asia war

Hardcover. Washington DC, Potomac Books, 1st, 2010, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 166 pages. The attack on Pearl Harbor is one of the most perplexing cases in living memory of a weaker power seeming to believe that it could vanquish a clearly superior force. On closer inspection, however, Record finds that Japan did not believe it could win; yet, the Japanese imperial command decided to attack the United States anyway. Conventional explanations that Japan's leaders were criminally stupid, wildly deluded, or just plumb crazy don't fully answer all our questions, Record finds. Instead, he argues, the Japanese were driven by an insatiable appetite for national glory and economic security via the conquest of East Asia. The scope of their ambitions and their fear of economic destruction overwhelmed their knowledge that the likelihood of winning was slim and propelled them into a war they were always going to lose. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, powerHouse Books, 1st, 2002, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 240 pages. Arms Against Fury examines the dramatic struggle of the Afghan people through the lens of Magnum photographers, dating back to co-founder George Rodger's documentation of the country's role in World War II. Ever since, Magnum's intrepid photographers have crisscrossed the country's striking landscape from the Central Asian steppes to the parched southern desert by way of the Hindu Kush mountains surrounding Kabul and the adjacent Panjshir Valley. As early as the 1950s, Eve Arnold and Marc Riboud filed unprecedented stories from a legendary Shangri-La, showing a small kingdom struggling for statehood against the forces of underdevelopment and unfortunate geographic position during the Cold War. The ultimate overthrow of the monarchy and brutal liquidation of Afghanistan's constitutional government in 1978 heralded the arrival of Soviet-style communism. Peasants in Nuristan rebelled immediately and initiated a jihad that was covered first by Raymond Depardon and then by Steve McCurry, and later by renowned photojournalist Abbas, who also focused on the progress of the mujahedin, who eventually faced a massive Red Army invasion and savage aerial bombardments.

Hardcover. NY, powerHouse Books, 1st, 2002, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn dust jacket. 240 pages. Arms Against Fury examines the dramatic struggle of the Afghan people through the lens of Magnum photographers, dating back to co-founder George Rodger's documentation of the country's role in World War II. Ever since, Magnum's intrepid photographers have crisscrossed the country's striking landscape from the Central Asian steppes to the parched southern desert by way of the Hindu Kush mountains surrounding Kabul and the adjacent Panjshir Valley. As early as the 1950s, Eve Arnold and Marc Riboud filed unprecedented stories from a legendary Shangri-La, showing a small kingdom struggling for statehood against the forces of underdevelopment and unfortunate geographic position during the Cold War. The ultimate overthrow of the monarchy and brutal liquidation of Afghanistan's constitutional government in 1978 heralded the arrival of Soviet-style communism. Peasants in Nuristan rebelled immediately and initiated a jihad that was covered first by Raymond Depardon and then by Steve McCurry, and later by renowned photojournalist Abbas, who also focused on the progress of the mujahedin, who eventually faced a massive Red Army invasion and savage aerial bombardments. Clean copy.

Softcover. Boston, University of Massachusetts Press, 1st, 1991, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 116 pages, 68 color, 14 b&w plates. Indochina Arts Project of the William Joiner Foundation. Essays by Quach Van Phong. Tran Viet Son, Lucy R Lippard and David Kunzle. Clean copy.

Softcover. self-published, 1st, 1981, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 267 pages. INSCRIBED BY AUTHOR on title page. The autobiography of an American missionary recalling her travel and adventures in China and later Africa. Clean copy with mild warp to book.

Hardcover. Stanford CA, Stanford University Press, 1st, 2006, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 559 pages. "Behind the Bamboo Curtain is an important collection of essays on Sino-Vietnamese relations during the Cold War An excellent contribution from a Vietnamese historian and well-documented chapters on Soviet and French policy further augment the importance of the volume. The contributors make extensive use of primary documents from the United States, the People's Republic of China, Vietnam, and Russia and offer authoritative analyses." -- The Journal of Cold War Studies. Claen, unread copy.

