Tearing up the Silk Road is an irreverent travelogue that details a journey along the ancient trade routes from China to Istanbul, through Central Asia, Iran and the Caucasus. As Tom Coote struggles through the often arbitrary borders and bureaucracies of China, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Iran, Armenia, Georgia and Turkey, it becomes increasingly apparent that the next generations to rise to power, will see themselves in a very different light to their predecessors: in an increasingly interconnected world, archaic conceptions of race, ethnicity and nationalism will come to be seen as increasingly irrelevant. Instead, new forms of identity are emerging, founded more upon shared cultural preferences and aspirations, than on the remnants of tribal allegiance. While rushing through from East to West, Tom Coote meets, befriends and argues with an epic range of characters: from soldiers and monks, to pilgrims, travellers and modern day silk road traders. All are striving for something more and most dream of being somewhere else. By bus, train and battered car - through deserts, open plains and mountain ranges - we find ourselves again and again at the front line of a desperate war for 'hearts and minds'. Through rapidly expanding megacities, to ancient ruins, and far more recently created wastelands, it is the West that is winning the souls while the East grows ever stronger. The real 'clash of civilisations', however, seems set to be not between the East and the West, but between the few who have so much, and the masses now uniting to demand so much more.

This is the story of a journey following the Silk Road, from Europe to China, beginning in London. The real journey starts in Istanbul, winding through the history and countryside of Turkey and over the border into Iran, to experience its rich history and architecture. There are bizarre experiences of the beautiful, modern but empty city of Ashgabat, and much more. A trip to the disappearing Aral Sea, is followed by immense architecture and history, across a land fought over by Alexander the Great, Tamarind and Genghis Khan. There is the enchanting mountains of Kyrgyzstan, with its beautiful mountains and lakes, known as Asia's little Switzerland. The scene slowly changes as the Muslim influence gives way to Han Chinese dominance, the Great Wall of China and the end of the Silk Road.

Norman "Doc" Rodgers suspects he won't make it out of this one alive. He's a young combat medic in Afghanistan, eager to avenge his father's death in the World Trade Center, and make sense of a new world that feels like it's fallen to pieces. Haunted by hallucinatory encounters, his only solace is a barely concealed addiction to the precious opiates he's supposed to dole out sparingly to those beyond aid -- Provided by the publisher.

Two very different brothers, grow up in a close Italian-American family in a small town in Westchester County, New York. The responsible younger brother aids his reckless brother through the trials of his life. The book traces the journey of each brother through the 1960's to the present day, relating their careers, loves, and relationship with one another and the women in their lives. The story begins hundreds of years earlier with a glimpse of ancestors past, revealing very famous ties and ultimately leads to the curious events in the lives of both brothers. The simple life in the old country contributes to the paths both brothers take. There is a strong connection to Asia where one brother faces the horrors of the war in Vietnam and the other travels to China for adventure and inspiration. Cultures and national heritage enrich the human interactions and connections between friends, families and lovers and show that different backgrounds are less important to relationships than human emotions.

This anthology of cutting edge essays on adaptation studies adopts the metaphor of the Silk Road – an historical site for transcultural as well as transnational exchange. The Silk Road of Adaptation puts forward the idea of adaptation as a continuous process in which individuals continually have to adjust themselves to new material: we should not only look at the ways in which texts have been transformed, but the ways in which readers, audiences, and critics have responded to them at different points in time and space. Adaptation is a psychological as well as a formal process: only by coming to terms with others can individuals address issues of human rights, or examine themselves and their existing beliefs. The Silk Road of Adaptation stresses this point through a series of essays written by representatives of different disciplines – film studies, history, literature, communication studies, and English as a foreign language. Contributors include established names in the field of adaptation studies as well as newer names, who together show how the act of adaptation should be approached as a transmedial as well as a transnational act, assuming equal significance in the political and diplomatic as well as the literary and cinematic spheres.

