Columbia Books

I had the opportunity to listen to the author lecture on the subject of his book and reinforce its main points with anecdotal and hands-on evidence. China's vast potential and current growth notwithstanding, a period of difficulties can be anticipated as an idiosynchratic, unrealistic banking structure meets market forces and seeks to reinvent itself. Perils and opportunities will abound as this segment of the China economic saga unfolds.

a) Recent publication: 2002 b) The lenght of the texts and the
number of the new words increase gradually ( wisely ). The first
lessons are aproximately 400 characters with 30 new words. The last lessons are 800 characters long with 50 new words. c) Each lesson begins with a study outline in Chinese an English to give a general idea of what will be the lesson. d) In some lessons there appendices to give additional informations
such as " Chart of Chinese Radicals", " Commonly Mistaken Characters", "Chart of Family Relative Titles", etc.
Wise, really wise! Don't miss it.

This is a most interesting and insightful look at all aspects of a chinese village of the 1940's. It's very comprehensive and includes everything from daily life to the social structure of the village and beyond. Meeting the people of the village is especially interesting. The only real drawbacks are: 1-It was written in 1945 and so it would be nice to see a more modern study, considering the many changes in China. 2-It's getting hard to find. 3-Being a socialogical study, it can get rather wordy at times, and thus lacks the flowing narrative of, say, Jonathan Spence's works. Still, a thoroughly fascinating peek at a thoroughly fascinating culture.

This is still the classic text, although it is flawed by the author's negativity about the subject. Most of the important names and texts are discussed, with tantalizing summaries of some of the more interesting moments. Blau's negative opinion gets in the way of his treatment, which has been superseded by studies from contemporary scholars like Allison Coudert, Moshe Idel, and Elliott Wolfson, but there does not yet exist a single text that I can refer you to which will provide a better summary.

Essential for anybody interested in post-Frances Yates scholarship on the christian cabalist dimension of renaissance magic.

This is a terrific reprint of the first edition. Very fine binding, crisp text, great illustrations!

How I wish this were published in paperback! The _Jinno Shotoki_ of Kitabatake Chikafusa is a marvelous chronicle of Japanese history as told by a fourteenth-century scholar and courtier. The narrative sheds light on how Kitabatake views the place of Japan in the world: Japan is constantly compared to China; Japan's destiny is divine; Japan is protected by the Gods; "good" emperors and imperial advisors obey the divine will (for emporers, this meant staying out of the way and letting the "correct" advisors rule). In this text, you get a sense of the ancient imperial court's scholarly tradition, threatened place in Japan, and ideas about Japanese _mores_. Varley's translation is clear and his introduction establishes the historical circumstances very well.

For years one of the great poems of the twentieth century -- Circus of the Sun -- has been out of print. Now not only is it available once again, but the rest of Bob Lax's circus poetry is at last in print as well. Lax's love affair with the circus started by chance in 1943, during a period of his life when he was on the staff of The New Yorker and went along with a colleague to interview the Cristianis, a family of circus performers. In the years that followed, Lax often traveled with their circus, discovering in it an image of a less-damaged world. R.C. Kenedy said of it: "Circus of the Sun is, in all probability, the finest volume of poems published by an English-speaking poet of the generation which comes in the wake of T.S. Eliot." Lax's friendship with Thomas Merton is well known. He was also close to Jack Kerouac, who said of Lax that he was "one of the great original voices of our times ... a Pilgrim in search of beautiful innocence, writing lovingly, finding it, simply, in his own way."

THIS IS A VERY EXITING AND THRILLING MYSTERY BOOK. IT IS VERY DESCRIPTIVE AND LETS YOU BELIVE THAT YOU ARE ACTUALLY THERE. THIS ONE YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO PUT DOWN.

If I am not mistaken this book is an extension of the Masters' thesis that Loenen did at the University of British Columbia a couple of years ago. The thesis, in turn, was inspired by Loenen's time in the provincial government of British Columbia's Bill Vander Zalm from 1986-1991.

The main argument of Loenen's book is that the first-past-the-post electoral system (also known as the "Single Member Plurality") has instilled in Canada a political system that is almost dictatorial in nature. He sees power as having become concentrated at the executive (or Cabinet) level, with citizens - and even back-bench MP's - having little real say in how government is run. The solution that is offered is a move to a "Single Transferable Vote" (STV). Which in reality is a move to the Proportional Representation, in which it is beleived that each vote will carry more wieght and be more fairly represented than is currently the case.

Events from the early 1990s seem to be employed by Loenen to back-up his contention that the average citizen is not guaranteed a say within the current system. These are the Meech Lake and Charlottetown Accords - both of which were soundly defeated by public opinion. The point that is drawn is that is that poiticians were completely out of step with their constiuents on these iniatives. The implication being that a different electoral system might have helped prevent these divisive Accords.

Loenen uses British Columbia as a case study for the book to show how STV would have the potential to open he possibilty for new forms of political behaviour. His chapters deal with issues such as the legislature, the relationship between the Cabinet and the legislature, political parties, and all the different types of voting systems.

My own personal opinion of this book is that it is a very well thought out and argued case. Yet, I personally am a little reluctant to be swayed by the case for proportional representation. I beleive it is simply the substitution of one set of problems for another - with there being no guarantee that STV could be any more democratic than FPTP. Both system have their weaknesses and both are prone to manipulation and detachment from the citizenry. Nevertheless, I still highly recommend the book!

This eye-witness account of US troop atrocities on civilians can no longer be hidden. Scholars may have had an excuse for ignoring it, but now that excuse is removed by this easily available, beautifully produced university press edition. The majority of the so-called historians who have attributed the burning of Columbia SC to accident, alcohol, burning cotton, etc., are now shown to be the apologist propagandists for a sanitized American history that they most surely are. In contrast to the eye-witness account, their work now appears laughable. How can we take these "historians" seriously in anything else they do? Truth has a way of getting outside its bottle, and like the genie, it can't be put back. Congratulations to the editor and press for a job well done.