Wang Books

I think, those who work in the area of structural stability, should have this book as a reference. I do believe that this is a really helpful book.

This first book in the Mei Wang mystery series is not as quaint as we've come to expect from China-based mysteries such as the Judge Dee series by Robert van Gulik. Most of the historical references in "The Eye of Jade" are to Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution during his last decade in power (1966 - 1976). Countless Chinese citizens (especially those with an education) were sent to labor camps, while ancient buildings, artifacts, books, and paintings were destroyed by the rampaging Red Guards.

Mei Wang, the detective-heroine of this new series spent part of her youth in a labor camp, along with her mother, sister, and father. Her father was never released, and one of the mysteries in this multi-layered book concerns his fate.

The author, herself spent years in a labor camp along with her parents, so readers can assume that parts of "The Eye of Jade" were taken from real life. That makes this mystery even more interesting, since all of the previous Middle Kingdom mysteries I'd read were written by non-Chinese authors.

Modern Beijing may surprise Westerners who haven't visited the post-Mao People's Republic of China. This book is packed with telling details. Opium dens have been replaced by karaoke bars, and nouveau riche Beijingers are lining up for a turn at the mike, and for ballroom dancing lessons. The ancient treasures destroyed during the Cultural Revolution have been replaced by Venetian chandeliers, imported Italian marble, and top-of-the-line German appliances. Although the heroine, Mei Wang tools around in a little red Mitsubishi, her wealthy sister is chauffered between TV appearances and beauty salon appointments in a Mercedes.

Mei Wang bases much of her detective work on `guânxi,' i.e. social networking--a central concept in Chinese society. Relatives or people who owe her a favor get her into the places she needs to go in order to locate a stolen jade seal--a rare artifact from the ancient Han Dynasty (206 B.C. - 220 A.D.). Woven into her search is the story of her family, most especially the relationship between Beijing's first female detective and her ailing mother.

There is also a great deal of social commentary on contemporary China. Those who believe that Communism still controls the economy might be a bit shocked at the very capitalistic behavior of the characters in this book. China may give lip service to universal health care, but only the rich (and the military) can get treatment in a decent, modern hospital.

I am definitely going to look for the second Mei Wang mystery, "Paper Butterfly." For those of us who like our mysteries with a strong dash of foreign culture, this is a great new series.

Lovely book, it has given very good coverage about all the bronchoscopic procedures

Family life, sports, the modes and mores of his fellow townsmen in Westport, Connecticutt, and practically anything else that sparks his fertile imagination are the subjects of Cummings stories. Here are seventy-odd of the best of his engaging short pieces and some forty cartoons by Eric Gurney, also of Westport. Mr. Gurney has also drawn pictures for Walt Disney studios and done ads for Post Cereal, Texaco, etc. Mr. Cummings has had humor articles in national magazines and has written other humor books.

The author published this book in 1965 and revised it in 1971. The edition which I just completed reading was the former. The author writes with clear and graceful English and shows extraordinary good sense and perception with a wide variety of immense and credible documentation. This is not the greatest left critique of American cold war foreign policy ever written but there are streches where it very much seems that it is.

The author shows very clearly the origins of the Cold war. It had always been the announced intention of the Western powers to destroy the Soviet Union. With the United States aquring virtually unchallenged and unprecedented world power after World War II it viewed the Soviets as its primary rival. The Soviet Union was occupying Eastern Europe through which it had been invaded three times in the preceeding decades, the latest of course being the immensely barbaric Nazi occupation. The Soviets hoped to neutralise Germany's military capacity and hoped to acquire immense reparations to help themselves rebuild. American loans of course, came with alot of strings attached, especially with regard to economic policies. The Americans refrained from discussing any sort of mutual withdrawl from occupied territories with the Soviets. They rebuffed Soviet efforts at mutual disarmament (or accepted then rebuffed as in 1955) prefering to have "Open skies" inspections whereby the U.S. could fly its U-2's over Russian territory unimpeded as it kept producing more sophisticated and lethal nuclear weapons. As the Soviets reduced their military arsenal and manpower the Americans increased theirs, helping to fuel the arms race. The theory was articulated George Kennan "Mr. X": the Soviet Union is incapable of negotiating with (which is to say succumbing to each and every U.S. demand), therefore it must be "contained" i.e. in large part meaning effecting its gradual weakening and hopeful destruction. In reality U.S. policies and actions (one example being announcing the Truman doctrine while the Western foreign ministers were meeting with Molotov in Moscow) tended to strengthen the most reactionary elements in the Soviet Union and its satellites and delay and weaken any movements towards liberalization; the Stalinization of Eastern Europe began in the months after the Truman doctrine was announced. This was recognized by a few elite intellectuals and planners like Walter Lipmann and later George Kennan himself and "containment," would eventually be moderated somewhat later due to changing conditions of U.S. power vis a vis the Soviets.

