The China Relief Expedition, an eight-nation military effort, was organized to rescue foreign nationals in the country during the Boxer Uprising (1899–1901). In Thirteen Months in China, Thakur Gadadhar Singh, a British Indian soldier of the 7th Rajput Regiment, recounts his experiences as he set sail along with his men for Beijing in the summer of 1900. Written shortly after his return to India in 1901, he details several aspects of China and its people he met over the course of thirteen months. Part travelogue, part history, Singh’s eyewitness account offers a first-hand view of the tumultuous events of the Boxer Uprising and its aftermath, as also of Chinese society, culture, politics, religion, and art and architecture, often in a comparative perspective. It is a rare historical source of an Indian subaltern’s outlook on the history of China, and its customs and practices.

The China Relief Expedition, an eight-nation military effort, was organized to rescue foreign nationals in the country during the Boxer Uprising (1899-1901). In 'Thirteen Months in China', Thakur Gadadhar Singh, a British Indian soldier of the 7th Rajput Regiment, recounts his experiences as he set sail along with his men for Beijing in the summer of 1900. Written shortly after his return to India in 1901, he details several aspects of China and its people he met over the course of thirteen months. Part travelogue, part history, Singh's eyewitness account offers a first-hand view of the tumultuous events of the Boxer Uprising and its aftermath, as also of Chinese society, culture, politics, religion, and art and architecture, often in a comparative perspective. It is a rare historical source of an Indian subaltern's outlook on the history of China, and its customs and practices.

An Economist Best Book of 2018 New York Times Book Review Editor’s Pick “Gripping [and] splendid.… An enormous contribution to our understanding of Marshall.”—Washington Post At the end of World War II, General George Marshall took on what he thought was a final mission—this time not to win a war, but to stop one. In China, conflict between Communists and Nationalists threatened to suck in the United States and escalate into revolution. Marshall’s charge was to cross the Pacific, broker a peace, and prevent a Communist takeover, all while staving off World War III. At first, the results seemed miraculous. But as they started to come apart, Marshall was faced with a wrenching choice—one that would alter the course of the Cold War, define the US-China relationship, and spark one of the darkest-ever turns in American political life. The China Mission offers a gripping, close-up view of the central figures of the time—from Marshall, Mao, and Chiang Kai-shek to Eisenhower, Truman, and MacArthur—as they stood face-to-face and struggled to make history, with consequences and lessons that echo today.

Although there have been numerous publications that argue the merit of Chinese rule over Tibet, and many more that argue for Tibetan self-determination, the world has not heard many Chinese voices supporting the latter view. This book exposed the reader to just that perspective from no less famous writers and activists than Wei Jingsheng, Yan Jiaqi, Shen Tong, Wang Rouwang, and others. Though theirs is the view of a small minority of Chinese, history may still record the publication of these essays as a milestone in the history of this issue.

Robert Hart was one of those empire builders of the Victorian age who had a long and nearly uninterrupted experience in China, from 1854, when as a young Irishman from Belfast he landed in Ningpo, until 1908, when as a man in his seventies he finally retired to England. His years as the Ch'ing government's Inspector General of the Maritime Customs Service have been copiously recorded in letters to his London agent, beginning in 1868, published as a 2-volume collection, The IG. in Peking (Harvard, Belknap Press, 1975). In 1970, a second lode of Hart materials came to light, the 77 volumes of his journals, begun on the day of his arrival in China in 1854 and ending at his departure in 1908, with two short but significant gaps in the first decade where he himself destroyed entries of too personal a nature. Entering China's Service presents a complete and annotated transcript of the surviving journals through 1863, alternating with chapters devoted to Hart's North Ireland background, the China he encountered, the Ch'ing officials who trusted him, and the unfolding of his career. His reactions to the Chinese as well as to his fellow Westerners cast an invaluable light on nineteenth-century China.

The recent forced landing of a U.S. Navy EP-3 surveillance aircraft on Hainan Island after aerial harassment by Chinese fighters underscores that the dangers of the Cold War are not behind us. Reconnaissance-intelligence gathering-has always been one of the most highly secretive operations in the military. Men risk their lives with no recognition for themselves, flying missions that were almost always unarmed and typically pose as weather survey or training flights. Now the true stories of these brave young men can at last be told. Larry Tart and Robert Keefe, former USAF airborne recon men themselves, provide a gripping, unprecedented history of American surveillance planes shot down by China and Russia-from the opening salvoes of the Cold War to the most recent international standoff with China. Appearing here for the first time are many crucial documents, ranging from formerly highly classified U.S. files to conversations with Khrushchev and top secret reports from the Russian presidential archives. Along with previously unreleased military details, this meticulously researched book includes MiG fighter pilot transcripts and interviews with participants from both sides-including survivors of downed American planes. From the Baltic to the Bering Seas, from Armenia and Azerbaijan to China, Korea, and the Sea of Japan, these gripping accounts reveal the drama of what really happened to Americans shot down in hostile skies. The Price of Vigilance brings to life the harrowing ordeals faced by the steel-nerved crews, the diplomatic furor that erupts after shootdowns, and the grief and frustration of the families waiting at home-families who, most often, were never told what their loved ones were doing. Armed with the results of recent crash-site excavations, advanced DNA testing, and the reports of local witnesses who can finally reveal what they saw, Tart and Keefe have written a real-life thriller of the deadly cat-and-mouse game of intelligence gathering in the air and across enemy borders. The centerpiece of the book is the fate of USAF C-130 60528 and its crew of seventeen, shot down over Armenia on September 2, 1958, with no known survivors. Tart and Keefe also vividly describe other shootdowns, including the tense stand off between the U.S. and China after an American reconnaissance aircraft was forced to land on Hainan Island in April 2001. The Price of Vigilance pays moving tribute to the courage and patriotism of all the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy crews, including those captured and the more than two hundred who never returned. Larry Tart and Robert Keefe wish to publicly acknowledge to the families, and to the nation, that we will never forget their sacrifice.