Softcover. London/NY, Cambridge University Press, reprint, 2002, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 234 pages with index, b&w illustrations. Brazil once enjoyed a near monopoly in rubber when that commodity was gathered in the wild. By 1913, however, cultivated rubber from Southeast Asia swept the Brazilian gathered product from the market. In this innovative study, Warren Dean demonstrates that environmental factors have played a key role in the many failed attempts to once again produce a significant rubber crop in Brazil. Dean traces the numerous attempts to plant rubber in Brazil, including the ill-fated Ford estates, and others established by the major multinational tire companies. He also analyzes the struggles of the Brazilian government to foster rubber development, in the hope of obtaining a domestic source of supply for national industries that are now dependent on imports from Southeast Asia. Bookseller label on rear cover otherwise clean.

Hardcover. NY, St. Martin's Press, 1st US, 1985, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, olive green boards, gilt lettering on spine. Illustrated with B&W plates and maps; Large 8vo 9' - 10' tall; 686 pages; 'Allen's work deals primarily with the human elements of the forgotten war waged between the doomed empires of Great Britain and Japan in Southeast Asia between 1941 and 1945. The author's familiarity with Japanese sources enables him to strike a balance unusual in Western accounts. Allen's Japanese are as much prisoners of their culture as the British are of theirs. They are victims of incompetent command and inadequate logistics. They do not want to die, but their ready acceptance of death lends a special horror to Allen's descriptions of some of the century's most vicious fighting.' Clean bright copy, no dust jacket.

Softcover. Mechanicsburg PA, Stackpole Books, 1st pbk, 2006, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 218 pages, b&w illustrations. From their perches on islands such as Buka and Bougainville, coast watchers -- for the most part, Australian civilians -- monitored Japanese shipping and aircraft activity. They played a pivotal role during the battle for Guadalcanal in the fall of 1942, when their intelligence facilitated the interception and destruction of twelve Japanese transports. These reports from the participants themselves provide a fascinating account that will intrigue historians as well as World War II and espionage buffs. Clean copy.

Softcover. Berkeley CA, University of California Press, 1st pbk, 1997, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 472 pages. The prose writings of Charles Olson (1910-1970) have had a far-reaching and continuing impact on post-World War II American poetics. Olson's theories, which made explicit the principles of his own poetics and those of the Black Mountain poets, were instrumental in defining the sense of the postmodern in poetry and form the basis of most postwar free verse. The Collected Prose brings together in one volume the works published for the most part between 1946 and 1969, many of which are now out of print. A valuable companion to editions of Olson's poetry, the book backgrounds the poetics, preoccupations, and fascinations that underpin his great poems. Included are Call Me Ishmael, a classic of American literary criticism; the influential essays "Projective Verse" and "Human Universe"; and essays, book reviews, and Olson's notes on his studies. In these pieces one can trace the development of his new science of man, called "muthologos," a radical mix of myth and phenomenology that Olson offered in opposition to the mechanistic discourse and rationalizing policy he associated with America's recent wars in Europe and Asia. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, W. W. Norton & Company, 1st, 2015, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 402 pages. Remarkable study of smuggling, which illustrates how Americans related to the world from the Founding to World War I. From the beginning, the United States sought to build nationalism by limiting their own ability to trade with foreigners. But at the same time, Americans like Charles L. Lawrence defied customs authorities, insisting that trade be free. The government responded by building a potent army of customs inspectors and treasury agents, who profiled Jews, Asians, and women in the pursuit of tariff revenues.Beautifully written, the author uses the stories of smugglers like Jean Lafitte, Charles L. Lawrence, and Rose Eytinge to illustrate not only the history of Protectionism, but also the rise of American empire and the development of the modern social safety net. He shows that the tariff was far from an unpopular relic, but rather the foundation of the nineteenth century state. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Vista CA, Ibis Publishing, 1st, 1997, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 315 pages. As Financial Advisor to China, Arthur N. Young had an intimate insight as an on-the-spot observer of events during the critical 18 years leading to the fall of the Nationalists and the Communist takeover. Along with Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, Dr. Young worked closely with the highest-ranking officials of the National Government in carrying out monetary and fiscal reforms prior to World War II, and stayed through the war to aid with problems of war finance, including procurement of American aid. As the Pacific Rim gains increasing international prominence, this book will prove to be of particular importance to students, scholars, business and political leaders with an interest in Asian affairs. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Newmarket Press, 1st, 1988, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn dust jacket, 335 pages, b&w illustrations. This account of the intervention into the Korean war of the Chinese People's Liberation Army is told from the point of view of the Chinese. The author did much of his research inside China, interviewing participants, and presents vivid portraits of the soldiers and such figures as Mao Zedong and Douglas MacArthur. Korea was the focus of the first great East-West confrontation, and the war cost over 140,000 American lives. The crucial intervention of the Chinese and their near victory brought the super-powers to the brink of nuclear war. Written by a British newspaper reporter who covered the latter stages of the war, this book contains narrative from extensive interviews with participants in the Korean War, including many Chinese, which differentiates it from most other accounts. Name on front fly leaf, fading to dust jacket, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. New York, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1st, 2003, Book: Near Fine, Dust Jacket: Near Fine, 278 pages, very clean and tight copy.The Great Fire was the winner of the 2003 National Book Award for Fiction. More than twenty years after the classic The Transit of Venus, Shirley Hazzard returns to fiction with a novel that in the words of Ann Patchett "is brilliant and dazzling..."The Great Fire is an extraordinary love story set in the immediate aftermath of the great conflagration of the Second World War. In war-torn Asia and stricken Europe, men and women, still young but veterans of harsh experience, must reinvent their lives and expectations, and learn, from their past, to dream again. Some will fulfill their destinies, others will falter. At the center of the story, a brave and brilliant soldier finds that survival and worldly achievement are not enough. His counterpart, a young girl living in occupied Japan and tending her dying brother, falls in love, and in the process discovers herself.

