It is said that a white-robed youth appeared in the Jianghu not long ago. He has an elegant demeanor and is gentle like jade. He is handsome and elegant. If he swung his sword with snow or his Pear Blossom Dance, it would be extremely beautiful. However, within a year, he had mercilessly annihilated five sects in the martial arts world. At that moment, everyone in the martial arts world felt respect and fear for him. It was a tribute to his integrity, as all the people he killed were later found out. They were all once villains to Li Shu, committing evil in many ways. Ju was cruel, and the sects he killed were all slaughtered. Not a single one of them survived. After every incident, he would always leave his name in the word 'blood'. He called himself the "White Robe Sword" Yang Muyun. Close]

It is said that a white-robed youth appeared in the Jianghu not long ago. He has an elegant demeanor and is gentle like jade. He is handsome and elegant. If he swung his sword with snow or his Pear Blossom Dance, it would be extremely beautiful. However, within a year, he had mercilessly annihilated five sects in the martial arts world. At that moment, everyone in the martial arts world felt respect and fear for him. It was a tribute to his integrity, as all the people he killed were later found out. They were all once villains to Li Shu, committing evil in many ways. Ju was cruel, and the sects he killed were all slaughtered. Not a single one of them survived. After every incident, he would always leave his name in the word 'blood'. He called himself the "White Robe Sword" Yang Muyun. Close]

Emperor Hegemony, Emperor Might, Saint Sage, Supreme Realm cultivators too! A youth who was determined to become a peerless powerhouse had his dantian destroyed due to an accident. Was that a disappointment, or a desire to become stronger? The youth, Ling Xiao, had unintentionally obtained a cauldron, a sword, and watched as Ling Xiao completed the legends that no one had broken since ancient times. He had done everything he could to surpass the heavens and reach the supreme peak! Holy Emperor's fans 423840230! Close]

Enlightenment in Dispute is the first comprehensive study of the revival of Chan Buddhism in seventeenth-century China. Focusing on the evolution of a series of controversies about Chan enlightenment, Jiang Wu describes the process by which Chan reemerged as the most prominent Buddhist establishment of the time. He investigates the development of Chan Buddhism in the seventeenth century, focusing on controversies involving issues such as correct practice and lines of lineage. In this way, he shows how the Chan revival reshaped Chinese Buddhism in late imperial China. Situating these controversies alongside major events of the fateful Ming-Qing transition, Wu shows how the rise and fall of Chan Buddhism was conditioned by social changes in the seventeenth century.

Studies how habits of governance create institutional rigidities that dislodge law-given local autonomy to improve urban public services.

The startling economic and political answers behind Europe's historical dominance Between 1492 and 1914, Europeans conquered 84 percent of the globe. But why did Europe establish global dominance, when for centuries the Chinese, Japanese, Ottomans, and South Asians were far more advanced? In Why Did Europe Conquer the World?, Philip Hoffman demonstrates that conventional explanations—such as geography, epidemic disease, and the Industrial Revolution—fail to provide answers. Arguing instead for the pivotal role of economic and political history, Hoffman shows that if certain variables had been different, Europe would have been eclipsed, and another power could have become master of the world. Hoffman sheds light on the two millennia of economic, political, and historical changes that set European states on a distinctive path of development, military rivalry, and war. This resulted in astonishingly rapid growth in Europe's military sector, and produced an insurmountable lead in gunpowder technology. The consequences determined which states established colonial empires or ran the slave trade, and even which economies were the first to industrialize. Debunking traditional arguments, Why Did Europe Conquer the World? reveals the startling reasons behind Europe's historic global supremacy.

This book explores responses to Tang Xianzu's classic play The Peony Pavilion (Mudan ting) from three distinct segments of its public-literati playwrights; professional performers of Kun opera; and quite recently, directors and audiences outside China. Catherine Swatek first examines two adaptations of the play by Tang's contemporaries, which point to the unconventionality of the original work. She goes on to explore how the play has been changed in later adaptations, up to its most recent productions by Peter Sellars and Chen Shi-Zheng in the United States and Europe. Catherine Swatek is Associate Professor, University of British Columbia. She has published several articles on premodern Chinese drama and on female representation in Chinese opera.

This collection of studies on the Arab-Persian medieval Islamic world focuses on historical, religious, cultural and literary aspects of the region from pre-Islamic times to the 15th century. Topics include the Arab caliphate and the successor dynasties arising from it in the Iranian world; Muslim perceptions of other faiths in the Middle East; relations between the ruling Muslim institution and its internal, non-Muslim minorities; and the prolonged contacts and interaction of Islam and the Byzantine Empire.

Four stories describe Detective Frank "Satan" Hall's efforts to bring gang leaders, crooked politicians, influence peddlers, and corrupt policemen to justice