Escape Books

This video is the story of Mike being kidnapped by bank robbers and then left in the desert alone. The other Last Chance Detectives keep searching for him. They follow Mikes clues until they find him. I liked this video a whole lot. by Derek, age 6

This book was really good. I enjoyed it alot. It was an awsome page-turner.

Originally written in 1963 under the pseudonym "Jozef Lanik", Escape From Hell: The True Story of the Auschwitz Protocol is the true story of author Alfred Wetzler's horrifying experience as a one of millions of victims of the Nazi Holocaust, his fortuitous escape, and most poignantly, his efforts to subsequently inform the world about the truth behind Nazi camps of mass murder. Escape from Hell describes in detail the inhuman atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis, the ingenious plan made by the resistance movement in the camp, and how Wetzler successfully escaped with his friend Rudi Vrba. A chilling day-by-day account of life in Auschwitz, by a man whose determination to spread the truth likely saved more Jews from the machinations of the SS than any other single act. A "must-have" for Holocaust Studies shelves and collections.

Another great gift idea for the young readers. My son loved the series and we have given them as gifts to many of our friends.

Escape From Korea is the personal story of John J. Fischer, a veteran marine aviator who served in the Korean War. John's military career began in 1942 and he flew combat missions in World War II, the Bay of Pigs, and on the beginning onset of what was to become the Vietnam War. Part of John's service involved debriefing those fellow aviators who were captured yet succeeded in escaping and braved terrible odds with the goal of rescue. From these true stories, Fischer presents a compelling military anthology of fascinating life-or-death tales. In this highly recommended selection of case stories and deadly challenges to human survival, the reader is provided a kind of "window" into what life as a combatant in the Korean "police action" was truly like.

In this well-crafted novel, Philip Jose Farmer, best known for his Riverworld novels, chronicles the earliest known adventure of 1930s and '40s pulp hero Doc Savage. Young Clark Savage, shot down while balloon-busting over WWII Germany, finds himself a captive in Camp Loki, a prison camp specially designed for incouragible escapees. Doc pits his super abilities against Camp Loki's commandant, the wiley Baron von Hessel, a complex, nihilistic creature who ranks high on the list of Doc's most undaunting foes. The novel provides insight into Doc's motives for his later life of crime-fighting, made more intense by Farmer's ingenious weaving of disguised characters from other works of popular literature. Farmer, who once wrote fictional biographies of Doc Savage and Tarzan, was well qualified to pen this prequel which stands on firm ground with the original Doc Savage series by Kenneth Robeson.

Clay has taken his lifetime study of self-improvement and personal growth books and programs and condensed all he has learned to simple lessons anyone can follow. I enjoyed the honesty and plain speech of Clay's book. Reading and listening to this book is like getting some of the most valuable lessons from several of today's self-improvement classics all in one easy to swallow formula. You won't be sorry you bought this book.

For us people that can use help sometimes (or get frustrated easily) this is the perfect book. The first chapter is the introduction. Followed by a story of what has happened in the other games.Then a chapter of all the characters. After that, there's the Hint section. In this section you get just a little bit of help. Then there's a chapter called Maps, Charts and Other Aids to Navigation. After that, my favorite chapter. The complete Walkthrough. Followed by a list of inventory items and their uses. And last but not least, there's a small chapter of art. The Background chapter is quite interesting to read. And the Character chapter is interesting to. The hints section is perfect for those who don't want to totally give the game away. And the walkthrough is perfect for people like me. (Those who like the easy way of playing the game). This is a great book to have.

Metzger appears to be well versed not only in Chinese intellectual discourse but also in the Western tradition with references not only to Max Weber, which he uses Weber's ideas from 'The Religion of China' as a starting point to redirect the timely argument over the fate of the Confucian tradition, but also political and social philosophers such as Rousseau, Kant, Marx and Betrand Russell, which are mentioned throughout the work. The goal of this massive undertaking is to show that Confucianism has not been regulated to the museum of historical significance as earlier writers such as Weber in 'The Religion of China' and Joseph R. Levenson in 'Confucian China and its Modern Fate' strived to show. Instead, Metzger argues that the impact of the West simply revived "the traditional zeal for total reform" (p.190), and that certain Neo-confucian features have contributed to, instead of subtracting from or preventing, the success of modern China.

The train of thought throughout the work is at times hard to follow and may require several re-readings of certain passages and some historical understandings of events leading up to the problems late-Qing scholar-officials faced or what Metzger refers to as their "predicament". The first chapter along with the final two are broad discussions of the subject at hand, this being the porous attributes of Confucianism, while the middle chapters, chapters two and three, concentrate in detail on the thought of T'ang Chun-I, Chu Hsi (Zhu Xi), and Wang Yangming. The latter two being the most influential Neo-Confucians in the Song and Ming dynasties, repectively. Chapter one deals mainly with the psychological patterns such as the anxieties and fears which led to the interdependence shared by the literati and heightened by their practice of Neo-Confucianism. At times the chapter is much like other literature of behaviorist such as Lucian Pye's "Spirit of Chinese Politics" and "The Mandarin and the Cadre".

Chapter two deals with the thoughts of Tang Chun-I, who at the time of Metzger's writing was a Professor of Philosophy at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Tang held the view that "the Chinese need not humiliate themselves by adopting a 'self-deprecating admiring attitude toward the West"(pp.30-1). Instead, he put forth an "intellectual commitment to the universal validity of Confucian values"(p.30). Metzger goes on to explain Tang's comparisons between a traditional East-West philosophical understanding of the world around them. Whereas the West strove to overcome nature and then attempt to control it, the Chinese on the other hand, attempted to understand the nature of reality and was not fixed on one reponse, but more like the Daoist imagery of flowing water, constantly taking on the shape of its surroundings. It is again important to note here that this view differs greatly from earlier writings mentioned above which attempted to show that Chinese culture valued harmony above all else and was paralyzed by the chaos (luan) that occurred in the late 1800's. Although it may not seem evident while reading the second chapter, Tang's ruminations and comparisons of East and West help to lay a solid foundation for the remaining chapters.

Chapter three, which takes up a majority of the book, sets about explaining in detail how the "predicament", referred to above, came to be so pronounced by the late Qing dyansty. "The Neo-Confucian goal can be variously described as 'self-cultivation', the achievement of 'sagehood', or realization of 'the oneness of heaven and man'"(p.60). In other words it is what the Analects (lunyu) referred to as a gentleman (junzi), one that can see an issue from all sides without bias. Although this was the goal embraced by the whole of the Confucian tradition, pressure to achieve it became increasingly consequential in the Ming dynasty caused by the 100 years of Mongol rule. This ultimately carried over into the Qing era. This goal, as understood by the scholar-official of the late Qing, would never be reached as it was believed to be by the ancient sages of the early Zhou period, but nevertheless this realization did not negate the effort extended in trying to achieve this Confucian nirvana. This "predicament" was pronounced and would remain as long as Neo-Confucianism remained at the forefront of intellectual discourse, for this was the case from the Song dyansty up until it was seriously questioned by the coming of the West in the late Qing dynasty. The remainder of the chapter deals with Zhu Xi's and Wang Yangming's concept of the linkage between heaven-conferred nature (xing) and principle (li) and man's relation to them, which was the main formula that made up the Neo-Confucian tradition.

Chapter four deals with the bureaucratic practices that perpetuated the interdependence and the sense of predicament that is discussed in detail throughout chapter three. For instance, corruption within the bureaucracy was legitimated in terms of the cultural patterns listed above(p.170).

The final chapter, chapter five, "The Ethos of Interdependence in an Age of Rising Optimism and Westernization", attempts to show that Confucian values did not completely fade with the ending of the traditional imperial order but instead were an integral part of the Chinese political psyche and therefore could not be simply thrown off in order to don a new political ideology(p194). Therefore, although Mao Zedong and the other communist leaders tried desperately to shed Confucian ideas and bring a completely new form of ideology to China, they were nonetheless hopelessly mired in the long tradition of Confucian influence on the Chinese political stage. Such is the persistence of culture.

Metzger's attempt to take an old argument and view it from a new angle is refreshing to say the least. Although certain areas of the work may be too detailed for the average reader and in other areas it may be too brief for experienced readers of Confucianism and modern Chinese history, it nonetheless captures the continuities and the persistence of culture that cannot be overlooked when studying a civilization, especially one as old as China.

I could barely put this book down. I bought it on Robben Island at the gift shop and read almost the entire book on the flight back to the US. It was written, as you can tell by the publishing date, in the thick of the apartheid struggle by a white man who was imprisoned and sentenced to 12 years in maximum security for distributing literature for the African National Congress. He and his friends made an incredible escape, however, and made it to safety to continue the struggle and write this book, which details how they came to be involved with the ANC, what sort of work they did and how they did it, how they got caught, what their trial was like, what their prison was like, and, ultimately, how they escaped. It is written like an excellent suspense/thriller novel, but is made infinitely better by the fact that it really happened and that his cause (to eradicate racial oppression) was so righteous. I would recommend this book highly to anyone interested in learning more of the blood-and-sweat history of apartheid South Africa, anyone who likes suspense novels about prison escapes, and especially to people interested in both.