Hardcover. NY, Cambridge University Press, 1st, 2005, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 346 pages, b&w photographs. This book shows how Henry Robinson Luce used his famous magazines to advance his interventionist agenda in Cold War China, Korea, Japan, and above all, Vietnam. This is the first balanced work on Luce and his influence, using hitherto undiscovered or inaccessible sources. Luce saw the American Century as the heir to the fading British Empire; he failed to see the hubris and cultural blindness that would lead to disaster in Vietnam - a disaster for which his magazines paved the way. Remainder mark on top edge. Else a very clean, tight copy.

NY, Random House, 1st US, 1968, Book: Very Good, Hardcover, black cloth stamped in green on front, gilt on spine. 313 pages. Lacouture's biography of Ho Chi Minh examines the North Vietnamese leader's political development from his early years in France, through World War Two, and up until 1968 when this book was first published. Lacouture doesn't avoid the negative aspects of his political career, but these negatives (e.g. harsh control of the starving North Vietnamese in the 50s) only help to put in perspective Vietnam's similarly harsh treatment by Western and Eastern powers alike. A former Le Monde correspondent, author has also written books on Vietnam and DeGaulle. Internally bright and clean.

Softcover. San Francisco, Chronicle Books, 1st, 1996, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 144 pages. In the tradition of the great photographic populists Alfred Eisenstaedt and Dorothea Lange, Horace Bristol used his camera to record the human, intimate moments in the grand sweep of history. Bristol's American view included the best and the worst of this century, from poignant images of the urban poor and migrant farm workers during the Depression to the battle scenes of World War II and compelling portraits of post-war Japan and Southeast Asia. This volume presents over one hundred twenty exquisitely reproduced duotone images by Bristol, ranging from his early San Francisco photographs to his last work, taken in Southeast Asia. Combining aesthetic purity with human interest, Horace Bristol's pioneering photography is imbued with an accuracy, strength of composition, and humility that is as striking today as it was groundbreaking in its time.

Hardcover. Annapolis MD, Naval Institute Press, 2nd pr., 1991, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 313 pages. Red cloth covers, gilt titles, red dust jacket with color illustration, b&w maps and illustrations. Slight wear to dust jacket, pages crisp and unmarked, tight binding; overall, a clean, tight copy. In 1949, as the Chinese Civil War was about to enter its final, explosive stage, the small British frigate HMS Amethyst was sent on a dangerous mission up the Yangtze River to protect British citizens in Nanking. En route it was attacked by the Chinese Communists and held hostage on the river for several months before the crew managed to make a daring escape. The Amethyst captured news headlines around the world and became an unlikely symbol of the cold war in Asia. This dramatic episode, hailed in the West as a triumph of the human spirit but bitterly condemned by the Chinese Communists, was to prejudice Anglo-Chinese relations for years to come.