The author also engages in extensive and important though not very profound discussion about the true intentions about U.S. fulminations about communist totalitarianism. The U.S., of course, used alleged Soviet expansionism as an excuse to block revolutions away from the misery of the vast majority of the populations of the third world, away from the right wing status quo. The British and then the Americans reinstalled Nazi collaborators in Greece to beat back the popular communist party whose rebellion Stalin was trying to put to rest as Milovan Djilas later revealed. In Italy it massively intervened to block the coming to power through democratic elections of the communist party and declared that any nation which voted communists into power would be ineligible for U.S. economic aid. In Korea, from the moment it occupied it, it disbanded the communist dominated anti-Japanese resistance governing councils and installed a very brutal and corrupt dictatorship making the Korean war inevitable. In 1958 it occupied Lebanon in order to block a popular revolution there and contain the possible threat of the example of the 1958 revolution in Iraq. In Guatemala he cites statistics from the Chase National Bank that that country was experiences unprecedented economic successs both in terms of its history and in relation to the rest of Latin America before the 1954 U.S. engineered counterrevolution. He quotes President Eisenhower in his memoirs as saying that Ho Chi Minh was the most popular leader in Indochina before the U.S. installed a very brutal dictatorship in South Vietnam and blocked the 1956 nationwide elections as called for in the Geneva accords. He quotes president Kennedy as saying that Cuba under Batista was the ultimate in neocolonial degradation for the vast majority of the Cuban people and he provides statistics to back up this point (page 203--I think of this when contemplating a recent statement by the author, who of course has become an extremely violent and wealthy reactionary, in one of his books to the effect that Cuba "enjoyed" a high per capita income prior to 1959). He points out that the extreme U.S. hostility to the change away from the right wing status quo in Cuba forced Castro into the arms of the Soviet Union. On page 229 in a footnote he provides citations from a Council on Foreign Relations report about the extremely barbarous conditions lived under the U.S. backed Somoza dictatorship. He provides a particularly superb account of Kennedy's Alliance for Progress and points out the contradiction between the program's goal of reducing poverty, increasing health, education, economic growth, etc. with U.S. laws designed to severely punish any nation which sought to restrict the rights of corporations to plunder their countries.

Godel admitted that his philosophical position was aptly stated in this book by Wang. A compatible book is "A Logical Journey: From Godel to Philosophy"

Drake says that Galileo aimed to replace the primacy of the philosophical quest for the truth with the scientific quest. Drake pictures Galileo as one who understands that Science does not bring absolute truth but closer approximations to truth. He sees the hostility to Galileo as having come not so much from the church as from contempoary philosophers. As the book- jacket states ' in a startling reintepretation of evidence, the hypothesis is here advanced that Galileo in his struggle for freedom of scientific inquiry was mainly concerned not to promote Copernicanism as such, but to prevent responsible theologians from risking the Church's future credibility by taking up a position on any scientific matter at all." So the consquence of Galileo's action was a final parting of the paths of science and philosophy.

29. Moderation
The art of parenting is moderation -
Too much rain brings the flood
Too much sun dries the land

In Garden Haiku, the author successfully blends three elements: Asian philosophy, the haiku form, and parenting advice. "Moderation" is an example of one of the best pieces in the collection. As the subtitle of the book indicates, there is great wisdom to be found in these poems based on Asian philosophies. The author manages to convey this wisdom in haikus like the above, while also paying care to the demands of language. The repetition of similarly structured lines (line 2 and 3 above) is a wise strategy that works effectively in "moderation." Within just three lines, an effective and engaging rhythm is established.

In the poem "Lion," which is from a series of poems named after animals, a similar structure is employed: the first line introduces the poem's main idea, and that is followed by two similarly structured lines that give the poem both momentum and rhythm and bring it to a satisfying conclusion:

10. Lion
Bring the best in children--
Tame not the lion that rules the king
Ground not the eagle that soars the sky

While the two poems above speak directly to parenting, there are other equally effective poems in the collection iwth advice that can be applied to all aspects of life. The poem "stone" is an example.

6.
Stone
Disappointment is a heavy stone--
When a mistake is made,
Correct it; do not carry it

While the author writes specifically to parents, even those without children can believe in this philosophy for living one's life. In this way, the book can be a good read to anyone, not just parents.

One of my favorite haikus in the book is "Lighthouse," which follows in its entirety:

22.
Lighthouse
A child is a lighthouse, full of love--
To get to it,
Paddle with patience

As with all the poems in the collection, the simple language speaks to everyone without excluding anyone; also there is nothing at all offensive in languages or content about these poems -- they can be read by a general audience, by children as well as adult. The writing here is always competent, and the best poems are effective. The author has studied and reworked the haiku form, and she has an interesting voice. Garden Haiku is a uniquely entertaining and originally written book in a distinctive format.

This book is essential reading on the Asian financial crisis. It contains a judicious overview of alternative interpretations of the origins of the crisis. It then uses a computable general equilibrium model to analyze the impact of the crisis on different regions of the world, with special emphasis on the United States.

The quality of the book is excellent. I received my order within 2-3 days. Thank you!