An invaluable resource for anyone who regularly prepares prayers for public worship, guiding intercessors around the globe and helping them find the words to pray for the wider world.

An invaluable resource for anyone who regularly prepares prayers for public worship, guiding intercessors around the globe and helping them find the words to pray for the wider world.

“Paints a telling portrait of this most restless generation raised in a system that has provided them with unprecedented personal opportunities while denying them political ones. . . . A gifted observer.”—Washington Post "Informative and often humorous . . . Presents a refreshing range of perspectives about being twenty-something in China."—Forbes “Masterfully crafted.”—Los Angeles Review of Books “A perceptive and quietly profound book.”—Booklist, starred review "Compelling and beautifully written."—Prospect China’s new youth are the generation that will change China. Offspring of the one-child policy, with no memory of Tiananmen, they are destined to transform both their nation and the world. Understanding their motivations, dreams, and attitudes is possibly the most important gauge of China’s future direction as it plays an increasingly important role in shaping this century. China’s New Youth follows the lives of six young Chinese as they navigate their aspirations, discontents, politics, and love lives. Their stories include a netizen nationalist, a country migrant, the daughter of a Party member, a rising pop star, and a feminist entrepreneur. With intimate access to this diverse generation, Alec Ash—a young writer based in China since 2012—gives a vivid, immersive, fascinating account of young China as it comes of age. China's New Youth was originally published in hardcover until the title Wish Lanterns: Young Lives in New China. The new paperback edition has been updated with a new preface and afterword by the author and a new foreword by Karoline Kan.

“Ash’s book paints a telling portrait of this most restless generation raised in a system that has provided them with unprecedented personal opportunities while denying them political ones . . . A gifted observer.”—Washington Post If China will rule the world one day, who will rule China? There are more than 320 million Chinese between the ages of sixteen and thirty. Children of the one-child policy, born after Mao, with no memory of the Tiananmen Square massacre, they are the first net native generation to come of age in a market-driven, more international China. Their experiences and aspirations were formed in a radically different country from the one that shaped their elders, and their lives will decide the future of their nation and its place in the world. Wish Lanterns offers a deep dive into the life stories of six young Chinese. Dahai is a military child, netizen, and self-styled loser. Xiaoxiao is a hipster from the freezing north. “Fred,” born on the tropical southern island of Hainan, is the daughter of a Party official, while Lucifer is a would-be international rock star. Snail is a country boy and Internet gaming addict, and Mia is a fashionista rebel from far west Xinjiang. Following them as they grow up, go to college, find work and love, all the while navigating the pressure of their parents and society, Wish Lanterns paints a vivid portrait of Chinese youth culture and of a millennial generation whose struggles and dreams reflect the larger issues confronting China today.

Despite its geostrategic importance and its easier accessibility since the dissolvent of the Soviet Union, Central Asia has nevertheless remained a white spot on the map of western scholarship and public awareness. Bringing together papers presented at the VII ESCAS-Conference, this volume aims to shed light on the historical, political, cultural and socio-economic development of this region. Scholars from within and outside Central Asia discuss a wide range of topics, covering historical processes and events on the one hand and present developments of regional and global concern on the other.

In 1968, Theodore Hammett entered a war he believed was wrong, pressured by his father's threat to disown him if he withdrew from a Marine Corps officer candidate program. He hated the Vietnam War and soon grew to hate Vietnam and its people. As a supply officer at a field hospital uncomfortably near the DMZ, he employed thievery, bargaining and lies to secure supplies for his unit and retained his sanity with the help of alcohol, music and the promise of going home. In 2008, he returned to Vietnam for a five-year "second tour" to assist in improving HIV/AIDS policies and prevention programs in Hanoi. His memoir recounts his service at the height of the war, and how the country he detested became his second home.