One of the foremost strategists of the American Army in the first decade of the twentieth century warns of the great danger of militarized Japan and forcasts -- 44 years before it actually happened -- the Japanese invasion of the Philippines. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

As a five-feet-three-inch hunchback who weighed about 100 pounds, Homer Lea (1876--1912), was an unlikely candidate for life on the battlefield, yet he became a world-renowned military hero. In the Dragon's Lair: The Exploits of Homer Lea paints a revealing portrait of a diminutive yet determined man who never earned his valor on the field of battle, but left an indelible mark on his times. Lawrence M. Kaplan draws from extensive research to illuminate the life of a "man of mystery," while also yielding a clearer understanding of the early twentieth-century Chinese underground reform and revolutionary movements. Lea's career began in the inner circles of a powerful Chinese movement in San Francisco that led him to a generalship during the Boxer Rebellion. Fixated with commanding his own Chinese army, Lea's inflated aspirations were almost always dashed by reality. Although he never achieved the leadership role for which he strived, he became a trusted advisor to revolutionary leader Dr. Sun Yat-sen during the 1911 revolution that overthrew the Manchu Dynasty. As an author, Lea garnered fame for two books on geopolitics: The Valor of Ignorance, which examined weaknesses in the American defenses and included dire warnings of an impending Japanese-American war, and The Day of the Saxon, which predicted the decline of the British Empire. More than a character study, In the Dragon's Lair provides insight into the establishment and execution of underground reform and revolutionary movements within U.S. immigrant communities and in southern China, as well as early twentieth-century geopolitical thought.

“The unlikely story of Lea’s attempts to train a cadre of soldiers in American Chinatowns who would return to their homeland to make it a modern world power.” —Pacific Historical Review As a five-feet-three-inch hunchback who weighed about 100 pounds, Homer Lea (1876–1912), was an unlikely candidate for life on the battlefield, yet he became a world-renowned military hero. Homer Lea: American Soldier of Fortune paints a revealing portrait of a diminutive yet determined man who never earned his valor on the field of battle, but left an indelible mark on his times. Lawrence M. Kaplan draws from extensive research to illuminate the life of a “man of mystery,” while also yielding a clearer understanding of the early twentieth-century Chinese underground reform and revolutionary movements. Lea’s career began in the inner circles of a powerful Chinese movement in San Francisco that led him to a generalship during the Boxer Rebellion. Fixated with commanding his own Chinese army, Lea’s inflated aspirations were almost always dashed by reality. Although he never achieved the leadership role for which he strived, he became a trusted advisor to revolutionary leader Dr. Sun Yat-sen during the 1911 revolution that overthrew the Manchu Dynasty. As an author, Lea garnered fame for two books on geopolitics: The Valor of Ignorance, which examined weaknesses in the American defenses and included dire warnings of an impending Japanese-American war, and The Day of the Saxon, which predicted the decline of the British Empire. More than a character study, this biography provides insight into the establishment and execution of underground reform and revolutionary movements within US immigrant communities and in southern China, as well as early twentieth-century geopolitical thought.

"El Paso artist Tom Lea was commissioned by Life Magazine to paint the war as it was being experienced by U.S. and Allied soldiers, sailors, and airmen. Along with his sketchbook, Lea carried on these assignments his "record of work", a notebook in which he recorded observations and details on the images he hoped to create from the events he had seen." "Brendan M. Greeley, Jr. has collected virtually all of Tom Lea's firsthand accounts of his assignments for Life, along with his powerful sketches and unforgettable paintings, and placed them in context, along with photographs and research focusing on the people, places, and wartime events encountered by Tom Lea. Drawing on previously unpublished sources - the artist's diary, letters to the Texas historian J. Frank. Dobie, oral interviews, and archival materials from Texas and national collections - Greeley presents in The Two Thousand Yard Stare a uniquely comprehensive and sustained treatment of Lea's creative accomplishments during World War II." "This well-documented and astonishingly illustrated volume will fascinate those interested in the realistic depiction of war, in both images and words. Also a must-read for students, scholars, and collectors of the artist's work, The Two Thousand Yard Stare: Tom Lea's World War II is a brilliant compendium of the work and thought of one of America's most compelling painters and writers."--BOOK JACKET.

