We have met our timeline's enemy and he is us. When Secret Service Agent Smith used the timeslip device to prevent the assassination of the most controversial political figure of our times, he had no idea what sort of a paradox he'd unleashed. As he races against time and confronts multiple copies of himself, he cannot help but wonder which path is truly right for his family and his country.

A powerful element in twentieth-century Chinese politics has been the myth of Chinese resistance to Japan's seizure of Manchuria in 1931. Investigating the shifting alliances of key players in that event, Rana Mitter traces the development of the narrative of resistance to the occupation and shows how it became part of China's political consciousness, enduring even today. After Japan's September 1931 military strike leading to a takeover of the Northeast, the Chinese responded in three major ways: collaboration, resistance in exile, and resistance on the ground. What motives prompted some Chinese to collaborate, others to resist? What were conditions like under the Japanese? Through careful reading of Chinese and Japanese sources, particularly local government records, newspapers, and journals published both inside and outside occupied Manchuria, Mitter sheds important new light on these questions.

Paradoxes of Peace continues the meditation of Mosley's Time at War, at the end of which he wrote that humans find themselves at home in war because they feel they know what they have to do, whereas in peace they have to discover this. But what should inform them--custom? need? duty? ambition? desire? Forces pull in different directions--fidelity versus adventurousness, probity versus fun. During the war, Mosley found himself having to combine fondness for his father, Oswald Mosley, with the need to speak out against his post-war politics. In times of peace, his love for his wife and children, too, seemed riddled with paradoxes. He sought answers in Christianity, but came to see organized religion as primarily a social institution. How does caring not become a trap?

Authenticity is one of the most crucial, but also most contested concepts in literary and cultural studies. Hollowed out by postmodernist theory, it paradoxically enough persists as an important backdrop for the discussion of literature, film, and the visual arts. The essays in this volume explore perspectives on authenticity and case studies dealing with »the authentic«. They thereby seek to show how the paradoxical persistence of authenticity in contemporary critical discourse can be turned into a fruitful point of departure for an analysis of literary texts, but also films, and the visual arts.

Eleven short stories and a poem that show us what comes after the end of all we know. This is the fourth volume of the collected short stories of Joe Vasicek. It includes: The Manchurian Paradox We have met our timeline's enemy and he is us. A Fatal Rebirth Nothing in this world should live forever—not even civilization itself. The Final Turning This is how the world ends: not with a bang, but with a whimper—thanks to me. The New Covenant To restore a fallen America, an ancient and terrible covenant must be renewed. Hearken and Behold (by J.M. Wight) "Hearken, oh ye hypocrites, and behold the desolation that is already come upon you!" The End of Elysium For the promise of paradise, the last civilization will surrender to the apocalypse. The Promise of King Washington When the aliens came, it wasn't a military invasion: it was an economic one. (Again, Hazardous Imaginings, December 2020) Lord of the Slaves "Everyone secretly wants to be a slave. Those who deny it simply haven't found the right master." The Other Side of Reality What if your future self came back to give you advice, and all it did was confuse you? Schrödinger's Diaper “Stays clean and dry until you’re free to change it!” …except not quite. (Bards and Sages Quarterly, April 2022) Two Hours Ago A time machine without paradoxes, so long as it's not abused. Welcome to Our Crazy Family Two genderqueer lesbians and a tranny have a rebellious daughter who does the unthinkable and decides to marry a Christian.

For the promise of paradise, the last civilization will surrender to the apocalypse. Elysium was a world without without pain or suffering, hunger or disease, poverty or crime. So naturally, it was a world that was already dead. Gehenna was a dead world, poisoned by the Great Catastrophe that had driven their ancestors into the underground vault. Few knew or cared what lay beyond the ancient airlocks. The bleak and windowless tunnels of Gehenna held nothing to the shared simulation of Elysium. Gehenna still had a Watchman who searched diligently for the promised land. But would the people of Elysium give up their truth in order to have a future? Or is cultural suicide a price worth paying for paradisiacal bliss?

Why do reasonable people lead their nations into the tremendously destructive traps of international conflict? Why do nations then deepen their involvement and make it harder to escape from these traps? In Paradoxes of War, originally published in 1990, Zeev Maoz addresses these and other paradoxical questions about the war process. Using a unique approach to the study of war, he demonstrates that wars may often break out because states wish to prevent them, and continue despite the desperate efforts of the combatants to end them. Paradoxes of War is organized around the various stages of war. The first part discusses the causes of war, the second the management of war, and the third the short- and long-term implications of war. In each chapter Maoz explores a different paradox as a contradiction between reasonable expectations and the outcomes of motivated behaviour based on those expectations. He documents these paradoxes in twentieth century wars, including the Korean War, the Six Day War, and the Vietnam War. Maoz then invokes cognitive and rational choice theories to explain why these paradoxes arise. Paradoxes of War is essential reading for students and scholars of international politics, war and peace studies, international relations theory, and political science in general.