Hardcover. London, Phaidon Press, 1st, 1994, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 320 pages. George Rodger began his photographic career with the BBC as a stills photographer. His baptism as a photo reporter came with his appointment as a 'stringer' for Life magazine during the Blitz on London in the most threatening days of 1940. Many of his images from that time are still in constant use, because his instinct has always been to concentrate on the humanity of his subjects, even in the face of terrible adversity.It was for Life that George Rodger embarked on a series of adventures that were to take him to almost every theatre of the Second World War in Africa, the Middle East and Asia.The fulcrum of his career came with the liberation of Belsen. As for the first few days he was the only photographer present, the images he captured became crucially important in making known the depravity of the camps.1948 he embarked on a campaign of photography rediscovering humanity, starting with an expedition from Cape Town to Cairo by road. He found in Africa tribes almost untouched by European influence and was able to create images of enormous power that quickly became world-famous.This book presents the pictures that define George Rodger's long career and a commentary on his extraordinary journey. With a Foreword by Henri Cartier-Bresson and over 260 powerful images, it represents a fitting tribute to George Rodger and a celebration of his life's work.

Hardcover. Santa Fe NM, Twin Palms Publishers, 1st, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Folio, 60 pages, VG+ in pictorial boards, as issued, without dust jacket. Lavishly illustrated in b&w. Bill Burke's seminal book originally published by Nexus Press in 1987. In the early 1980's Burke traveled to Thailand and Viet Nam, as well as Cambodia where he documented the aftermath of the Khmer Rouge regime. The book was produced using the original plates, and features the same layout and scale as the first edition.

Hardcover. Santa Fe NM, Twin Palms Publishers, 1st, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Folio, 60 pages, VG+ in pictorial boards, as issued, without dust jacket. Lavishly illustrated in b&w. Bill Burke's seminal book originally published by Nexus Press in 1987. In the early 1980's Burke traveled to Thailand and Viet Nam, as well as Cambodia where he documented the aftermath of the Khmer Rouge regime. The book was produced using the original plates, and features the same layout and scale as the first edition.

Hardcover. NY, Columbia University Press, 1st, 1984, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 410 pages with index. Contains selected translations from Taiheiyo senso e no michi: kaisen gaiko shi. Name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean. The first volume in Morley's 4 volume set "Japan's Road to the Pacific War".

Hardcover. Cambridge MA, MIT Press, 1st, 1974, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a price-clipped dust jacket, 162 pages. Japan's economy enjoyed unprecedented technological growth in the decades after World War II. At first stereotyped as an exported of shoddy goods, Japan enjoyed a worldwide reputation as an efficient manufacturer of high-quality products. This comprehensive analysis of Japanese management treats four related but distinct subject matters: the economic, social, cultural, and political environment pertinent to Japan's industrial and managerial system; the ideologies and background to the Japanese business elite structure and the relationship between government and business; and managerial practices (organizational structure, personnel practices, decision making). The book first describes the postwar technological environment in and outside Japan. It identifies the Schumpeterian characteristics of economic development and the particular set of relationships that Japan had with the United States and with developing nations in Asia that provided it with the incentive and the necessary mechanisms to advance technologically. Name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. New Haven CT, Yale University Press;, 1st, 2009, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 180 pages. John Gutmann (1905-1998) was one of America's most distinctive photographers. Born in Germany where he trained as an artist and art teacher, he fled the Nazis in 1933 and settled in San Francisco, reinventing himself as a photo-reporter. Gutmann captured images of American culture, celebrating signs of a vibrant democracy, however imperfect. His own status as an outsider--a Jew in Germany, a naturalized citizen in the United States--informed his focus on individuals from the Asian-American, African-American, and gay communities, as well as his photography in India, Burma, and China during World War II. This handsome book acknowledges Gutmann's place in the history of photography. Drawing on his archive of photographs and papers at the Center for Creative Photography, it presents both unfamiliar works and little-known contexts for his imagery, linking his photography to his passionate interest in painting and filmmaking, his collections of non-Western art and artifacts, and his pedagogy. In addition to a major essay by Sally Stein, the volume includes an introduction by Douglas R. Nickel, and an overview of the Gutmann archive by Amy Rule.