"With the goal of understanding China's future in a changing international landscape, this book offers a new picture of China's rise since the Age of Exploration and its historical impact on the modern world. The establishment of the Great Ming dynasty in 1368 was a monumental event in world history. A century before Columbus, Beijing sent a series of diplomatic missions across the South China Sea and Indian Ocean that paved the way for China's first...

Explores the history of China between the Mongol reunification of China in 1279 under the Yuan dynasty and the Manchu invasion four centuries later, explaining how climate changes profoundly affected the empire during this period.

"The Walking Boy is a quest novel set in early eighth-century Tang Dynasty China, in the final days of the rule of the first Female Emperor Wu Zhao. The ailing hermit monk Harelip sends his disciple Baoshi on a pilgrimage from Mount Hua to Chang'an, the Western capital; Baoshi is the "walking boy" charged with locating Harelip's missing former lover Ardhanari. Baoshi lives with a secret only his Master knows, and he is filled with fears of being discovered....

"Challenges the accepted wisdom about women and gender roles in medieval China. In Crossing the Gate, Man Xu examines the lives of women in the Chinese province of Fujian during the Song dynasty. Tracking women's life experience across class lines, outside as well as inside the domestic realm, Xu challenges the accepted wisdom about women and gender roles in medieval China. She contextualizes women in a much broader physical space and social network,...

"An insider's account of the often-fraught U.S.-Saudi relationship. Saudi Arabia and the United States have been partners since 1943, when President Roosevelt met with two future Saudi monarchs. Subsequent U.S. presidents have had direct relationships with those kings and their successors-- setting the tone for a special partnership between an absolute monarchy with a unique Islamic identity and the world's most powerful democracy. Although based...