There is a missing page in Jewish history. We tend to assume that Jewish history is to be found in the Middle East, Europe, North Africa, and the Americas -- but not in the Far East. This book has discovered that missing page, revealing the amazing stories of Jews who both benefited from and contributed to the Far East. You will read about the "uncrowned Jewish king of China", the indefatigable World War II refugees in Kobe, and the baseball player who became an American spy in Japan, as well as the Jew who served as Singapore's first prime minister, the amusing comedy of errors surrounding the Chinese Jews of Kaifeng, and the extraordinary tale of the sixteenth-century Marranophysician in India. Jewish contributors to Eastern music and the Jewish members of Mao Zedong's circle also have their stories told. Consummate storyteller Marvin Tokayer, Lifetime Honorary Rabbi of Japan's Jewish community, draws on a lifetime of personal experiences and a wealth of knowledge as he, in concert with writer and television producer Dr Ellen Rodman, weaves together the characters and history of the Jews of the Far East into this fascinating book.

International trade has shaped the modern world, yet until now no single book has been available for both economists and general readers that traces the history of the international economy from its earliest beginnings to the present day. Power and Plenty fills this gap, providing the first full account of world trade and development over the course of the last millennium. Ronald Findlay and Kevin O'Rourke examine the successive waves of globalization and "deglobalization" that have occurred during the past thousand years, looking closely at the technological and political causes behind these long-term trends. They show how the expansion and contraction of the world economy has been directly tied to the two-way interplay of trade and geopolitics, and how war and peace have been critical determinants of international trade over the very long run. The story they tell is sweeping in scope, one that links the emergence of the Western economies with economic and political developments throughout Eurasia centuries ago. Drawing extensively upon empirical evidence and informing their systematic analysis with insights from contemporary economic theory, Findlay and O'Rourke demonstrate the close interrelationships of trade and warfare, the mutual interdependence of the world's different regions, and the crucial role these factors have played in explaining modern economic growth. Power and Plenty is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand the origins of today's international economy, the forces that continue to shape it, and the economic and political challenges confronting policymakers in the twenty-first century.

When Egypt became a province of the Roman Empire in 30 BC after the deaths of Antony and Cleopatra, its vast and mysterious frontier lands had an important impact on the commerce, politics and culture of the empire. This account - part history and part gazetteer -focuses on Rome's Egyptian frontier, describing the ancient fortresses, temples, settlements, quarries and aqueducts scattered throughout the region and conveying a sense of what life was like for its inhabitants. Robert Jackson has journeyed, by jeep and on foot, to virtually every known Roman site in the area, from Siwa Oasis, 45 kilometers from the modern Libyan border, to the Sudan. Drawing on both archaeological and historical information, he discusses these sites, explaining how Rome extracted exotic stone and precious metals from the mountains of the Eastern Desert, channelled the wealth of India and East Africa through the desert via ports on the Red Sea, constructed and manned fortresses in the distant oases of the Western Desert, and facilitated the expansion of agricultural communities in the desert that eventually experienced the earliest large-scale conversions to Christianity in Egypt. Illustrated with many photographs, the volume should be useful to archaeologists, classicists, and travellers to the region.

In slow paced, post-World War I America, Guadalupe is no different than any other town its size on the California Central Coast. With its whistle stop ambiance, sparse population and vibrant collection of personalities that make up the small farming community, Guadalupe is a haven to those who prefer a tranquil existence and those who recognize a lucrative opportunity when they see it. Jonah Quentin and long-time friends, Mel and Ona Archer, came to the fertile Santa Maria Valley with nothing more than an idea and a surplus Curtiss Jenny biplane to set up shop as the valley’s first crop dusting company, the latest concept in agricultural pest control. Even with its limitations Angel Dust Incorporated is an instant success, though perhaps a little too successful for a corporation whose fleet consists of only one tired old surplus biplane flown by Jonah, an ex-Army Air Service fighter pilot who knows nothing about crop dusting. Late in the evening on the Forth of July 1926, Jonah wants nothing more than to cap off a night of celebration with a shot of whiskey and a beer at the Bésame Bar & Grille, Guadalupe’s not so clandestine speakeasy. But first he must step over a dirty little girl, around the age of four, sitting on the gin mill’s steps despite the late hour. Jonah, a devote bachelor, has no idea that that night their lives would merge forever. By the time Anna Lea turns seven a deep love for flying already smolders deep inside her. She loves nothing better than to sit on Jonah’s lap and peek over the rim of the cockpit while leisurely circling high above the small town surrounded by a sea of crop fields. At age ten, still on Jonah’s lap, Anna Lea is hooked when she holds the controls for the first time in flight, with Jonah handling everything else below the stick since she’s way too small to even reach the rudder bar. By her seventeenth birthday Anna Lea is flying tracks five feet above long rows of crops with the skill of a veteran fighter pilot. On the morning of December 7, 1941, following a vicious attack by the Japanese Imperial Navy, the United States plunges headfirst into World War II and Americans everywhere scramble to lend a hand. But even though manpower is stretched dangerously thin, America, the land of opportunity and progress, continues to hold fast to the narrow-minded notion that women are the weaker, inferior sex, with little to contribute outside their own front doors. But with the dismal initial progress of the war, the country hesitantly turns its eyes to the other half of its populace that for generations has been ignored as a viable contributing force. After several attempts and failures, Nancy Harkness Love, an affluent aviatrix from Houghton, Michigan, and Jacqueline Cochran, a successful self-made businesswoman and pilot from the Florida panhandle, finally convince the General of the Air Force, General Henry “Hap” Arnold, that the Army Air Force would benefit from having women pilots ferrying military aircraft from the factories to the airfields, and from airfield to airfield, to free up male pilots for combat duty overseas—something the Royal Air Force had been doing since 1939 with the advent of the Air Transport Auxiliary. At first the proposal to have women pilots perform a task that only men were suited to do was met with sarcasm, indifference and even hostility. But despite it all the Women Airforce Service Pilots, or “WASP,” took to the sky. When Anna Lea reads in the local paper that the Army Air Force is hiring women civilian pilots to help in the war effort, crop dusting quickly loses its allure and she sets her eyes on the WASP. Nobody tells her that the demanding, intensely paced training would be the easy part. From its humble beginnings the WASP program is an unpopular decision among the Air Force rank and file; some even call it blasphemy. Nobody wants a woman soaring high above the clouds in control of the worlds most powerful and modern military aircraft, undermining the male pilot’s superior aptitude and physical prowess. SEND ME AN ANGEL is a fictionalized account of the blatant prejudices and harsh chauvinism the 1,074 women of the Women Airforce Service Pilots endured and ultimately overcame, and the intestinal fortitude it took to became a fully operational WASP.