheless, Pillsbury was able to return to drink from the same well in preparing China Debates the Future Security Environment. His sources are highly placed and respected members of China's security apparatus, and include members of leading think tanks, such as the China Institute for International Studies, as well as People's Liberation Army leadership.

The great value of the work is that between its covers Pillsbury shows a comprehensive picture of Chinese perspectives on a variety of topics relating to future security environments. He explains contemporary Chinese Communist Party rationale for viewing the future based on an amalagam of ancient Chinese statecraft (views drawn from the Warring States Era, which many Chinese use to draw comparisons with today's single superpower system) and current methodology for calculating the comprehensive national power (CNP) of modern states. The CNP of the United States will decline in the future, the Chinese are required to believe, and their calculations go to some lengths to show this pattern in various ways.

Most interesting to me was a discussion of China's three views of future threats and how these relate to special interest groups inside the PLA. People's War traditionalists are still the most powerful bloc and control most budget decisions. Their future posits a large enemy, such as the United States, Russia, India or a resurgent Japan. Power projection advocates see the future differently in terms of local wars around China's periphery. They advocate modernization, smaller and more professional forces. The revolution in military affairs (RMA) enthusiasts see no immediate major threat for a number of years, time, they say, to transform key parts of the military force to be technologically competitive with the West.

There is a fourth future, explained in Unrestricted Warfare, a book by two senior colonels in the PLA published last year. It advocates removing all rules and restrictions in the conduct of war to enable the "inferior to defeat the superior." Available too late for Pillsbury to consider in this work, Unrestricted Warfare may represent a synthesis of views on the future way of war from a Chinese perpective, even though it "does not represent official doctrine."

I commend Pillsbury's work to both the serious and casual student of Chinese military affairs. He has done a service for those on both sides of the Pacific.

I have learned that perceptions are sometimes more important than facts and in the case of the Chinese viewpoint of the world situation, this holds true. This book describes in an interesting fashion, the Chinese perception of the motives, strengths and weaknesses of the world powers.

The Chinese use an interesting method of determining a nation's relative power using a quasi-mathematical formula to determine the Comprehensive National Power (CNP) of any given nation. They use this also to project the future CNP of given nations.

This interesting process is described in detail and the varying uses of this CNP are described. The Chinese show the most interest in the United States, Russia, Europe (mainly Germany, France and the United Kingdom), Japan, India and China. These calculations are focused through the lens of Chinese perception. This is based on Chinese history including ancient Chinese history, Marxism, Mao thought and the writings of Deng tso Peng. This is the most fascinating portion of the book.

For example, some factions in this debate feel that Japan is becoming militaristic and will want power in Asia. Most feel that Russia will become their friend in the coming struggles. The optomists feel that there will be a multipolar power sharing between China, Europe, Russia, the United States and Japan in a atmosphere of cooperation.

You may or may not disagree with the Chinese conclusions but the reality is, they believe that the world operates the way they see it and will react to world events accordingly.

Charles Van Tuyl's translation of CHINA ILLUSTRATA is a literary piece of art. It provides the Modern reader in English with a powerful document through which to better understand East-West relations. It offers a thoughtful picture of "old China."

At last! Charles Van Tuyl's translation of Athanasius Kircher's "China Illustrated" reveals the finer nuances of a text almost 400 years of its time. This book not only shows how China appeared to the first European missionaries and travelers, but illuminates how the cultures of Europe and Asia influenced each other from the earliest times . . . most modern scholars and researchers are only beginning to understand these relationships.

This book is an extraordinary example of what is yet to come as more of Athenasius' works are uncovered and translated. This treatment is extraordinarily lucid and shares intimate glimpses of how this man lived his private life and shared his voracious curiosity with the world.

This excellent, informative book deserves to have been reprinted (how could such a fine book have gone out of print?), but beware of the "fully revised and expanded" claim. I ready owned the out-of-print hardcover and bought the new paperback edition to check out the updated information. I've looked pretty closely, and the only new copy I can find is very incidental (i.e., changing the locations of farms from exotic locations to the US as more domestic farmers are now growing Asian produce). No new recipes, either, although some new titles (to throw unsuspecting readers off the scent?). If you don't have this book, and you are an Asian food aficionado, do add it to your collection. However, I am very irritated at the publisher's suggestion that this is a new edition (it's a good old-fashioned reprint, and that's all) and at the previous reviewers who didn't find it necessary to warn other buyers of this important fact. I would rate it much lower for readers like me who own the original, but newcomers to this classic will find no quarrel.

A terrific reference for people like myself: round-eyes who want to learn about authentic asian ingredients and cuisine. The book is a great guide to many obscure and, to outsiders, mystifying ingredients. What's most important is that the book clearly describes the ways in which they are commonly used and (often) provides sample recipes; this allows you to utilize previously unknown items correctly and learn how their flavors are part of traditional asian dishes.

The book is well-written, though this version is the first I've seen, so I can't comment on whether it's really "new and expanded". Someone with a keen interest in food can sit down and read it cover-to-cover. I was also impressed by the care taken to differentiate national/regional applications of ingredients. Much discussion is given to how the region and history shaped the use of ingredients and what is accepted in contemporary cuisine.

All in all, a great reference book.

this is a unique book that is most useful in "de-mystfying" asian ingredients. I have bought and seen a lot of food related books and this one is remarkable for its accuracy and user friendliness (the pictures help so much!!). I bought it back about 10 years ago or so and it taught me a lot. A very good investment for anyone interested in asian food and asian flavours michael

If you love companion parrots, especially cockatoos, you will probably appreciate this book. I found the book was more about the life of the Topping family, though, which I also happened to find fun and interesting to read about. The book is fast-paced and upbeat as it delivers funny snippets from the author's life with her "baby boy" - any cockatoo owner can easy relate. However, I would have enjoyed more real stories about Charlie rather than the focus on sensationalistic "one-liners" from Charlie. The last chapter takes a dramatic turn and left me sobbing - I don't think the tone or abruptness of the ending added anything to the book and is definitely not for the faint of heart. Overall, though, the book is well worth the read. It left me wishing I had known Charlie, as well as his family.

I fell in love with the beautiful bird, and I admire the way story is presented. It is funny, it is personable and written with a great talent. Audrey Topping helps one to appreciate the wonderful world of birds and animals.

"Charlie's World" is very well written book. I was reminded of the time when Audrey was ten years old, and came to the house with two crows on her shoulders. Both crows were talkers. Audrey is an exceptionally good writer, and the book is a MUST for all. I had to read it in One sitting.

This past year, it was suggested to me my the publisher of our 6th grade social studies textbook to have the students read the Ch'I-Lin purse in conjunction with our chapter on Ancient China. I cannot tell you how much my students loved this book. They are just wonderful. Of particular interest to my 6th grade girls was the story of the carp fish who gives up her immortality for love. I also have to confess, I really enjoyed this book myself and plan that in years to come, should I have a daughter, I will be reading this book to her.

This book was given to my son as a Christmas gift last year and he didn't bother to read it at first. But once he started he couldn't put it down! The stories are very interesting and a Chinese friend told me these are the authentic Chinese stories, unlike some that were Americanized, she herself heard of these stories when she grew up.

Absolutely a good book for young adults.

As the mother of a daughter adopted from China I struggle with keeping her background alive in her day to day life. This is just one of many books I read to her at night to celebrate her homeland. Its very well written and easy to understand. She was adopted at three, so often she corrects my pronunciation, and it warms my heart !! I recomend this book to all families of chinese adoptees.