Amid the rising technicalities of modernism, the heart of humanity has been ripped apart, and while religionism is tearing throughout the heart of modernity, everything is hinting at danger to come. Caught amid their dramatic collide, we moderns have been left in a de facto despair. And while the glory each claimed seems a key factor for more tragedies, they are almost overshadowed by the merging supremacy of money lifemammonism. They are all letting us down and parts us moderns from our trustworthy dream of truth, beauty, and justice. Further, it is impossible to read far in the underlying factors and related elements of the coming crises, and all of them are worrisome, either of reorganization of tender nature, of reprogramming of living cells, and of current technotronic engineering of time via digitized machines without finding that they will certainly shake the good grounds of faith and beliefs everywhere. De-risking the inevitable and while working around such a failure, we moderns have to humanly build on our own strength.

The crisis of masculinity surfaced and converged with the crisis of the nation in the late Qing, after the doors of China were forced open by Opium Wars. The power of physical aggression increasingly overshadowed literary attainments and became a new imperative of male honor in the late Qing and early Republican China. Afflicted with anxiety and indignation about their increasingly effeminate image as perceived by Western colonial powers, Chinese intellectuals strategically distanced themselves from the old literati and reassessed their positions vis-à-vis violence.

Join professional fight choreographer Teel James Glenn as he takes you on a journey through the process of creating believable and dramatic action scenes in every kind offiction. Using wit and personal experience, he dissects action scenes for the keys to what makes them work. Readers benefit from his combat experience, including eastern martial arts, the physiology and kinetics of weight training and the dramatic story telling from film and stage acting. From fantasy swordfights, barroom brawls, comic combat to martial arts knockabouts, he not only outlines and explains the whys and wherefores of literary violence, he also explores techniques that allow you to create them yourself with a series of fun and easy to do exercises. He takes the mystery out of writing action, but not the excitement!

Beset by enemies on every side and torn by internal divisions, the crusader kingdoms were a hotbed of intrigue, where your greatest ally might be your natural enemy. Because lives and kingdoms often rested on the edge of a sword blade, it was a time when a bold heart and a steady hand would see you far--so long as you watched your back.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of California, Berkeley, 2004.

Joan Messi has spent thirteen lonely years hiding her supernatural abilities from her parents, her classmates, and everyone in her white bread suburban community. However, her little world of secrets is shattered when a pair of strangers arrive from a parallel dimension on the hunt for a nameless criminal. Now, after a lifetime of wondering how she got her powers, Joan might have found the beginnings of an answer. For Daniel Thundyil and his father, elemental powers and ego-maniacal supervillains are nothing new-although this is the first time a mission has brought them to a parallel dimension. Daniel's main concern in this new world isn't the looming threat of a godlike killer; it's fitting in at a school where the food is flavorless, everyone writes backwards in an ancient alphabet, and all the racial hierarchies seem to be reversed.

Covers about 7,500 individuals from early recorded history to the present, with each very concise entry (20-50 words) providing pronunciation, birth and death dates, nationality, and significant achievements. US presidents garner special boxes that include more information. The geographical section covers some 10,000 places accompanied by helpful maps, and information on capitals, major or historic cities and towns, important regions, notable geographic features, and important places in history and culture. Appendices include Academy Award winners, major volcanos, lakes, mountains, and rivers. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR