River Road To China

Author : Milton Osborne
Publisher : Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
ISBN 13 : 080219608X
Total Pages : 321 pages
Book Rating : 4.88/5 ( download)

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Download or read book River Road to China written by Milton Osborne and published by Open Road + Grove/Atlantic. This book was released on 2007-12-01 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A compelling, finely researched account of an adventure that was hailed as one of the grandest explorations of the nineteenth century.” —The Washington Post A New York Times Notable Book In 1866, six Frenchmen set out on a dangerous mission to seek a trade route up the Mekong. During the two years that followed, they would journey through more than four thousand miles of unmapped territory, from the tropical heat of the swamps of Vietnam and Cambodia to the bitter cold of the mountain ranges of southwestern China. Their historic expedition is the dramatic subject of River Road to China, a story of courage, endurance, and determination in the face of unpredictable dangers and near-insurmountable odds. This edition has been updated to include a new postscript by the author and more than thirty full-color illustrations by the expedition’s artist. “The highest of high adventure . . . [Osborne’s] documentation is flawless.” —The New Yorker “As exciting as it is historically illuminating . . . A tale of heroism that has seldom been duplicated, spurred by the continuing, fatal attraction of the ‘Great River.’” —The New Republic

Author : Milton E. Osborne
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 284 pages
Book Rating : 4.39/5 ( download)

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Download or read book River Road to China written by Milton E. Osborne and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : Milton E. Osborne
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 280 pages
Book Rating : 4.70/5 ( download)

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Download or read book River Road to China written by Milton E. Osborne and published by . This book was released on 1976 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Narrative of the nineteenth century expedition along the Mekong River.

Author : Milton Osborne
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 249 pages
Book Rating : 4.72/5 ( download)

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Download or read book River Road to China written by Milton Osborne and published by . This book was released on 1975 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : Frederick C. Teiwes
Publisher : M.E. Sharpe
ISBN 13 : 9780765637765
Total Pages : 378 pages
Book Rating : 4.66/5 ( download)

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Download or read book China's Road to Disaster written by Frederick C. Teiwes and published by M.E. Sharpe. This book was released on 1998-12-14 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This text analyzes the dramatic shifts in Chinese Communist Party economic policy during the mid to late 1950s which eventually resulted in 30 to 45 million deaths through starvation as a result of the failed policies of the Great Leap Forward. Teiwes examines both the substance and the process of economic policy-making in that period, explaining how the rational policies of opposing rash advance in 1956-57 gave way to the fanciful policies of the Great Leap, and assessing responsibility for the failure to adjust adequately those policies even as signs of disaster began to reach higher level decision makers. In telling this story, Teiwes focuses on key participants in the process throughout both "rational" and "utopian" phases - Mao, other top leaders, central economic bureaucracies and local party leaders. The analysis rejects both of the existing influential explanations in the field, the long dominant power politics approach focusing on alleged clashes within the top leadership, and David Bachman's recent institutional interpretation of the origins of the Great Leap. Instead, this study presents a detailed picture of an exceptionally Mao-dominated process, where no other actor challenged his position, where the boldest step any actor took was to try and influence his preferences, and where the system in effect became paralyzed while Mao kept changing signals as disaster unfolded.

Author : Philip Ball
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022647092X
Total Pages : 350 pages
Book Rating : 4.24/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Water Kingdom written by Philip Ball and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2017-05-05 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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. In The Water Kingdom, he takes us on a grand journey through China’s past and present, showing how the complexity and energy of the country and its history repeatedly come back to the challenges, opportunities, and inspiration provided by the waterways. Drawing on stories from travelers and explorers, poets and painters, bureaucrats and activists, all of whom have been influenced by an environment shaped and permeated by water, Ball explores how the ubiquitous relationship of the Chinese people to water has made it an enduring metaphor for philosophical thought and artistic expression. From the Han emperors to Mao, the ability to manage the waters ? to provide irrigation and defend against floods ? was a barometer of political legitimacy, often resulting in engineering works on a gigantic scale. It is a struggle that continues today, as the strain of economic growth on water resources may be the greatest threat to China’s future. The Water Kingdom offers an unusual and fascinating history, uncovering just how much of China’s art, politics, and outlook have been defined by the links between humanity and nature.

