After being absent for 600 years, China is re-entering the Indian Ocean with its ""Belt and Road"" mega- project. This book shows how China is in the Indian Ocean for the long haul and what that means for regional and international power struggles.

The Indian Ocean's strategic importance to China cannot be underestimated, given the oil, African minerals and container traffic that pass through it. Not since Admiral Zheng He sailed his fleet through these waters in the fifteenth century -- exploring and mapping them in a bid to extend the Celestial Empire's trading and tributary system -- has China been present here. Beijing's re-entry into the Indian Ocean after 600 years is part of its Belt and Road megaproject, in which it is investing trillions of dollars in infrastructure projects around the Ocean rim and in Sri Lanka, Maldives, Seychelles and Mauritius, including a military base in Djibouti. This has touched off a new and dangerous confrontation. Ranged against China is an informal alliance of India, the US, France, Australia, and, predictably, Japan, China's arch rival in the Asia-Pacific. China is in the Indian Ocean for the long haul and the entry of big-power politics into this sensitive maritime region will shape its future for decades. Bertil Lintner unearths this dramatic story, profiles the key players, examines the economic and naval balance of power and scrutinizes the intense competition to encourage small island nations to align with either New Delhi or Beijing.

A round, luminescent pearl is the simplest and most perfect gem. Columbus sought—and found—this precious jewel coveted by his Spanish sovereigns, sparking popularity throughout Europe. Fashion icons Jacqueline Kennedy, Princess Grace, and Michelle Obama cherished them, making them iconic. And designer Coco Chanel raised them to new heights, bringing pearls— fake and real—to women everywhere. In Tears of Mermaids, Stephen G. Bloom travels 30,000 miles in an effort to trace a single pearl—from the moment a diver off the coast of Australia scoops an oyster containing a single luminescent pearl from the ocean floor to the instant a woman fastens the clasp of a strand containing the same orb. Bloom chronicles the never-before-told saga of the global pearl trade by gaining access to clandestine outposts in China, the Philippines, French Polynesia and Australia. He infiltrates high-tech pearl farms guarded by gun-toting sentries, farms for pearls in rural China, and even goes backstage at Christie's for a fast and furious auction of the most expensive pearl ever sold. Teeming with rogue humor and uncanny intelligence, Tears of Mermaids weaves a nonstop detective story whose main character is the world's most enduring jewel.

In this adaptation of a parable from the New Testement, a rich man who collects beautiful things discovers a beautiful pearl that he wants more than anything.

London, 1913. An exquisite strand of pale pink pearls, worth more than the Hope Diamond, has been bought by a Hatton Garden broker, capturing the attention of both jewelers and thieves. In transit to London from Paris, the necklace vanishes without a trace. Joseph Grizzard, “the King of Fences,” is the leader of a vast gang of thieves in London’s East End. Having risen from the deadly streets to become a wealthy family man, Grizzard still cannot resist the sport of crime, and the pearl necklace proves an irresistible challenge. Inspector Alfred Ward has joined the brand-new division of the Metropolitan Police known as “detectives.” Having caught some of the great murderers of Victorian London, Ward is now charged with finding the missing pearls and the thief who stole them. In the spirit of The Great Train Robbery, this is the true story of a psychological cat-and-mouse game. Thoroughly researched and compellingly colorful, The Great Pearl Heist is a gripping narrative account of this little-known, yet extraordinary crime.

If 'China', as Lee argues, is a product of Westernisation, then the West is itself in a process of becoming China. How did China become China? And where is it leading us? We talk as if it had always existed: eternal China with its 5,000 years of uninterrupted history. But the name 'China' was first used by 16th-century Europeans, and its Chinese equivalent, Zhongguo, only gained currency in the mid-1800s. 'China Imagined' is a thoughtful exploration of the idea of China, from the naming and mapping of its territory and peoples to the creation and rise of the modern nation-state.

The Sino-Indian War of 1962 delivered a crushing defeat to India: not only did the country suffer a loss of lives and a heavy blow to its pride, the world began to see India as the provocateur of the war, with China ‘merely defending’ its territory. This perception that China was largely the innocent victim of Nehru’s hostile policies was put forth by journalist Neville Maxwell in his book India’s China War, which found readers in many opinion makers, including Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon. For far too long, Maxwell’s narrative, which sees India as the aggressor and China as the victim, has held court. Nearly 50 years after Maxwell’s book, Bertil Lintner’s China’s India War puts the ‘border dispute’ into its rightful perspective. Lintner argues that China began planning the war as early as 1959 and proposes that it was merely a small move in the larger strategic game that China was playing to become a world player—one that it continues to play even today.

One of the costliest battles of World War II happens to be one of the least known. After failing to stop the attack of Admiral Takeo Kurita at Leyte Gulf, Admiral “Bull” Halsey made a desperate attempt to engage the Japanese Imperial Navy in a full-scale battle. Acting against better judgment and in a desperate attempt at redemption, Halsey led his crew into the raging path of a typhoon, which resulted in the loss of nearly one thousand sailors—the most costly mission of the Pacific war.

Explore the Book is not a commentary with verse-by-verse annotations. Neither is it just a series of analyses and outlines. Rather, it is a complete Bible survey course. No one can finish this series of studies and remain unchanged. The reader will receive lifelong benefit and be enriched by these practical and understandable studies. Exposition, commentary, and practical application of the meaning and message of the Bible will be found throughout this giant volume. Bible students without any background in Bible study will find this book of immense help as will those who have spent much time studying the Scriptures, including pastors and teachers. Explore the Book is the result and culmination of a lifetime of dedicated Bible study and exposition on the part of Dr. Baxter. It shows throughout a deep awareness and appreciation of the grand themes of the gospel, as found from the opening book of the Bible through Revelation.

Utopia is a work of fiction and socio-political satire by Thomas More published in 1516 in Latin. The book is a frame narrative primarily depicting a fictional island society and its religious, social and political customs. Many aspects of More's description of Utopia are reminiscent of life in monasteries.