China Biography

On 20 October 1962, high in the Himalayas, on the banks of the fast-flowing Nam Ka Chu, over 400 Indian soldiers were massacred, and the valley was overrun by soldiers of China's People's Liberation Army. Over the course of the next month, nearly 4,000 soldiers were killed on both sides, and the Indian army experienced its worst defeat ever. The conflict (war was never formally declared) ended because China announced a unilateral ceasefire on 21 November and halted its hitherto unhindered advance across NEFA and Ladakh.

In 1908, at the age of two, Henry Pu Yi ascended to become the last emperor of the centuries-old Manchu dynasty. After revolutionaries forced Pu Yi to abdicate in 1911, the young emperor lived for 13 years in Peking’s Forbidden City, but with none of the power his birth afforded him. The remainder of Pu Yi’s life was lived out in a topsy-turvy fashion: fleeing from a Chinese warlord, becoming head of a Japanese puppet state, being confined to a Russian prison in Siberia, and enduring taxing labor.

Drawing on a wealth of archival evidence, Red Dawn Over China reveals how unlikely the Party's victory actually was, had it not been for financial and military support from the Soviet Union. By 1936 they had the same popular appeal as an obscure religious sect. After Soviet troops invaded Manchuria in 1945 and provided more money and munitions, the Communists at long last prevailed through a pitiless war of attrition, driven by an unflinching will to conquer at all costs.

China's Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know® is a concise introduction to the most astonishing economic growth story of the last three decades. In the 1980s, China was an impoverished backwater, struggling to escape the political turmoil and economic mismanagement of the Mao era. Today it is the world's second biggest economy, the largest manufacturing and trading nation, the consumer of half the world's steel and coal, the biggest source of international tourists, and one of the most influential investors in developing countries from southeast Asia to Africa to Latin America.

Award-winning historian Frank Dikötter explores how the People’s Republic of China was transformed from a backwater economy in the 1970s into the world superpower of today. His account is the first to be based on hundreds of previously unseen archival documents, from the secret minutes of top party meetings to confidential bank reports. Unfolding with great narrative sweep, this riveting, richly detailed chronicle recasts our understanding of an era that both the regime and foreign admirers celebrate as an economic miracle.

Lee, the founding father of modern Singapore and its prime minister from 1959 to 1990, has honed his wisdom during more than fifty years on the world stage. Almost single-handedly responsible for transforming Singapore into a Western-style economic success, he offers a unique perspective on the geopolitics of East and West. American presidents from Richard Nixon to Barack Obama have welcomed him to the White House.

In China and the World, one of the world's leading China specialists, David Shambaugh, has assembled 15 leading international authorities on China to create the most comprehensive and up-to-date scholarly assessment of China's foreign relations and roles in international affairs.  

A man of unusual gifts and dangerously consequential flaws, Atal Behari Lal Vajpayee was until recently the Hindu Right’s most glamorized and enigmatic face. Drawing on a natural talent to pull in the crowds with his eloquence, he elevated his physically frail and academically mediocre self to...

Chinese history is nothing if not messy. Heroes are also villains; prosperity mingles with violence; cultural vibrancy coexists with censorship and repression. Modern China is seen variously as an economic powerhouse, an icon of urbanization, a propaganda state and an aggressive superpower seeking world domination. Jaivin distills this vast history into a sparkling narrative, from mythical origins to the COVID-19 pandemic. It's a story in which China's women, from the earliest warriors to 20th-century suffragettes, receive long overdue attention.

The Mongol queens of the thirteenth century ruled the greatest empire the world has ever known. Yet sometime near the end of the century, censors cut a section from The Secret History of the Mongols, leaving a single tantalizing quote from Genghis Khan: “Let us reward our female offspring.”...

Sir Winston Churchill was a British statesman, orator and author who as prime minister rallied the British people during World War II and led Britain to an allied victory. Churchill's "bulldog" spirit seemed to summarize the mood of the British people even during the bad times, such as Dunkirk, and the inspirational victories, such as the Battle of Britain. His was a brilliant mind, full of wit and intelligence; his oratory brilliance and his admirable style led him to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953.

Xi Jinping herrscht über 1,4 Milliarden Menschen und die zweitgrößte Volkswirtschaft der Welt. Dennoch ist überraschend wenig über ihn bekannt. Der erfahrene Auslandskorrespondent Michael Sheridan hat alles zusammengetragen, was er in 20 Jahren aus Insiderberichten und eigenen Reportagen über den chinesischen Staatspräsidenten recherchieren konnte, und zeichnet das bislang wohl detaillierteste Bild des starken Mannes in Peking und seines Werdegangs.

In 2000, a Chinese woman gave birth to twins in a bamboo grove, trying to avoid detection by the government because she already had two daughters. Two years later, an American couple travelled to Shaoyang to adopt a Chinese toddler they thought had been abandoned. Their understanding had been that China's brutal one-child policy was leading to hundreds of abandoned girls, desperate for the care of adopted parents.

What is blockchain? What is Bitcoin? How can central banks be instrumental in guiding a nation's economy? What are the underlying causes of trade deficits? Do trade wars actually help the domestic economy? How has the behavior of millennials and Generation Z affected the global economy? Find out...

Sigmund Freud is the father of psychoanalysis, a clinical method of treatment through dialogue. Modern thought owes him his theoretical description of the structure and functioning of the unconscious, through the discovery of the essential role of transference in the analytic process, the redefinition of sexuality including its infantile forms, the analysis of dreams, symptom formation and the mechanisms of repression.

We have selected for you 100 best quotes by Marx. Karl Marx was a German philosopher, economist, historian, political theorist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist. Marx studied law and Hegelian philosophy. His best-known titles are the 1848 pamphlet, "The Communist Manifesto", and the three-volume "Das Kapital". His political and philosophical thought had enormous influence on subsequent intellectual, economic and political history and his name has been used as an adjective, a noun and a school of social theory.

Abraham Lincoln has been consistently ranked as among the greatest U.S. presidents. He was a political genius, managing to preserve the Union and modernize economy while leading the United States through its bloodiest war, and perhaps the greatest crisis it would have to face. Among his many feats, Lincoln is widely remembered for having paved the way for the abolition of slavery, before his assassination in 1865. These 100 quotes have been selected to introduce you to one of the greatest political minds that lived, in an efficient and convenient format.

One of the Founding Fathers, Benjamin Franklin was also a genius who managed to excel in an astounding variety of domains. He was a scientist, an inventor, a humorist, and a leading political figure; one could argue that the span of his curiosity and knowledge made him a complete human being. These 100 quotes have been carefully selected to introduce you to his vision of life, sometimes humorous, always wise; they will provide you with solid advice and sharp witticism, in a convenient and efficient format.

We have selected for you 100 quotes by famous entrepreneurs. A great quote is very similar to a great thinking and a small poem. It can encapsulate a large web of ideas, thoughts, reflections, emotions in a few words. The reader of a great quote is forced to think about what he just heard. He has to think about those words and what they mean. An excellent quote requires the reader to pause to contemplate the real meaning and poesy of a few words.

Some say that the first hint that Bill Bryson was not of Planet Earth came when his mother sent him to school in lime-green Capri pants. Others think it all started with his discovery, at the age of six, of a woollen jersey of rare fineness. Across the moth-holed chest was a golden thunderbolt...