New Titles Tuesday, November 20

In the past week we added 23 print books to the collection. Click on a title for more information or to place a hold

 All the wrong places: adrift in the politics of the Pacific rim /James Fenton. Fenton is the right man in the wrong place in dangerous times. This journalist, poet, and critic is almost always at the center of a revolution. All the Wrong Places is a visceral and unforgettable view from the Pacific Rim.
Ancestors, 900 years in the life of a Chinese family [Qin shi qian zai shi] /Frank Ching.
 Balkan ghosts: a journey through history /Robert D. Kaplan. A history of the Balkan Peninsula explores the region’s political, social, religious, and economic past in order to understand the nature of the recently rekindled, centuries-old blood feuds.
 A brief history of the Boxer Rebellion: China’s war on foreigners, 1900 /Diana Preston. Preston brings thundering to life the 55-day conflict between the ‘Boxers’, so-called for their martial-arts skills, and the Westerners – such as the young Herbert Hoover – they terrorized.

 China’s golden age: everyday life in the Tang dynasty /Charles Benn. Benn paints a vivid picture of the lifestyle behind the grandeur of the Tang culture. All aspects of day-to-day life are presented, including crime,entertainment, fashion, marriage, food, hygiene, dwellings, and transportation. He translates and paraphrases his classical Chinese sources from the Tang era with fresh and polished prose. He also includes his own illustrations of everything from tools and hairstyles to musical instruments and courtyard dwellings.
The Chan’s great continent: China in western minds /Jonathan D. Spence. A foremost historian of Chinese politics and culture tells readers how the West has understood China over seven centuries, with descriptions ranging from Marco Polo’s portrayal to modern-day interpretations.

 The city of falling angels /John Berendt.  An intimate look at the magic, mystery, and decadence of the city of Venice and its inhabitants.

 Conduct under fire: four American doctors and their fight for life as prisoners of the Japanese, 1941-1945 /John Glusman ; [maps by Jeffrey L. Ward]. Based on extensive interviews with American, British, Australian, and Japanese veterans, as well as diaries, letters, and war crimes testimony, this is a harrowing account of a brutal clash of cultures, of a race war that escalated into total war. Conduct Under Fire is a story of bravery on the battlefield and ingenuity behind barbed wire, one that reveals the long shadow the war cast on the lives of those who fought it.
Dreadnought: Britain, Germany, and the coming of the Great War /Robert K. Massie. Massie has written a richly textured and gripping chronicle of the personal and national rivalries that led to the twentieth century’s first great arms race. Massie brings to vivid life, such historical figures as the single-minded Admiral von Tirpitz, the young, ambitious, Winston Churchill, the ruthless, sycophantic Chancellor Bernhard von Bulow, and many others. Their story, and the story of the era, filled with misunderstandings, missed opportunities, and events leading to unintended conclusions, unfolds like a Greek tragedy in his powerful narrative. 
 Eichmann and the Holocaust /Hannah Arendt. Inspired by the trial of a bureaucrat who helped cause the Holocaust, this radical work on the banality of evil stunned the world with its exploration of a regime’s moral blindness and one man’s insistence that he be absolved all guilt because he was ‘only following orders’.
 Europe and the people without history /Eric R. Wolf ; cartographic illustrations by Noël L. Diaz. In this foundational text about the development of the global political economy,  Wolf challenges the long-held anthropological notion that non-European cultures and peoples were isolated and static entities before the advent of European colonialism and imperialism. These societies before active colonization possessed perpetually changing, reactionary cultures and were indeed just as intertwined into the processes of the pre-Columbian global economic system as their European counterparts. Utilizing Marxian concepts and a vivid consideration for the importance of history, Wolf judiciously traces the effects and conditions in Europe and the rest of the “known” world, beginning in 1400 AD, that allowed capitalism to emerge as the dominant ideology of the modern era.
 Imperial China, 900-1800 /F.W. Mote. Mote highlights the personal characteristics of the rulers and dynasties and probes the cultural theme of Chinese adaptations to recurrent alien rule. No other work provides a similar synthesis: generational events, personalities, and the spirit of the age combine to yield a comprehensive history of the civilization, not isolated but shaped by its relation to outsiders. This is a monumental work that will stand among the classic accounts of the nature and vibrancy of Chinese civilization before the modern period.

