Eastern University Books

I visited the Future Hope organisation in Calcutta India back in 1997. Tim Grandage is fantastic. He is really doing a marvellous job rehabilitating street children of Calcutta. Chris Bale knows how to capture the children then and now very well. Read the whole book in one go. Simply fabulous!

The book tells stories of people in Asia which Mr. Bale (the author) knows some times ago. He decided to see what happened to them after all these years. As I took a journey along with Mr. Bale both in his book and personally when he was writing it (I have helped him as an interpreter while he was in Thailand writing one chapter of this book), I found it to be a wonderful voyage. The stories are inspiring and full of hope as the name of the book itself implied.

I've been frustrated for a while now in trying to find a good tree identification guide. I'm a birder, I do know how to use field guides! --but all the tree guides I've tried had one photograph, or one line drawing, which might have been my leaf or it might not have been... and after staring at a few of these in confusion I'd just give up and decide to enjoy my walk.

This guide is different. First of all, there are both drawn leaf outlines and color photographs (lots of them, quite beautiful) as well as verbal descriptions. And the photographs almost all include MANY leaves of that tree, so you can see how much the leaves actually vary from each other. I thought this was a brilliant idea. Best of all, all of these trees were photographed in the fall, so the color really helps you out too!

This guide only covers some 150 species, but it does that very well. I might have preferred it to be about 1" narrower side to side, but with a bit of care it did fit into my coat pocket. Because of how colorful and easy to use it is, I imagine this guide would be an especially satisfying one to take along on walks with the kids.

Fall Color and Woodland Harvests by Drs. C.R Bell and Anne Lindsey is a comprehensive reference book for the serious naturalist. Stunning color photographs by some of the regions leading nature photographers adds incredible richness and detail to the book. Bell and Lindsey are particulary adept at presenting technical information in an easy to read and very understandable narrative form. The authors have spent years exploring the eastern forests and giving seminars and talks on its flora. Dr. Bell is the Director Emeritus of the North Carolina Botanical Garden. Your autumn leaf watching trip will be more enjoyable and more rewarding when you take along this excellent book.

Most Americans don't know squat about Islam itself, let alone Islam in China. Yet today there are about 15 million Muslims in China, centered mostly in the northwest (Xinjiang province), along the margins of the old Silk Road. And they aren't just an insignificant minority: in the Middle Ages, for instance, Chinese Muslims played a central role in bridging the gulf between China, the Middle East, and Europe, bringing goods and knowledge both ways. (...)

Jonathan Lipman's "Familiar Strangers" explores some aspects of Islam in northwestern China from the first arrival of Muslims there in the 8th century up through the 20th. Like most similar histories, it revolves around two major dilemmas that have constantly faced Chinese Muslims (as opposed to non-Chinese Muslims living in China): first, is Islam compatible with Chinese culture? and second, can Chinese Muslims themselves properly be considered Chinese? China's "host" culture has always tended to absorb alien peoples and faiths -- whether they're Mongols and Turks (the so-called "barbarians"), Buddhists from India, or whoever. There were always strangers lurking at the gates of China, drooling with envy or burning with ambition, but almost every one of them who managed to break through eventually assimilated and became, in effect, Chinese: in fact, many sought to do so in the first place. But Muslims were an exception. Their Islamic faith forbade them to have the same kind of relationship with traditional Chinese culture as other groups: for instance, ancestor worship and reverencing the emperor were antipathetic to Islam. Consequently, Chinese Muslims were, while not complete strangers, "familiar strangers", ethnically Chinese, foreign by affiliation.

Lipman's history isn't a comprehensive account of Muslim culture on the northwestern Chinese frontier. Instead, it examines how Chinese Muslims reacted to the complexity of belonging to two cultures at once. Lipman explores, for instance, Muslim reaction to acculturation policies under the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and Muslims' role as "strangers in bad times" during the Ming-Qing cataclysm in the 1640s. Chapter 3, "Connections: Muslims in the Early Qing, 1644-1781", analyses the introduction of Naqshabandiya Sufism into China in the early 17th century and the struggle between two rival forms of it -- the orthodox Khafiya and the radical Jahriya -- in the 18th century, the latter a branch of revivalist Wahhabism, the earliest modern version of so-called Islamic "fundamentalism". Chapter 4, "Strategies of Resistance," explores the period between 1784 and 1895, looking at three large-scale Muslim rebellions against the Qing state. Chapter 5 examines Muslim "Strategies of Integration" during the Nationalist period and under the People's Republic. Finally, Lipman sums his findings in chapter 6.

The book is a scholarly read and not always easy going. If you don't have much previous knowledge of Chinese history, start elsewhere. But if you've got the background, it's a great read.

The first time I got the book from a Chinese Muslim scholar, I began to search what i am Intersted and i got it. I t is about a Islamic sect Xidaodang in which I am one member.Mr. Lipman has been in Xidaotang once and did some research on the group.His book shows his description and study are not only successful, but objective as well.He has his own unique view on Chinese Muslim...

