Download or read book On the Edge written by Franck Bill and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2021-11-16 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A pioneering examination of history, current affairs, and daily life along the RussiaÐChina border, one of the worldÕs least understood and most politically charged frontiers. The border between Russia and China winds for 2,600 miles through rivers, swamps, and vast taiga forests. ItÕs a thin line of direct engagement, extraordinary contrasts, frequent tension, and occasional war between two of the worldÕs political giants. Franck Bill and Caroline Humphrey have spent years traveling through and studying this important yet forgotten region. Drawing on pioneering fieldwork, they introduce readers to the lifeways, politics, and history of one of the worldÕs most consequential and enigmatic borderlands. It is telling that, along a border consisting mainly of rivers, there is not a single operating passenger bridge. Two different worlds have emerged. On the Russian side, in territory seized from China in the nineteenth century, defense is prioritized over the economy, leaving dilapidated villages slumbering amid the forests. For its part, the Chinese side is heavily settled and increasingly prosperous and dynamic. Moscow worries about the imbalance, and both governments discourage citizens from interacting. But as Bill and Humphrey show, cross-border connection is a fact of life, whatever distant authorities say. There are marriages, friendships, and sexual encounters. There are joint businesses and underground deals, including no shortage of smuggling. Meanwhile some indigenous peoples, persecuted on both sides, seek to ÒreviveÓ their own alternative social groupings that span the border. And Chinese towns make much of their proximity to ÒEurope,Ó building giant Russian dolls and replicas of St. BasilÕs Cathedral to woo tourists. Surprising and rigorously researched, On the Edge testifies to the rich diversity of an extraordinary world haunted by history and divided by remote political decisions but connected by the ordinary imperatives of daily life.
Download or read book Sovereignty at the Edge written by Cathryn H. Clayton and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2020-03-17 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "How have conceptions and practices of sovereignty shaped how Chineseness is imagined? This ethnography addresses this question through the example of Macau, a southern Chinese city that was a Portuguese colony from the 1550s until 1999. As the Portuguese administration prepared to transfer Macau to Chinese control, it mounted a campaign to convince the city’s residents, 95 percent of whom identified as Chinese, that they possessed a “unique cultural identity” that made them different from other Chinese, and that resulted from the existence of a Portuguese state on Chinese soil. This attempt sparked reflections on the meaning of Portuguese governance that challenged not only conventional definitions of sovereignty but also conventional notions of Chineseness as a subjectivity common to all Chinese people around the world. Various stories about sovereignty and Chineseness and their interrelationship were told in Macau in the 1990s. This book is about those stories and how they informed the lives of Macau residents in ways that allowed different relationships among sovereignty, subjectivity, and culture to become thinkable, while also providing a sense of why, at times, it may not be desirable to think them."
Download or read book Sierra East written by Genny Smith and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 526 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "There are few more spectacular drives on Earth than Highway 395 along the foot of the great granite wall of the Sierra Nevada. In Sierra East, Genny Smith and her team of experts tell the story of that amazing terrain, and its fantastic contours, molded by tectonic upthrusts and Pleistocene glaciers; its spectacular weathers; its amazing diversity of plant and animal life; and the human struggles over its life-giving waters."--Harold Gilliam, author of Weather of the San Francisco Bay Region "For those of us who live within the Sierra East territory, this is the 'right' side of California. It is a wondrous place to visit. This book is not a superficial tourist guide to what you may see from the scenic overlooks. It is a real guidebook covering all the natural and unnatural history as well as geology, weather, and water. There are thorough descriptions of plants and animals you may wander across plus information on how they cope with the extreme rigors of the high mountains and harsh deserts."--Sally Gaines, co-founder of the Mono Lake Committee "This is the first comprehensive natural history of the Eastern Sierra. An outstanding team of authors, with years of experience in the region, meets the challenge of covering their specialties from the Mojave Desert to the tops of 14,000-foot mountains. This diverse material is uniformly accessible in a readable style."--Frank L. Powell, Director, White Mountain Research Station, University of California, San Diego
Download or read book Edge of Empire written by Maya Jasanoff and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2007-12-18 with total page 409 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this imaginative book, Maya Jasanoff uncovers the extraordinary stories of collectors who lived on the frontiers of the British Empire in India and Egypt, tracing their exploits to tell an intimate history of imperialism. Jasanoff delves beneath the grand narratives of power, exploitation, and resistance to look at the British Empire through the eyes of the people caught up in it. Written and researched on four continents, Edge of Empire enters a world where people lived, loved, mingled, and identified with one another in ways richer and more complex than previous accounts have led us to believe were possible. And as this book demonstrates, traces of that world remain tangible—and topical—today. An innovative, persuasive, and provocative work of history.
