Everything you need to know about the 20th century, from the beginning and end of wars to the births and deaths of important figures and ending on the last new year’s eve of the century.

Most of us believe that we will finally feel satisfied and content with our lives when we get the good news we have been waiting for, find a healthy relationship, or achieve one of our personal goals. However, this rarely happens. Good fortune is often followed by negative emotions that overtake us and result in destructive behaviors. "I don't deserve this," "this is too good to be true," or any number of harmful thought patterns prevent us from experiencing the joy and satisfaction we have earned. Sound familiar? This is what New York Times bestselling author Gay Hendricks calls the Upper Limit Problem, a negative emotional reaction that occurs when anything positive enters our lives. The Upper Limit Problem not only prevents happiness, but it actually stops us from achieving our goals. It is the ultimate life roadblock. In The Big Leap, Hendricks reveals a simple yet comprehensive program for overcoming this barrier to happiness and fulfillment, presented in a way that engages both the mind and heart. Working closely with more than one thousand extraordinary achievers in business and the arts—from rock stars to Fortune 500 executives—whose stories are featured in these pages, the book describes the four hidden fears that are at the root of the Upper Limit Problem. The Big Leap delivers a proven method for first identifying which of these four fears prevents us from reaching our personal upper limit, and then breaking through that limitation to achieve what Hendricks refers to as our Zone of Genius. Hendricks provides a clear path for achieving our true potential and attaining not only financial success but also success in love and life.

With contributions from some of the most well respected and experienced Chinese writers, journalists, and organizers, China’s Great Leap examines the People’s Republic of China as its government and 1.3 billion people prepare for the 2008 Olympic Games. When Beijing first sought the Games, China was still recovering from the upheavals of Maoist rule and adapting to a market revolution. Today, China wants to engage with the outside world—while fully controlling the engagement. How will the new leaders in Beijing manage the Olympic process and the internal and external pressures for reform it creates? China’s Great Leap will illuminate China’s recent history and outline how domestic and international pressures in the context of the Olympics could achieve human rights change. Learn about key areas for human rights reform and how the Olympics could represent a possible great leap forward for the people of China and for the world.

This bold re-examination of the history of U.S. economic growth is built around a novel claim, that productive capacity grew dramatically across the Depression years (1929-1941) and that this advance provided the foundation for the economic and military success of the United States during the Second World War as well as for the golden age (1948-1973) that followed.Alexander J. Field takes a fresh look at growth data and concludes that, behind a backdrop of double-digit unemployment, the 1930s actually experienced very high rates of technological and organizational innovation, fueled by the maturing of a privately funded research and development system and the government-funded build-out of the country's surface road infrastructure. This significant new volume in the Yale Series in Economic and Financial History invites new discussion of the causes and consequences of productivity growth over the last century and a half and on our current prospects.

Every business faces the existential threat of competitors producing cheaper copies. Even patent filings, market dominance and financial resources can't shield them from copycats. So what can we do--and, what can we learn from companies that have endured and even prospered for centuries despite copycat competition? In a book of narrative history and practical strategy, IMD professor of management and innovation Howard Yu shows that succeeding in today's marketplace is no longer just a matter of mastering copycat tactics, companies also need to leap across knowledge disciplines, and to reimagine how a product is made or a service is delivered. This proven tactic can protect a company from being overtaken by new (and often foreign) copycat competitors. Using riveting case studies of successful leaps and tragic falls, Yu illustrates five principles to success that span a wide range of industries, countries, and eras. Learn about how P&G in the 19th century made the leap from handcrafted soaps and candles to mass production of its signature brand Ivory, leaped into the new fields of consumer psychology and advertising, then leaped again, at the risk of cannibalizing its core product, into synthetic detergents and won with Tide in 1946. Learn about how Novartis and other pharma pioneers stayed ahead by making leaps from chemistry to microbiology to genomics in drug discovery; and how forward-thinking companies, including China's largest social media app--WeChat, Tokyo-based Internet service provider Recruit Holdings, and Illinois-headquartered John Deere are leaping ahead by leveraging the emergence of ubiquitous connectivity, the inexorable rise of intelligent machines, and the rising importance of managerial creativity. Outlasting competition is difficult; doing so over decades or a century is nearly impossible--unless one leaps. Ultimately, Leap is a manifesto for how pioneering companies can endure and prosper in a world of constant change and inevitable copycats.

Have you ever asked yourself, "Is this it?" Maybe you're trapped in a dead-end job that you're afraid to leave. Or maybe you already have a good job-one that gives you room to grow and exercise your talents-but you don't really feel like you're doing your best work. Your life is plain vanilla, yet you know in your heart that you can be a triple scoop banana split. You just don't know how to make that leap. So what do you do? Rick Smith knows firsthand what it's like to feel stuck in a career rut. He worked in a midlevel job where he had modest success. Then his life took an unexpected turn and he found himself creating a business that became successful beyond his wildest dreams. He unlocked a level of performance he did not know he had in him. After all, Smith was just a regular guy who didn't like to take chances or even step outside his comfort zone. But as he found out, those qualities don't have to be stumbling blocks. In fact, they're two of the keys to making the leap from good to great. And after talking to others who had also transformed their careers from mundane to magnificent, he realized that the secret doesn't lie with some mysterious talent, trait, or affinity for risk. And it certainly doesn't require you to quit your job and start from scratch. Rather, it lies with your ability to harness your true strengths and passions-what Smith calls your Primary Color. You'll meet remarkable people who've made the leap, such as: A soft-spoken middle manager who transformed her company, her industry, and her career with a simple-yet groundbreaking-idea. A door-to-door fax machine saleswoman who became a global fashion mogul after developing her own line of women's apparel. A Florida shrimp farmer who became a globally recognized genetics expert after both of his sons were diagnosed with a rare neurological disorder. A software designer who became a leading advocate for the homeless after volunteering part time at a local shelter and realizing his true calling. Through powerful anecdotes, lessons from brain science, and tools for self-assessment, Smith shows how, with the right amount of passion, determination, and three simple steps, anyone can make the leap to a more successful and fulfilling life.

Harvard Design School's Project on the City is a graduate thesis program that examines the effects of modernization on the urban condition. Each year the Project on the City studies a specific region or phenomena, & develops a conceptual framework & vocabulary for urban environments that can not be described within the traditional categories of architecture, landscape, or urbanism. In order to understand new forms of urbanization, thesis advisor Rem Koolhaas & students from the fields of architecture, landscape, & urbanism, document & analyze areas of study through a combination of field research, statistical analysis, historical developments, & anecdotal situations. The result of each project is an intensive, specialized study of the effects of modernization on the contemporary city. During the 1996-1997 period, Harvard's graduate students studied China's Pearl River Delta (PRD), a cluster of five cities with a population of twelve million destined to reach thirty-six million by the year 2020. The establishment in the PRD of Special Economic Zones--"laboratories for the contained unleashing of capitalism"--hastened an unprecedented experiment in urbanization on an astonishingly large scale. Great Leap Forward contains essays which explore, in a theoretical & statistical context, the results of this rapid modernization that has produced an entirely new urban substance.