This book is both wonderful and horrifying at the same time. In today's global environment, the lessons of Korea are all the more important for the Government of Canada, the high command and the Canadian public to remember! This book should be read and sit on the corner of every desk in the Department of Defense. Canadian should also reflect on the government's callous disregard of the navy's helicopter pilots (i.e. the Sea King Episode), or the fact Canadian troops were sent to Afghanistan in green uniforms. These episodes clearly demonstrate that politics wins over the lives of the service personnel every time, just as it had in Korea. Here we sit over 60 distant from the Korea war and the Canadian Government and military are still making many of the same mistakes.

Far Eastern Tour: The Canadian Infantry In Korea 1950-1953 by Brent Byron Watson (History Teacher, Okanagan University College) is a tautly written and serious-minded examination and history of Canada's involvement in the Korean War, including the hardships Canadian infantry suffered which included inappropriate training, stark living and combat conditions, and the deadly blood toll of the war itself. Far Eastern Tour is very highly recommended as being an extensively researched, carefully written, and scholarly accurate look into what living amid such combat was like, the pressures it demanded, and the extraordinary people who faced the horrors of war and did not back down from what had to be done.

Well, I'm the second person to write a review, and I should probably wait until I finish the last ten pages. But I can't wait! This books is wild, unlike any other book that I've read from the Middle East. Fatma's life keeps spinning, twisting, reshaping, and surprising. What an amazing ride!

Raja Alem has gifted English speakers with this wonderful tale about a young Arab woman and her strange life. Raja wrote Fatma in English with some help from Tom McDonough, these two should collaborate more often! It's intense stuff, and yes Raja does mean it. She's one of a kind, and you should all thank whatever you consider sacred that her stuff is getting published. She's the closest thing to a modern day profit I know of, and if you hear her talk you'll realize she isn't playing around. Poetic, beautifully written, every word is meant to be there, readable and very enjoyable, and if you let it Fatma can make you think differently about life. It is capable of rehumanizing the most jaded soul. It's like the opposite of Kafka's The Castle, Raja is the 'Anti-Michel Houllebecq'- and it would be funny to see what her mind's creations would do to a sad balding Frenchman. Raja's stuff is great, her sister Shadia did the cool cover art. Now, having been BLESSED with owning and reading Fatma, I and many others fervently wish for her other books to be published in English... she's a genius, you've just got to love this woman.

He was my friend. I do so miss him.

Wakefield's book is by far the best study (and the only book-length study in English) of a vital topic for Chinese social and economic history. He draws on a rich range of sources from several regions of China, including Qing household division contracts and legal cases, and Japanese social surveys of rural China conducted in the early twentieth century. He confirms the longstanding view that the principle of equal division between sons informed social practice broadly throughout China, but also shows the many creative strategies ("orientations" is his term), varying by region and class, that people employed to get around the imperatives of "equal division." The book is a major achievement, made all the more impressive by the author's long struggle with cancer while he was writing; the book would have been even better if the author had had a couple more healthy years to rework it. Wakefield's book will be the point of departure for any future study of Chinese inheritance practices.

I have read buthaina al nasiri in Arabic. When I got a copy of the English translation of her stories entitled ( final night), I was relieved to find the translation is so good that it maintains the spirit of the writer. I am glad, being an Iraqi myself that more people around the world will be able now to read Buthaina Al Nasiri and to enjoy her world and characters as we have done for the last 30 years or so.

Before reading these short stories of the Iraqi writer Buthaina Al Nasiri , I thought I knew everything about the Arab ways, being an Arab myself; but these stories were a new revelation to me. The stories take you swiftly into a journey inside the head and heart of arab men and women. The writer , though , a woman herself but she writes with understanding and love about people in general . The stories are lively with wonderful diversity of characters : there is this prisoner of war who has returned to a family that he does not seem to know anymore; the German couples who have emigrated to Israel but still yearn to what they really consider (home); the lonly old lady with her long cherished love letters; the beggar who fails to train a dog for the circus; the final night of two lovers who find living together impossible; the strange encounter of a taxi driver and a street -walker in a windy rainy night , and several more .
Buthaina Al Nasiri writes in a startling way and the stories compell you to change your attitudes and to remember the characters as if you have known them all your life.

Dvora Baron has become Hebrew literature's equivalent of Virginia Woolf. In a Hebrew modernist scene cluttered with men, she was a rare female voice. The intricacies of her position appear to have taken a toll. For over 30 years she never ventured from her apartment in Tel Aviv, relying on her daughter for contact with the outside world. This self imposed seclusion appears to have been rounded out by the fictional concerns of Baron's stories, here provided in one nice volume. The First Day and Other Stories were all written in Palestine and later the State of Israel, but nearly all of them concern life in the Jewish villages of Baron's youth. As a new Jewish state emerged around her, Baron stayed in her apartment to churn over the materials of Diaspora life. It was a courageous venture that left her out of step with the emerging mood of the new country. She seemed old fashioned and out of step. But now, several decades after her death, the full scope and depth of her work can be seen divorced from those fleeting political and social concerns. Baron's stories are deeply engaged in Jewish life, its texts, its liturgical seasons, and the people who inhabited them, with a particular concern for women, and their marginal position. Always with clarity and depth, always with great feeling... even in those stories where Baron has an obvious axe to grind, art comes before the ax, feeling before the score to settle.