Download or read book Views from the Edge written by Neguin Yavari and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2004-11-24 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These essays were written by colleagues and former students of Richard Bulliet, the preeminent Middle East scholar whose "most important contribution remains his extraordinary imagination in the service of history." The hallmark of the book, then, is innovative scholarship in all periods of Islamic history. Its authors share a commitment to asking original historiographical questions, with an overall orientation toward issues in social history.
Download or read book At the Edge of a Dream written by Lawrence J Epstein and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2007-08-17 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tells the story of how millions of Jewish immigrants came to New York's Lower East Side and how this neighborhood became the center of Jewish work, family, and culture, producing such entertainment greats as Ira Gershwin and George Burns, along with gangster Meyer Lansky.
Download or read book On the Edge written by Rafael Chirbes and published by Random House. This book was released on 2016-07-07 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The acclaimed novel of Spain's economic crisis - a timely masterpiece. Under a weak winter sun in small-town Spain, a man discovers a rotting corpse in a marsh. It’s a despairing town filled with half-finished housing developments and unemployment, a place defeated by the burst of the economic bubble. Stuck in the same town is Esteban, his small factory bankrupt, his investments gone, the sole carer to his mute, invalid father. As Esteban’s disappointment and fury lead him to form a dramatic plan to reverse financial ruin, other voices float up from the wreckage. Stories of loss twist together to form a kaleidoscopic image of Spain’s crisis. And the corpse in the marsh is just one. Chirbes’s rhythmic, torrential style creates a Spanish masterpiece for our age.
Download or read book Eurasia on the Edge written by Richard Sakwa and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2018-10-15 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Eurasia, wherever one draws the boundaries, is very much at the centre of discussions about today’s world. Security across Eurasia is a global concern and has been subject to a range of discussions and debate. However, the current tensions over security and world order, with the growing challenges from Eurasia and Asia, require more intense scrutiny. The goals of the book are to explore the challenges facing the region and to assess how to achieve economic, social and political stability in the Eurasian core. The book’s chapters are written by prominent experts in the field, and together contribute to the continuing debate by providing policy advice for managing crises in the region. Conflicts inevitably arise in the Eurasian space as global powers, regional powers and individual states jockey for positions and influence. These conflicts need not reach a crisis state provided the foundations of conflict, and the surrounding frameworks, can be better understood. To do this, it is necessary to examine the issue of security in Eurasia from a multi-dimensional perspective that challenges any and all assumptions about Eurasia and global order. This volume has two overarching goals. The first is to come to a better understanding of key security threats in the Eurasian region from a multi-dimensional – social, political, economic and institutional - perspective. The second is to discuss policies directed to increase mutual security in and around the Eurasian core. Although the crisis of security affects the whole continent, the area covered by the former Soviet Union and its neighborhood is at the epicenter of the current crisis. On the one side, the Atlantic community is consolidating and extending. On the other, various ‘greater Asia’ ideas are in the making. All of Eurasia is in danger of becoming an extended shatter zone, a vast new, shaky ‘borderland’ trapped between two great systems of power and world order.
Download or read book Saudi Arabia on the Edge written by Thomas W. Lippman and published by Potomac Books, Inc.. This book was released on 2012-02 with total page 477 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Of all the countries in the world that are vital to the strategic and economic interests of the United States, Saudi Arabia is the least understood by the American people. Saudi Arabia's unique place in Islam makes it indispensable to a constructive relationship between the non-Muslim West and the Muslim world. For all its wealth, the country faces daunting challenges that it lacks the tools to meet: a restless and young population, a new generation of educated women demanding opportunities in a closed society, political stagnation under an octogenarian leadership, religious extremism and intellectual backwardness, social division, chronic unemployment, shortages of food and water, and troublesome neighbors. Today's Saudi people, far better informed than all previous generations, are looking for new political institutions that will enable them to be heard, but these aspirations conflict with the kingdom's strict traditions and with the House of Saud's determination to retain all true power. Meanwhile, the country wishes to remain under the protection of American security but still clings to a system that is antithetical to American values. Basing his work on extensive interviews and field research conducted in the kingdom from 2008 through 2011 under the auspices of the Council on Foreign Relations, Thomas W. Lippman dissects this central Saudi paradox for American readers, including diplomats, policymakers, scholars, and students of foreign policy.
