三十六计, often translated as "36 Strategems" have always been marketed as a guide for businessmen to give them an edge over their competitors. But make no mistake, these are just 36 dirty tricks used in China over thousands of years in war and swindle. Most of these tricks cannot be ethically applied. Some can be downright criminal. In this book, Singaporean author Chan Joon Yee nakedly illustrates the 36 dirty tricks in their original context with examples from both ancient and modern times. He makes no attempt to market it as a business guide and sincerely hopes that his readers will read it purely for entertainment.

The Three Kingdoms is a tumultuous period in Chinese history when warlords battled one another to rule all under the heavens. Many Chinese fables and legends were made during this time, revealing the complex, multi-dimensional characteristics of the Chinese race. There are as many modern versions of the Three Kingdoms as there are ancient texts. However, those which are easy to read or watch on screen are often lacking in depth and detail. Others are meaningful but fiendishly difficult to read. Much more than just a translation, this book is written in modern English, balancing depth with easy reading. For those new to the Three Kingdoms, it offers an introduction with just the right dose of detail. For those already familiar with the Three Kingdoms, it may offer a deeper understanding or sense of realism on this epic saga.

One of the most diverse yet accessible collections of Chinese strategies. Verstappen has unearthed sources from Lao Zi to Miyamoto Musashi in an impressive selection of historical and anecdotal evidence supporting the original Thirty-Six Strategies, one of the most influential works of East Asian philosophy. Includes illustrations and a bibliography.

Modern Ninjutsu: A Definitive Guide to the Tactics, Concepts & Spirit of Unconventional Combat Arts is a path guide to realistic training and mind-set development for combat situations wherever they may occur. J. Alaric Justice is a military combat veteran and former anti-terrorist, as well as a former law enforcement defensive tactics instructor and crisis negotiator. Perhaps most important to this work, he has survived many violent street encounters, fights, and attempted crimes in gang-infested areas. Speaking as someone who has been exposed to violence and opponent force in myriad forms, he offers a unique view to practitioners of any system of how to handle crisis situations and maintain realism in their training for generations to come.

In his influential work, Strategy Safari, Henry Mintzberg and his colleagues presented ten schools of strategic thought. In this impressive book, Dany Jacobs demonstrates that the real world of strategic management is much wider and richer. In Mapping Strategic Diversity, Jacobs distinguishes between 'cockpit theories' of strategy, which bring rational analysis to the forefront, and process-oriented social science approaches, which bring in a wider array of influences to the theory and practice of business planning. Presenting 22 different approaches to strategy making, this book: provides a comprehensive overview of the field guides the reader in developing theoretical and practical skills helps develop both high and low level strategic thinking This textbook is a useful analysis for practising managers, but really comes into its own as an advanced introduction to the field of strategic management; having read this book, students are fully armed to enter the strategy jungle!

A comprehensive survey of organic compounds used as poisons—on arrows and spears, in food, and even as insecticides—by numerous Native American tribes. Biological warfare is a menacing twenty-first-century issue, but its origins extend to antiquity. While the recorded use of toxins in warfare in some ancient populations is rarely disputed (the use of arsenical smoke in China, which dates to at least 1000 BC, for example) the use of “poison arrows” and other deadly substances by Native American groups has been fraught with contradiction. At last revealing clear documentation to support these theories, anthropologist David Jones transforms the realm of ethnobotany in Poison Arrows. Examining evidence within the few extant descriptive accounts of Native American warfare, along with grooved arrowheads and clues from botanical knowledge, Jones builds a solid case to indicate widespread and very effective use of many types of toxins. He argues that various groups applied them to not only warfare but also to hunting, and even as an early form of insect extermination. Culling extensive ethnological, historical, and archaeological data, Jones provides a thoroughly comprehensive survey of the use of ethnobotanical and entomological compounds applied in wide-ranging ways, including homicide and suicide. Although many narratives from the contact period in North America deny such uses, Jones now offers conclusive documentation to prove otherwise. A groundbreaking study of a subject that has been long overlooked, Poison Arrows imparts an extraordinary new perspective to the history of warfare, weaponry, and deadly human ingenuity. “A unique contribution to the field of American Indian ethnology. . . . This information has never been compiled before, and I doubt that many ethnologists in the field have ever suspected the extent to which poison was used among North American Indians. This book significantly extends our understanding.” —Wayne Van Horne, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Kennesaw State University

The writing of history used to concentrate on narrative, analysis or theory. The historian stayed out of sight. This book is part of a more recent trend. Here, the author discusses her relationship to her material, the processes of research and writing, and her characters. She does so by exploring and sometimes comparing, the lives of Chinese and western women who have lived in China, Hong Kong and Macau, and links them not only to herself but also to contemporary women's issues, human rights and colonialism. This book is about the practice of history. The characters include 1930's civil and women rights campaigners Shi Liang, China's Minister of Justice 1949 to 1959, Agnes Smedley and Stella Benson, autobiographical writer Xiao Hong, revolutionary Soong Ching Ling, traveller Ella Maillart, philanthropist Clara Ho Tung, and Clara Elliot, who was part of the story of Hong Kong's cession to Britain in 1841. --Publisher's description.

China's continuing rapid economic growth and expanding involvement in global affairs pose major implications for the power structure of the international system. To more accurately and fully assess the significance of China's emergence for the United States and the global community, it is necessary to gain a more complete understanding of Chinese security thought and behavior. This study addresses such questions as: What are China's most fundamental national security objectives? How has the Chinese state employed force and diplomacy in the pursuit of these objectives over the centuries? What security strategy does China pursue today and how will it evolve in the future? The study asserts that Chinese history, the behavior of earlier rising powers, and the basic structure and logic of international power relations all suggest that, although a strong China will likely become more assertive globally, this possibility is unlikely to emerge before 2015-2020 at the earliest. To handle this situation, the study argues that the United States should adopt a policy of realistic engagement with China that combines efforts to pursue cooperation whenever possible; to prevent, if necessary, the acquisition by China of capabilities that would threaten America's core national security interests; and to remain prepared to cope with the consequences of a more assertive China.

This book examines the paradox of China and the United States’ literary and visual relationships, morphing between a happy duet and a contentious duel in fiction, film, poetry, comics, and opera from both sides of the Pacific. In the 21st century where tension between the two superpowers escalates, a gaping lacuna lies in the cultural sphere of Sino-Anglo comparative cultures. By focusing on a “Sinophone-Anglophone” relationship rather than a “China-US” one, Sheng-mei Ma eschews realpolitik, focusing on the two languages and the cross-cultural spheres where, contrary to Kipling’s twain, East and West forever meet, like a repetition compulsion bordering on neurosis over the self and its cultural other. Indeed, the coupling of the two—duet-cum-duel—is so predictable that each seems attracted to and repulsed by its dark half, semblable, (in)compatible for their shared larger-than-life-ness.