In the mid-1600s, Manchu bannermen spearheaded the military force that conquered China and founded the Qing Empire, which endured until 1912. By the end of the Taiping War in 1864, however, the descendants of these conquering people were coming to terms with a loss of legal definition, an ever-steeper decline in living standards, and a sense of abandonment by the Qing court. Fo...(展开全部)

WINNER OF THE FRENCH ACADEMY GRAND PRIX A tribute to George Orwell's 1984 and a cry of protest against totalitarianism of all kinds, Sansal's 2084 tells the story of a near future in which Islamic fundamentalists have established an oppressive caliphate where autonomus thought is forbidden. It is the year 2084. In the kingdom of Abistan—named after the prophet Abi, earthly mess...(展开全部)

Deep within the remote backlands of nineteenth-century Brazil lies Canudos, home to all the damned of the earth: prostitutes, bandits, beggars, and every kind of outcast. It is a place where history and civilization have been wiped away. There is no money, no taxation, no marriage, no census. Canudos is a cauldron for the revolutionary spirit in its purest form, a state with al...(展开全部)

As the territory of Qing China expanded, so evolved the ways in which birds, beasts, fish, trees, and flowers came to be known in the multilingual empire. The Manchu Mirrors and the Knowledge of Plants and Animals in High Qing China is the first systematic study of how the Qing court sought to codify Manchu and Chinese words for animals and plants throughout the eighteenth cent...(展开全部)

As the territory of Qing China expanded, so evolved the ways in which birds, beasts, fish, trees, and flowers came to be known in the multilingual empire. The Manchu Mirrors and the Knowledge of Plants and Animals in High Qing China is the first systematic study of how the Qing court sought to codify Manchu and Chinese words for animals and plants throughout the eighteenth cent...(展开全部)

From the mid-sixteenth through the end of the seventeenth century, Chinese intellectuals attended more to dreams and dreaming―and in a wider array of genres―than in any other period of Chinese history. Taking the approach of cultural history, this ambitious yet accessible work aims both to describe the most salient aspects of this “dream arc” and to explain its trajectory in ti...(展开全部)

From the mid-sixteenth through the end of the seventeenth century, Chinese intellectuals attended more to dreams and dreaming―and in a wider array of genres―than in any other period of Chinese history. Taking the approach of cultural history, this ambitious yet accessible work aims both to describe the most salient aspects of this “dream arc” and to explain its trajectory in ti...(展开全部)

Seven-year-old Wen and her parents, Eric and Andrew, are vacationing at a remote cabin on a quiet New Hampshire lake. Their closest neighbors are more than two miles in either direction along a rutted dirt road. One afternoon, as Wen catches grasshoppers in the front yard, a stranger unexpectedly appears in the driveway. Leonard is the largest man Wen has ever seen but he is yo...(展开全部)