The international trade regulatory system is a dynamic system that has been evolving throughout its history. Tension and conflict are part of the system. While calls for the abolition of the principal trade regulation authority, the WTO, have failed to understand this nature of the system, proponents for reforms have so far not paid sufficient attention to the evolving nature of tension and conflict. This book examines the evolving dynamics in international trade regulation from the conclusion of GATT in 1947 to the current crisis facing the WTO, from a perspective of emerging powers of developing countries with a focus of China as the latest force that demands reforms of the international trade regulatory regime. There is an extensive body of scholarship on ideological struggles, the rise of developing countries, geopolitical contest, the emerging powers (especially China), the use, misuse or abuse of trading rules and so on. There is, however, a lack of a single concise research book that synthesises these underlying causes and factors into a coherent and precise analytical theme. This book attempts to fill this research gap by building upon the existing scholarship and placing the various tensions and conflicts in a perspective that treats them as dynamic factors that have propelled a continuing process of evolution of the international trade regulation. The book will interest those researching on international trade regulation as well as development studies. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

In a bohemian odyssey set in the 1960s, a young man just out of college backpacks around the world, sampling hash, sex, and illumination as the Vietnam War rages. . . . A rich, exotic journey that will leave you reaching for your passport. Kirkus Review It is 1966, and the narrator and his roommate are leaving their California college town in order to hitchhike to New York City and join their friends who are already there. So begins what will become a 20,000 mile journey of loss and redemption. Silk Road: The Journey is a tale of travel, adventure, and a young man's coming of age, evolving under unexpected and, at times, the most unusual of circumstances. Here, the changing landscape becomes an active - although not always benign - participant in the story. Above all, the novel is a chronicle of impermanence, in which the narrative - on one level a series of adventures in which places and events change, and bonds between people are formed, developed and severed becomes, on a deeper level, an examination of transience, as the protagonist searches for meaning and permanence to the farthest ends of the earth, but is able to find it only when he returns home. A spirited, free-wheeling and ultimately sobering story of irreverent and reckless youth.

Silk Road: The Study of Drama Culture is the translated edition of the Chinese academic book of the same title written by Professor LI Qiang from Shaanxi Normal University, China. The book breaks through the concept of regarding Han Drama as the center, yet elaborates the Silk Road drama as an inclusive culture and a prevailing literary art form in human civilization. Relying on his extensive experience and broad vision, the author conducts the thorough study by means of literature, artifacts and academic fieldwork. The book studies the drama culture of all ethnic groups from Asia, Europe and Africa and touches upon the cultural exchanges between China and its neighboring countries, between the East and the West. The carefully presented details in this book are aimed to explore all the related fields such as dramaturgy, philology, phonology, religion, history, geography, archeology, ethnology, and folklore between the East and the West from the perspective of cultural anthropology. The explanations in the book contribute to an in-depth study on the origins of the Silk Road and the drama culture along the Silk Road.

Papua New Guinean, Chinese and Australian people have long been entangled in the creation of complex histories and political debates concerning the similarities and differences of each group. These debates are fundamental to understanding how a sense of national unity in Papua New Guinea is formed, as well as within analyses of the wider world of strategic power dynamics and influence. The Chinese in Papua New Guinea offers a comprehensive and nuanced examination of the Chinese in Papua New Guinea. Chinese, Papua New Guinean and Australian interactions are analysed in the context of ongoing shifts in colonial power, increased regional engagement with China, and current political instabilities across the Indo-Pacific region. The many ways the Chinese have been defined as actors in PNG’s history and politics are analysed against the backdrop of a rapidly changing global order. The complexity of Chinese experiences within Papua New Guinea is given expression, here, with chapters that stress political and historical heterogeneity, the importance of language for understanding Chinese social relations, and that articulate rich personal experiences of race relations.

The Silk Road, the second book of the Keiko series, is filled with twists and unexpected turns as Red tries to avoid the mob in Tokyo, and the U.S. Navy sends Nick on special assignment. Red is invited to the Imperial Palace where Empress Meiko extends her hand in friendship and gives Red important information about her mother's true identity. Nick is sent to China for its 60th Naval Anniversary celebration, and secretly attempts a dangerous mission to retrieve Red's mother and the Crown of India, with help from a very unexpected ally. Red and Nick learn about the ancient trade routes from China to the Middle East, called the Silk Road, and how powerful philosophical ideas accompanied the precious riches traded. In the face of extraordinary challenges, Keiko continues to share her love and wisdom with the young couple, as they begin to realize they care for one another deeply.