Shao-yun Yang challenges assumptions that the cultural and socioeconomic watershed of the Tang-Song transition (800–1127 CE) was marked by a xenophobic or nationalist hardening of ethnocultural boundaries in response to growing foreign threats. In that period, reinterpretations of Chineseness and its supposed antithesis, “barbarism,” were not straightforward products of political change but had their own developmental logic based in two interrelated intellectual shifts among the literati elite: the emergence of Confucian ideological and intellectual orthodoxy and the rise of neo-Confucian (daoxue) philosophy. New discourses emphasized the fluidity of the Chinese-barbarian dichotomy, subverting the centrality of cultural or ritual practices to Chinese identity and redefining the essence of Chinese civilization and its purported superiority. The key issues at stake concerned the acceptability of intellectual pluralism in a Chinese society and the importance of Confucian moral values to the integrity and continuity of the Chinese state. Through close reading of the contexts and changing geopolitical realities in which new interpretations of identity emerged, this intellectual history engages with ongoing debates over relevance of the concepts of culture, nation, and ethnicity to premodern China.

"The Way of the Barbarians examines a critical period in the development of conceptions of Chinese identity and of foreignness. After tracing thought about culture, customs, ritual, and ethnicity to BCE classical texts, Shao-yun Yang focuses on the meaning and boundaries of Chineseness during the Tang (618-907 CE) and Song (960-1276 CE) dynasties. This period is widely seen as a watershed during which Chinese society was transformed in fundamental ways by population growth, commercialization, urbanization, technological advances, the decline of the long-dominant 'great clan' elite, and the rise of a new literati elite via the greatly expanded civil service examination system. Accompanying shifts occurred in how the Chinese defined themselves as a people and understood their relationship to the rest of the world. Previous scholarship has postulated a ninth-century shift from a spirit of cosmopolitanism--which identified foreign peoples as 'barbarians' who were morally and culturally inferior but who could become Chinese through a 'civilizing' process of acculturation--to one of ostracism. Another view identifies a twelfth-century shift from a traditional notion of culturalism to a new Chinese nationalism, which considered foreigners to be immutably and dangerously 'other' and called for their exclusion from the Chinese world, by force if necessary. This carefully argued intellectual history challenges previous thinking regarding the balance between culture, nation, and race in premodern Chinese identity and engages with ongoing debates over the applicability and relevance of the concept of ethnicity to premodern China"--

It's time to rediscover the passionate, fearless life that Jesus called us to live. Are you ready to choose the barbarian way? In today's world, where faith often walks the line of comfort and convenience, The Barbarian Way, stands as a thunderous call to break free and experience Christianity as it was truly meant to be - wild, free, and untamed. An acclaimed author and dynamic lead pastor of Mosaic, a Los Angeles church movement, Erwin McManus challenges you to step out of the safety of the familiar, urging you to live with unbridled faith and boldness that will fulfill the deepest longing of your heart. This Christian classic opens up a new way to view your walk with Christ, encouraging you to take risks and liberate yourself from mundane existence. Join an engaged community of spiritual seekers and followers of Christ as you: Challenge yourself to live a more bold faith Satisfy the deepest cravings of your soul Discover a revolutionary way to live as a Christian Brave the unknown, armed with passion With each chapter, Erwin McManus examines Biblical figures like Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Rahab, and Samson. Viewing their eccentric lives through a lens of vibrant faith, the book reminds us that faith is not a shield against adversity, but a call to meaningful and sometimes challenging contribution. The book aims to dismantle the belief that God's will is a haven of comfort and safety, propelling readers instead towards a life of valor, adventure, and sacrifice. Read The Barbarian Way and ignite the flame within to live out your faith with a radical, barbaric love. This is your moment, your crossroads, your destiny. Choose to live passionately, boldly, fearlessly. Choose the barbarian way!

From one of Italy's most respected literary voices, a manifesto on the state of global culture and how connectivity is changing the way we experience it. For the gatekeepers of traditional high culture, the rise of young ambitious outsiders has indeed seemed like nothing short of a barbarian invasion. In this concise and powerful manifesto, Alessandro Baricco explores a handful of realms that have been "plundered"-wine, soccer, music, and books-and extrapolates that it is not a case of old values against new but a widespread mutation that we are all part of, leading toward a different way of having experiences and creating meaning.

A modern classic by Nobel Laureate J.M. Coetzee. His latest novel, The Schooldays of Jesus, is now available from Viking. Late Essays: 2006-2016 will be available January 2018. For decades the Magistrate has been a loyal servant of the Empire, running the affairs of a tiny frontier settlement and ignoring the impending war with the barbarians. When interrogation experts arrive, however, he witnesses the Empire's cruel and unjust treatment of prisoners of war. Jolted into sympathy for their victims, he commits a quixotic act of rebellion that brands him an enemy of the state. J. M. Coetzee's prize-winning novel is a startling allegory of the war between opressor and opressed. The Magistrate is not simply a man living through a crisis of conscience in an obscure place in remote times; his situation is that of all men living in unbearable complicity with regimes that ignore justice and decency. Mark Rylance (Wolf Hall, Bridge of Spies), Ciro Guerra and producer Michael Fitzgerald are teaming up to to bring J.M. Coetzee's Waiting for the Barbarians to the big screen.