 The last knight: the twilight of the Middle Ages and the birth of the modern era /Norman F. Cantor ; picture editor, Judy Cantor.   Cantor, the best known and most popular historian of the Middle Ages, brings John of Gaunt to life brilliantly in his newest work, The Last Knight. Gaunt was the richest man in Europe, apart from its monarchs, and he epitomized and surpassed the ideals of the late Middle Ages.

 The legendary Mizners /by Alva Johnston ; illustrated by Reginald Marsh. Johnston’s joint biography of Addison and Wilson Mizner is a delightful portrait of two of the early twentieth century’s most clever and infamous rascals. Born in the 1870s in California, the brothers quickly rose to prominence during the various booms of the 1920s. Addison, the elder, was a self-made architect and real-estate dealer who designed many of the fantastic homes of the fantastically rich in Palm Beach. He could “age” a house and its furnishings to any period his client desired – and would pay for. Wilson’s adventures were even more daring and varied, and his quick wit was legendary. In addition to getting rich on the Alaskan gold rush, he had careers as a singer, playwright, prizefight promoter, con man, real-estate salesman, and shady hotel owner.

 A Middle East mosaic: fragments of life, letters, and history /selected and presented by Bernard Lewis. In this spirited collection of Western views of the Middle East and Middle Eastern views of the West, Lewis gives us a rich overview of two thousand years of commerce, diplomacy, war and exploration. This book is a delight, a treasury of stories drawn not only from letters, diaries and histories, but also from unpublished archives and previously untranslated accounts.

 Midnight in Peking: how the murder of a young Englishwoman haunted the  last days of old China /Paul French. Based on seven years of research by historian and China expert Paul French, this true-crime thriller presents readers with a rare and unique portrait of the last days of colonial Peking.
The Norton history of modern Europe[by] Felix Gilbert, general editor [and others]
The rape of Nanking: the forgotten holocaust of World War II /Iris Chang. Based on extensive interviews with survivors and newly discovered documents in four different languages (many never before published), Chang, whose own grandparents barely escaped the massacre, has written what will surely be the definitive, English-language history of this horrifying episode–one that the Japanese have tried for years to erase from public consciousness.The Rape of Nanking tells the story from three perspectives: that of the Japanese soldiers who performed it; of the Chinese civilians who endured it; and finally of a group of Europeans and Americans who refused to abandon the city and were able to create a safety zone that saved almost 300,000 Chinese. But this book does more than just narrate details of an orgy of violence; it attempts to analyze the degree to which the Japanese imperial government and its militaristic culture fostered in the Japanese soldier a total disregard for human life.

 Resurrection: the struggle for a new Russia /David Remnick. Remnick chronicles the new Russia that emerged from the ash heap of the Soviet Union, society so racked by change that its citizens must daily ask themselves who they are, where they belong, and what they believe in. Remnick composes this panorama out of dozens of finely realized individual portraits.
 Sons of the yellow emperor: a history of the Chinese diaspora /Lynn Pan ; with a new afterword by the author. A study of the continuing migration of the Chinese diaspora. The book blends history, biography and travel writing with a personal portrait from the author. The first comprehensive account of the world’s greatest continuaing migration.
Through the Moon Gate: a guide to China’s historic monuments.  A spectacular illustrated survey of the most important of China’s fabled ancient monuments. The one hundred sites selected for the book have been chosen to show the development of Chinese art and architecture over the millenia, and to do so in a way that reflects both the dazzling variety of cultural influences — the indigenous and the imported — and the immense geographical scope of Chinese civilization. For visitors to China the book also provides location and transportation information.
 Why the West rules– for now: the patterns of history, and what  they reveal about the future /Ian Morris. Morris draws on 50,000 years of history, archeology, and the methods of social science, to make sense of when, how, and why the paths of development differed in the East and West — and what this portends for the 21st century. He combines the textual historian’s focus on context, the anthropological archaeologist’s awareness of the deep past, and the social scientist’s comparative methods to make sense of the past, present, and future — in a way no one has ever done before.

 The world on fire: 1919 and the battle with Bolshevism /Anthony Read. This book chronicles and examines the running battle with terror during the most revolutionary year since 1789.