Author : Peter Hessler
Publisher : Harper Collins
ISBN 13 : 0062028987
Total Pages : 382 pages
Book Rating : 4.83/5 ( download)

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Download or read book River Town written by Peter Hessler and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2010-09-21 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Notable Book Winner of the Kiriyama Book Prize In the heart of China's Sichuan province, amid the terraced hills of the Yangtze River valley, lies the remote town of Fuling. Like many other small cities in this ever-evolving country, Fuling is heading down a new path of change and growth, which came into remarkably sharp focus when Peter Hessler arrived as a Peace Corps volunteer, marking the first time in more than half a century that the city had an American resident. Hessler taught English and American literature at the local college, but it was his students who taught him about the complex processes of understanding that take place when one is immersed in a radically different society. Poignant, thoughtful, funny, and enormously compelling, River Town is an unforgettable portrait of a city that is seeking to understand both what it was and what it someday will be.

Author : Dominic Ziegler
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 1594203679
Total Pages : 370 pages
Book Rating : 4.71/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Black Dragon River written by Dominic Ziegler and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Black Dragon River recounts a personal journey down one of Asia's great rivers. The world's ninth largest river, the Amur serves as a large part of the border between Russia and China. As a crossroads for the great empires of Asia, this area offers Economist journalist Dominic Ziegler a lens with which to examine the societies at Europe's only borderland with East Asia. Part travel writing, part history, it reveals how the long shared history on the Amur has conditioned the way China and Russia behave toward each other.

Author : Liam D'Arcy-Brown
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781903070703
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.08/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Emperor's River written by Liam D'Arcy-Brown and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: D'Arcy-Brown set out to be the first Westerner in modern times to travel the length of China's great wonder: the Grand Canal. During his journey, he attempts to reconcile the China which fascinated him as a child with the modern, more open China he sees now.

Author : Milton Osborne
Publisher : Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
ISBN 13 : 0802196098
Total Pages : 417 pages
Book Rating : 4.95/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Mekong written by Milton Osborne and published by Open Road + Grove/Atlantic. This book was released on 2007-12-01 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A “remarkable” history of the great river of Southeast Asia (Jill Ker Conway, author of The Road from Coorain). The Mekong River runs over nearly three thousand miles, beginning in the mountains of Tibet and flowing through China, Burma, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam before emptying into the China Sea. Its waters are the lifeblood of Southeast Asia, and first begot civilization on the fertile banks of its delta region at Oc Eo nearly two millennia ago. This is the story of the peoples and cultures of the great river, from these obscure beginnings to the emergence of today’s independent nations. Drawing on research gathered over forty years, Milton Osborne traces the Mekong’s dramatic history through the rise and fall of civilizations and the era of colonization and exploration. He details the struggle for liberation during a twentieth century in which Southeast Asia has seen almost constant conflict, including two world wars, the Indochina War, the Vietnam War, and its bloody aftermath—and explores the prospects for peace and prosperity as the region enters a new millennium. Along the way, he brings to life those who witnessed and shaped events along the river, including Chou Ta-kuan, the thirteenth-century Chinese envoy who recorded the glory of Angkor Wat, the capital of the Khmer Empire; the Iberian mercenaries Blas Ruiz and Diego Veloso, whose involvement in the intrigues of Cambodia’s royal family shook Southeast Asia’s politics in the sixteenth century; and the revolutionaries led by Ho Chi Minh, whose campaigns to liberate Vietnam from the French and unify the nation under communism changed the course of history. “[A] pathbreaking, ecologically informed chronicle . . . A pulsating journey through the heart of Southeast Asia.” —Publishers Weekly