Perhaps no nation in recent history has undergone as total a transformation as China has in the past twenty-five years. For Chinese leaders, the death of Mao Zedong, the rise of Deng Xiaoping, and unprecedented economic growth have spawned new complexities. For the country's 1.3 billion citizens, changes have been equally dramatic, from skyrocketing sales in automobiles and satellite dishes to an explosion in violent crime and drug trafficking.

The China Reader: The Reform Era is a fascinating compilation by two astute China watchers of the most important ...
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A 108-meter high Eiffel Tower rises above Champs Elys es Square in Hangzhou. A Chengdu residential complex for 200,000 recreates Dorchester, England. An ersatz Queen's Guard patrols Shanghai's Thames Town, where pubs and statues of Winston Churchill abound. Gleaming replicas of the White House dot Chinese cities from Fuyang to Shenzhen. These examples are but a sampling of China's most popular and startling architectural movement: the construction of monumental themed communities that replicate towns and cities in the West.

Original Copies presents the first definitive chronicle of th...
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In this first book ever to explain why the Japanese think and behave the way they do, veteran Japanologist Boye Lafayette De Mente, author of more than 30 books on Japan, unlocks the mystery of kata--the cultural molds that have traditionally shaped and defined the attitudes, behavior, and character of the Japanese and are primarily responsible for the traits and talents that make them differen...
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A work unique in the sweep of its design and scope, intended expressly for the general reader interested in human history and culture, this is a vivid panoramic survey of the vast course of Chinese civilization from prehistory to 1850, when the old China began the agonizing transition to the new. Historical surveys of China tend to be dynasty-by-dynasty chronicles with a profusion of names and dates and occaisional cultural tidbits, or to concentrate on the period from earliest times to the Han dynasty (or the T'ang), giving only scant coverage to the last thousand years. China's Imperia...
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