Download or read book The Edge of Knowing written by Roy Bing Chan and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2017-05-01 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Edge of Knowing explores the relationship between the rhetoric of dreams and realist literary practice in modern Chinese literature from the May Fourth Era in the early twentieth century through the period just following the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976. The writers� attention to dreams demonstrates the multiple influences of Western psychology, utopian desire for revolutionary change, and the enduring legacy of traditional Chinese philosophy. At the same time, modern Chinese writers used their work to represent social reality for the purpose of nation-building. Recent political usage of dream rhetoric in the People�s Republic of China attests to the continuing influence of dreams on the imagination of Chinese modernity. By employing a number of critical perspectives, The Edge of Knowing will appeal to readers seeking to understand the complicated relationship between literary form and Chinese history and politics.�
Download or read book Discipleship on the Edge written by Darrell W. Johnson and published by Regent College Publishing. This book was released on 2004 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Revelation is probably the most read, but least understood book of the Bible. History is replete with examples of how not to interpret it, and books featuring end-of-world prophecy claims based on Revelation consistently top the bestseller lists. But how can the message of such an enigmatic book be applied to our lives today? In Discipleship on the Edge, Darrell W. Johnson drives home the challenging and practical message of Revelation in thirty carefully crafted sermons. Paying careful attention to the original context of Revelation and the circumstances surrounding its composition, Johnson shows that the book is not a "crystal ball" but rather a "discipleship manual." Thoroughly researched and yet accessible, this collection of sermons is a helpful resource for pastors and small group leaders who are looking for models to help them preach and teach the message of Revelation in a time when there is much confusion about the end times. Darrell W. Johnson serves as Scholar-in-Residence at The Way Church and Canadian Church Leaders Network in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. A popular conference and retreat speaker, he has also served as the preaching pastor for a number of congregations in North America and the Philippines, as well as serving as Adjunct Professor of Preaching for the Doctor of Ministry program at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California, and a Teaching Fellow at Regent College. His other books include Experiencing the Trinity and Fifty-Seven Words That Change The World.
Download or read book The Edge of Falling written by Rebecca Serle and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2015-02-03 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Caggie's life of privilege in Manhattan appears near-perfect but blaming herself for her younger sister's death and being acclaimed for saving a classmate from suicide cause her to withdraw from friends and family until Astor arrives at school, hiding a past at least as dark as her own.
Download or read book At the Edge of the Wall written by Hanno Hochmuth and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2021-03-03 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Located in the geographical center of Berlin, the neighboring boroughs of Friedrichshain and Kreuzberg shared a history and identity until their fortunes diverged dramatically following the construction of the Berlin Wall, which placed them within opposing political systems. This revealing account of the two municipal districts before, during and after the Cold War takes a microhistorical approach to investigate the broader historical trajectories of East and West Berlin, with particular attention to housing, religion, and leisure. Merged in 2001, they now comprise a single neighborhood that bears the traces of these complex histories and serves as an illuminating case study of urban renewal, gentrification, and other social processes that continue to reshape Berlin.
Download or read book Standing at the Edge written by Joan Halifax and published by . This book was released on 2018-05 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "[This book is] an ... examination of how we can respond to suffering, live our fullest lives, and remain open to the full spectrum of our human experience"--Amazon.com.
Download or read book On the Edge of Reason written by Miroslav Krleza and published by New Directions Publishing. This book was released on 2023-06-06 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the great Croatian writer: a masterly work of literature—hilarious, unforgiving, and utterly reasonable Until the age of fifty-two, the protagonist of On the Edge of Reason suffered a monotonous existence as a highly respected lawyer. He owned a carriage and wore a top hat. He lived the life of “an orderly good-for-nothing among a whole crowd of neat, gray good-for-nothings.” But, one evening, surrounded by ladies and gentlemen at a party, he hears the Director-General tell a lively anecdote of how he shot four men like dogs for trespassing on his property. In response, our hero blurts out an honest thought. From this moment, all hell breaks loose. Written in 1938, On the Edge of Reason reveals the fundamental chasm between conformity and individuality. As folly piles upon folly, hypocrisy upon hypocrisy, reason itself begins to give way, and the edge between reality and unreality disappears.
Download or read book Dancing on the Edge written by Han Nolan and published by HMH. This book was released on 2014-12-16 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The National Book Award-winning novel of a young girl’s coming of age, from the author of Send Me Down a Miracle. Twelve-year-old Miracle McCloy never liked the story of her remarkable birth, but her grandmother Gigi has always loved telling it. An expert in occult magic, Gigi insists that when Miracle was saved from her dead mother’s womb, it was an omen of greatness to come. But how can Miracle become a prodigy like her father when sometimes she feels like she doesn’t even exist? When her father suddenly vanishes without a trace, Miracle’s life starts feeling less miraculous by the day. The only time she feels whole is when she’s dancing—an activity her grandmother strictly forbids. But shortly after her thirteenth birthday, a life-threatening incident puts her whole world in a harsh new light. And though she does not emerge unscathed, Miracle might finally see the truth about her past, her family, and herself. “Extraordinary . . . Nolan does a masterful job of drawing readers into the girl’s mind and of making them care deeply about her chances for the future.” —School Library Journal (starred review) “Elaborately drawn characters that will surprise readers at every turn . . . Compelling.” —Booklist (starred review)
Download or read book On the Edge written by Wilma Ervin and published by Three Rivers Press. This book was released on 1985 with total page 84 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