The fourth novel in the international publishing phenomenon the Ice Planet Barbarians series, now in a special print edition with bonus materials and an exclusive epilogue! Harlow receives the shock of her life when she wakes up to see Rukh, a stranger who has clearly been on his own his whole life, but she soon learns that there is much more to this gruff, barbaric alien than the savage he appears to be. The ice planet has given me a second lease on life, so I'm thrilled to be here. Sure, there are no cheeseburgers, but I'm healthy and ready to be a productive member of the small tribe. What I didn't anticipate? That there'd be a savage stranger waiting nearby, watching me. And when he takes me captive, the unthinkable happens...I resonate to him. Resonance means mating, and children...but I don't know if this guy's ever been around anyone before. Rukh is utterly wild. He's completely uncivilized, can't speak more than a few words and doesn't know what clothes are. A human—a human woman—is mystifying to him. He's truly a barbarian in all ways, and like Tarzan in the stories, he's kidnapped me and claimed me for his own. Being with him means I'm going to have to teach him to speak, how to kiss, and how to be human. Or even alien. It should be a terrifying prospect...so why is it that I crave his touch and hunger for more?

**Winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Autobiography** Included in President Obama’s 2016 Summer Reading List “Without a doubt, the finest surf book I’ve ever read . . . ” —The New York Times Magazine Barbarian Days is William Finnegan’s memoir of an obsession, a complex enchantment. Surfing only looks like a sport. To initiates, it is something else: a beautiful addiction, a demanding course of study, a morally dangerous pastime, a way of life. Raised in California and Hawaii, Finnegan started surfing as a child. He has chased waves all over the world, wandering for years through the South Pacific, Australia, Asia, Africa. A bookish boy, and then an excessively adventurous young man, he went on to become a distinguished writer and war reporter. Barbarian Days takes us deep into unfamiliar worlds, some of them right under our noses—off the coasts of New York and San Francisco. It immerses the reader in the edgy camaraderie of close male friendships forged in challenging waves. Finnegan shares stories of life in a whites-only gang in a tough school in Honolulu. He shows us a world turned upside down for kids and adults alike by the social upheavals of the 1960s. He details the intricacies of famous waves and his own apprenticeships to them. Youthful folly—he drops LSD while riding huge Honolua Bay, on Maui—is served up with rueful humor. As Finnegan’s travels take him ever farther afield, he discovers the picturesque simplicity of a Samoan fishing village, dissects the sexual politics of Tongan interactions with Americans and Japanese, and navigates the Indonesian black market while nearly succumbing to malaria. Throughout, he surfs, carrying readers with him on rides of harrowing, unprecedented lucidity. Barbarian Days is an old-school adventure story, an intellectual autobiography, a social history, a literary road movie, and an extraordinary exploration of the gradual mastering of an exacting, little-understood art.

The next novel in the international publishing phenomenon the Ice Planet Barbarians series, now in a special print edition with a bonus novella! Josie has always dreamed of finding The One, but the hunter chosen for her is nothing like what she expected (or wanted)—but he might be exactly what she needs. “Resonance” is supposed to be a dream—that’s when your soulmate is chosen for you. And every woman on the ice planet has hooked up with a big, hunky soulmate of their own—except me. So do I want a mate? Heck yeah. More than anything, all I’ve ever wanted is to be loved by someone. But the soulmate chosen for me? My least favorite person on the darn ice planet. Haeden’s the most cranky, disapproving, unpleasant, overbearing male alien . . . so why is it that my body sings when he gets close? Why is he working so hard to prove to me that he’s not as awful as I think he is? I hate him . . . don’t I?

The author of City of Quartz and Planet of Slums attacks the current fashion for empires and white men's burdens in this blistering collection of radical essays. He skewers contemporary idols such as Mel Gibson, Niall Ferguson, and Howard Dean; unlocks some secret doors in the Pentagon and the California prison system; visits Star Wars in the Arctic and vigilantes on the border; predicts ethnic cleansing in New Orleans more than a year before Katrina; recalls the anarchist avengers of the 1890s and "teeny-bopper" riots on the Sunset Strip in the 1960s; discusses the moral bankruptcy of the Democrats in Kansas and West Virginia; remembers "Private Ivan," who defeated fascism; and looks at the future of capitalism from the top of Hubbert's Peak. No writer in the United States today brings together analysis and history as comprehensively and elegantly as Mike Davis. In these contemporary, interventionist essays, Davis goes beyond critique to offer real solutions and concrete possibilities for change. Mike Davis is the author many books, including City of Quartz, The Ecology of Fear, The Monster at Our Door, and Planet of Slums. Davis teaches in the Department of History at the University of California, Irvine, and lives in San Diego.