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“A standout . . . a balanced, informative, and highly intelligent guide to dealing with China.”—Fareed Zakaria Many see China as a rival superpower to the United States and imagine the country’s rise to be a threat to U.S. leadership in Asia and beyond. Thomas J. Christensen argues against this zero-sum vision. Instead, he describes a new paradigm in which the real challenge lies in dissuading China from regional aggression while encouraging the country to contribute to the global order. Drawing on decades of scholarship and experience as a senior diplomat, Christensen offers a compelling new assessment of U.S.-China relations that is essential reading for anyone interested in the future of the globalized world. The China Challenge shows why China is nowhere near powerful enough to be considered a global “peer competitor” of the United States, but it is already strong enough to destabilize East Asia and to influence economic and political affairs worldwide. Despite China’s impressive achievements, the Chinese Communist Party faces enormous challenges. Christensen shows how nationalism and the threat of domestic instability influence the party’s decisions on issues like maritime sovereignty disputes, global financial management, control of the Internet, climate change, and policies toward Taiwan and Hong Kong. China benefits enormously from the current global order and has no intention of overthrowing it; but that is not enough. China’s active cooperation is essential to global governance. Never before has a developing country like China been asked to contribute so much to ensure international stability. If China obstructs international efforts to confront nuclear proliferation, civil conflicts, financial instability, and climate change, those efforts will falter, but even if China merely declines to support such efforts, the problems will grow vastly more complicated. Analyzing U.S.-China policy since the end of the Cold War, Christensen articulates a balanced strategic approach that explains why we should aim not to block China’s rise but rather to help shape its choices so as to deter regional aggression and encourage China’s active participation in international initiatives that benefit both nations.

With the beautiful, powerful, and sexy Madame Chiang Kai-shek at the center of one of the great dramas of the twentieth century, this is the story of the founding of modern China, starting with a revolution that swept away more than 2,000 years of monarchy, followed by World War II, and ending in the eventual loss to the Communists and exile in Taiwan. An epic historical tapestry, this wonderfully wrought narrative brings to life what Americans should know about China -- the superpower we are inextricably linked with -- the way its people think and their code of behavior, both vastly different from our own. The story revolves around this fascinating woman and her family: her father, a peasant who raised himself into Shanghai society and sent his daughters to college in America in a day when Chinese women were kept purposefully uneducated; her mother, an unlikely Methodist from the Mandarin class; her husband, a military leader and dogmatic warlord; her sisters, one married to Sun Yat-sen, the George Washington of China, the other to a seventy-fifth lineal descendant of Confucius; and her older brother, a financial genius. This was the Soong family, which, along with their partners in marriage, was largely responsible for dragging China into the twentieth century. Brilliantly narrated, this fierce and bloody drama also includes U.S. Army General Joseph Stilwell; Claire Chennault, head of the Flying Tigers; Communist leaders Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai; murderous warlords; journalists Henry Luce, Theodore White, and Edgar Snow; and the unfortunate State Department officials who would be purged for predicting (correctly) the Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War. As the representative of an Eastern ally in the West, Madame Chiang was befriended -- before being rejected -- by the Roosevelts, stayed in the White House for long periods during World War II, and charmed the U.S. Congress into giving China billions of dollars. Although she was dubbed the Dragon Lady in some quarters, she was an icon to her people and is certainly one of the most remarkable women of the twentieth century.

This classic study offers a history of anti-Japanese prejudice in California, extending from the late nineteenth century to 1924, when an immigration act excluded Japanese from entering the United States. The Politics of Prejudice details the political climate that helped to set the stage for the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II and reveals the racism present among middle-class American progressives, labor leaders, and other presumably liberal groups.