Showing titles in Central Asia

A powerful, emotional memoir and an extraordinary portrait of three generations of Tibetan women whose lives are forever changed when Chairman Mao’s Red Army crushes Tibetan independence, sending a young mother and her six-year-old daughter on a treacherous journey across the snowy Himalayas toward freedom.

The Chinese Civil War was a decades-long struggle between the Nationalists and Communists that reshaped China and reverberated across the globe. This concise yet comprehensive book covers the war’s early battles, the impact of the Japanese invasion during World War II, and the final showdown that saw Chiang Kai-shek’s retreat to Taiwan. Listen about the ideologies and strategies of both sides and explore the global consequences of this war, which marked a pivotal moment in Cold War history.

Zakia and Ali were from different tribes, but they grew up on neighboring farms in the hinterlands of Afghanistan. By the time they were young teenagers, Zakia, strikingly beautiful and fiercely opinionated, and Ali, shy and tender, had fallen in love. Defying their families, sectarian differences, cultural conventions, and Afghan civil and Islamic law, they ran away together only to live under constant threat from Zakia's large and vengeful family, who have vowed to kill her to restore the family's honor.

The war in Afghanistan has consumed vast amounts of blood and treasure, causing the Western powers to seek an exit without achieving victory. Seemingly never-ending, the conflict has become synonymous with a number of issues-global jihad, rampant tribalism, and the narcotics trade - but even though they are cited as the causes of the conflict, they are in fact symptoms.

Throughout the past three decades East Asia has seen more peace and stability than at any time since the Opium Wars of 1839-1841. During this period China has rapidly emerged as a major regional power, averaging over nine percent economic growth per year since the introduction of its market reforms in 1978. Foreign businesses have flocked to invest in China, and Chinese exports have begun to flood the world.

In the last months of the Korean war the US Marines had transitioned into a near stationary force manning the main battle line in a serious of forward outposts. In this position they were under near constant bombardment and engaging in ongoing patrol battles. This book is a study of the outpost war concept through official documents and anecdote.

Most Americans think of the Taliban and al Qaeda as a bunch of bearded fanatics fighting an Islamic crusade from caves in Afghanistan. But that doesn't explain their astonishing comeback along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Why is it that eight years after we invaded Afghanistan, the CIA says that these groups are better armed and better funded than ever? Seeds of Terror will reshape the way you think about America's enemies, revealing them less as ideologues and more as criminals.

Charlemagne, while subjugating the people he conquered, modernized education, currency, art, music, and leadership to bring stability back to Europe, setting it on the path to thrive for years to come. Europe had been in upheaval, with threats from every direction, when Charlemagne came to power in the eighth century. The barbarian king worked to unite Germanic people into one kingdom and to spread Catholicism.

In recent years, Pakistan has changed from being a state of regional strategic significance to one of major global importance. Its geographical position and delicate religious mix, coupled with a complex political structure and its status as a nuclear power, have ensured that its actions - and inactions - have attracted close scrutiny since 9/11 and the declaration of the "War on Terror". Yet there remains widespread disagreement among political and military analysts as to the real position of this enigmatic nation.

When the Inter-Continental Hotel opened in Kabul in 1969, it reflected the hopes of the country: a glistening white edifice that embodied Afghanistan's dreams of becoming an affluent, modern power. Five decades later, and the Inter-Continental is a dilapidated, shrapnel-damaged shell. It has endured civil wars, terrorist attacks, the US occupation, and the rise, fall and rise of the Taliban. But its decaying grandeur still hints at ordinary Afghans' hopes of stability and prosperity.

Following the war in Ukraine, all eyes have turned to Taiwan as the next possible geopolitical tinderbox. Yet while it lies at the epicentre of China and the USA's tense relationship, its story and its people go overlooked and misunderstood. In Ghost Nation, leading journalist Chris Horton will uncover why this disputed country has become so critical to the world's future.

Dieses Hörbuch wird die Erinnerung an den Krieg in Afghanistan für immer verändern. Die bahnbrechenden Enthüllungen des Washington Post-Reporters und dreimaligen Pulitzer-Preisfinalisten Craig Whitlock zeigen eindrücklich, wie drei aufeinanderfolgende Präsidenten – Bush, Obama, Trump – und ihre militärischen Befehlshaber die weltweite Öffentlichkeit konsequent über Amerikas längsten Kriegseinsatz belogen.

Warriors of the Cloisters tells how key cultural innovations from Central Asia revolutionized medieval Europe and gave rise to the culture of science in the West. Medieval scholars rarely performed scientific experiments, but instead contested issues in natural science, philosophy, and theology using the recursive argument method. This highly distinctive and unusual method of disputation was a core feature of medieval science, the predecessor of modern science.

'In a Nutshell', the new audiobook series from Naxos AudioBooks, continues with a fascinating history of Tibet. Part of China for many years, yet with a clearly distinctive culture (with the central devotion of its people being to Buddhism and the Dalai Lama), Tibet has a unique character in the panoply of world nations. Here we have an independent view of its history and the customs and beliefs of its people - and a commentary on the current situation.

Through a lyrical narrative of her journey to Tibet in 2007, activist Canyon Sam contemplates modern history from the perspective of Tibetan women. Traveling on China's new "Sky Train", she celebrates Tibetan New Year with the Lhasa family whom she'd befriended decades earlier and concludes an oral-history project with women elders.

This is a delightful short biography of an eccentric Hungarian scholar who became one of the fathers of Western studies of the Tibetan language and culture. Educated at an austere Calvinist school until aged 31 where he demonstrated exceptional skills as a linguist, Csoma de Kőrös (1784-1842) finally set out alone on a pilgrimage to the East. His personal mission was to discover the roots of the Hungarian people, whom he and others of the time theorized to be descended from Attila the Hun.

Genghis Khan was the Mongol emperor who has expanded his region to the biggest empire on the face of the Earth ever. His empire stretched from East Asia all the way to various European countries, the Middle East, and beyond. You will learn more about his early life, his relationships, marriage, families and children, his attacks, his unification of the Mongolian Federations, his death, succession, and the continuing of the Mongolian Empire after his death.

Convinced in 1838 that Britain's invaluable empire in India was threatened by Russia, Persia, and Afghan tribes, the British government ordered its Army of the Indus into Afghanistan to oust from power the independent-minded king, Dost Mohammed, and install in Kabul the unpopular puppet ruler Shah Shuja. Expecting a quick campaign, the British found themselves trapped by unforeseen circumstances; eventually the tribes united and the seemingly omnipotent army was slaughtered in 1842 as it desperately retreated through the mountain passes from Kabul to Jalalabad.

During the spring and summer of 2021, global news reports were filled with the impending US/NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan. At best, it would be viewed as a stalemate, with an orderly transition to a stable, US-backed Afghan government. At worse, it would be looked upon as two decades of futile war, ending with a shameful retreat that left the county at the mercy of a ruthless Taliban regime. What went wrong?

China’s meteoric rise to economic powerhouse might be charted with dams. Every river in the country has been tapped to power exploding cities and factories - every river but one. Running through one of the richest natural areas in the world, the Nujiang’s raging waters were on the verge of being dammed when a 2004 government moratorium halted construction. Might the Chinese dragon bow to the "Angry River"? Would Beijing put local people and their land ahead of power and profit? Could this remote region actually become a model for sustainable growth? Ed Grumbine traveled to the far corners of China’s Yunnan province to find out.