Beautifully written stories about women in the Shtetel. Devora Baron touches on the subjects closest to our hearts: birth, death, marriage and divorce. She weaves a beautiful tapestry of Jewish tradition and the milestones of life. All of this is told throught the sensitive eyes of a young girl, the daughter of the town's rabbi. These stories are like fine wine, to be savored and enjoyed, sip by sip, again and again.

Most readers who come to this text are, no doubt, overly familiar with the more playful spiritual intensity of Japanese Zen, whether it be through the writings of stoic mountain hermits (say, Dogen); the peripatetic musings of hip flask, sake swilling outcasts (say, Santoka Taneda or Ryokan); the no nonesense monastic types (say, Hakuin); the earthy, gritty advice for living in the modern world (say, DT Suzuki); or even the American literati influences (say, Gary Snyder).

Far fewer readers, however, will be familiar with the logistical organization of Zen temples in Japan. As esteemed Japan expert Edwin O. reischauer writes in the brief preface, "It is ironic that Zen philosophy, which is commonly charaterized as being beyond words, has inspired millions of words in English print, whereas Zen instituions, though vastly important in many aspects of medieval Japanese civilization and in no way beyond description, has drawn so few."

Indeed.

Yet, does a book about the logistical organization of Rinzai's Gozan ("Five Mountain") temples sound boring?

Perhaps. But let me tell you: this text is anything but boring! Author Martin Collcut takes a seemingly mundane subject and delivers a delightfully informative product that will not disappoint even the most discerning reader. Moreover, he neatly ties the development of the temple system into the existing socio-political milieu of Medieval Japan.

Quite frankly, this is a dream book for a Japanese history "otaku" (lit: "buff," or worse, "nerd" or "geek") like myself: clear and detailed but highly readable, unlike so many other academic texts.

Lastly, I do not think you need to have too much knowledge of Japanese history or even Buddhism for that matter, as Collcutt does a great job of keeping the reader informed and up to date. Roughly speaking, there are three main branches of Zen in Japan: Rinzai (founded by Eisai), Soto (Dogen), and the lesser known Obaku (imported by Chinese monks in the Tokugawa Era). This book, of course, focuses on how the first, Rinzai Zen, which mirrored the organization of its "five mountain temples" on the Chinese model (and literally had main temples on five mountain sites).

Though this book is full of details, it exceedingly engrossing at every turn. I wish I could give it 10 stars.

Buy it today!

Not everyone wants to explore the history of Rinzai Zen as an Institution - but, if you do, Martin Collcutt's study is a veritable treasure trove. Potted within its pages (382, excluding the index and bibliography), you will find fascinating references to just about everything of significance concerning the formation of the 'Gozan' or 'Five Mountain System' - its precedents in Sung China, its patrons and supporters in Japan, the temple builders, key figures, secular and religious, all the regulations, and all the myriad processes involved in the maintenance of these inter-linked temple complexes.

Even at their best, studies like this can be tedious, in places, but this well informed account is never dry. It explores macrocosmic factors, and surveys microcosmic details. Collcutt conveys an almost organic picture of the entire complex of processes - social, technical,human and spiritual - which brought the 'Gozan' system into being and made it a living entity. While all of this was ultimately directed to one end - the spiritual life nurtured in the Sodo or monks hall, Collcutt's study makes us keenly aware of the managerial and administrative skills required to run such large complexes. Rather like their equivalent in medieval or late medieval Europe, these monastic institutions virtually became thriving 'businesses'- running large landed estates, even employing hired labour. Beating the Medici family to the game by several centuries, the Chinese Buddhists were the first people to print paper money - and lend it at interest. As with the European monastic institutions, corruption and worldliness sometimes took over. Similar traits sometimes characterised life in the Japanese temples. Collcutt's study can be statistical in places, but this is always tempered by the human interest - the notable figures and events which have shaped life in these temples. It details the virtues, vices and the vicissitudes, which have left their mark upon the Gozan system.

As a history student I found this book a really good source to write my essay on the methods of terror used by the Bolsheviks. This book is designed to all of those that study the history of nationalities after October of 1917. I think this should be one of the first books of Pipes on the. subject of the Bolsheviks. It is really interesting that Pipes provides a lot of information in an era (1950's) when there was little information about the Soviet Union. I have also read from Pipes, The Russian Revolution, Russia under the Bolshevik Regime, The Unknown Lenin and Russia under the Old Regime.

In the exceedingly complex series of events that went into the making of the Russian Revolution and its subsequent devolution into the communist government of Felix and Vladimir, Pipes makes another foray into clarity and meaning, and succeeds wonderfully.

While this book might not interest the causal reader on Comunist Russia and her sattellites, it is as close to seamless reading as we will ever find for the ethnographer of violence in the Russian landscape.

And what the hell, it still might interest the causual reader- I guarantee you will go away with a complete picture of an important period of time.