"From the author of The Almost Nearly Perfect People, a lively tour through Japan, Korea, and China, exploring the intertwined cultures and often fraught history of these neighboring countries. There is an ancient Chinese proverb that states, "Two tigers cannot share the same mountain." However, in East Asia, there are three tigers on that mountain: China, Japan, and Korea, and they have a long history of turmoil and tension with each other. In his...

A land of enormous proportions, countless secrets, and incredible history, Central Asia was the heart of the great Mongol empire of Tamerlane and scene of Stalin's cruelest deportations. A remote and fascinating region in a constant state of transition-never more so than since the collapse of the Soviet Union-it encompasses terrain as diverse as the Kazakh steppes, the Karakum desert, and the Pamir mountains. In The Lost Heart of Asia, acclaimed,...

A vivid, often surprising account of South Asia today by the author of An End to Suffering In his new book, Pankaj Mishra brings literary authority and political insight to bear on travels that are at once epic and personal. Traveling in the changing cultures of South Asia, Mishra sees the pressures-the temptations-of Western-style modernity and prosperity, and teases out the paradoxes of globalization. A visit to Allahabad, birthplace of Jawaharlal...

"Tropical rain forests and windswept steppes. Houses on stilts and the Malay people. The Forbidden City and the Burj Khalifa. What continent is home to all these people and places? Asia, the largest continent in size and population, a fascinating place that's home to plants and animals found nowhere else on Earth. Explore the countries and cultures of Asia, make a Japanese Koi, and cook up some traditional noodles!" -- Back cover.

In 1271 Marco Polo set out on a journey to China to meet the Mongol Emperor Kublaï Khan. He returned with stories that would take a lifetime to tell. Featuring exotic creatures, strange customs, extraordinary legends, and political intrigues, The Travels of Marco Polo reveals the fantastical treasures of the East in the words of the legendary medieval explorer. Conjuring up a forgotten world filled with mystery where wonder lurks around every...

"There are more than one billion Hindus in the world, but for those who don't practice the faith, very little seems to be understood about it. Followers have not only built and sustained the world's largest democracy but have also sustained one of the greatest philosophical streams in the world for more than three thousand years. So, what makes a Hindu? Why is so little heard from the real practitioners of the everyday faith? Why does information...

"Lost in time for generations, the story of a 19th-century English gentleman in British India--a family mystery of love found and loyalties abandoned, finally brought to light. In 1841, twenty-year-old Nigel Halleck set out for Calcutta as a clerk in the East India Company. He went on to serve in the colonial administration for eight years before abruptly leaving the company under a cloud and disappearing in the mountain kingdom of Nepal, never to...

Alternating between the loveable irrascibility and self-mocking humor reminiscent of the poet Cold Mountain (Han Shan), Budbill's poems view the modern world from the viewpoint of a New England hermit-scholar. Remarkable for their generous spirit, accessibility and biting criticism, these poems present a poet of strong mind and voice.

"Two modern adventurers sought a treasure possessed by the legendary "Wild Men of Borneo." One found riches. The other vanished forever into an endless jungle. Had he shed civilization--or lost his mind? Global headlines suspected murder. Lured by these mysteries, New York Times bestselling author Carl Hoffman journeyed to find the truth, discovering that nothing is as it seems in the world's last Eden, where the lines between sinner and saint blur...

"The fascinating and entertaining true stories of the young Victorian women on the hunt for husbands among the colonial businessmen and bureaucrats in the Raj"--