This engaging translation presents an authentic period document that reflects aspects of Chinese life and society as seen through a contemporary's eyes. Portraying a "phony" reformer who rode the tide of the Qing court's post-Boxer reform initiatives to career success and personal wealth, this satire conveys the author's hope for a new, improved China, one that could stand proudly alongside Western nations and Meiji Japan in the modern world. His vivid descriptions of various situations shed light on late Qing elite behavior and Chinese foreign relations capture the clash between tradition and modernity, the old and new, as educated Chinese stood at a cultural and political crossroads.

The idea that American education has been steered by progressive values is celebrated by liberals and deplored by conservatives, but both sides accept it as fact. Adam Laats shows that this widely held belief is simply wrong. Upending the standard narrative of American education as the product of courageous progressive reformers, he calls to center stage the conservative activists who decisively shaped America’s classrooms in the twentieth century. The Other School Reformers makes clear that, in the long march of American public education, progressive reform has more often been a beleaguered dream than an insuperable force. Laats takes an in-depth look at four landmark school battles: the 1925 Scopes Trial, the 1939 Rugg textbook controversy, the 1950 ouster of Pasadena Public Schools Superintendent Willard Goslin, and the 1974 Kanawha County school boycott. Focused on issues ranging from evolution to the role of religion in education to the correct interpretation of American history, these four highly publicized controversies forced conservatives to articulate their vision of public schooling—a vision that would keep traditional Protestant beliefs in America’s classrooms and push out subversive subjects like Darwinism, socialism, multiculturalism, and feminism. As Laats makes clear in case after case, activists such as Hiram Evans and Norma Gabler, Homer Chaillaux and Louise Padelford were fiercely committed to a view of the curriculum that inculcated love of country, reinforced traditional gender roles and family structures, allowed no alternatives to capitalism, and granted religion a central role in civic life.

"The Guys in this Book are my Heroes, and Perle Besserman and Manfred Steger have done a tremendous job of bringing their stories to life. It's important to put a spotlight on the radical, rebellious characters who have shaped the Zen Buddhist lineage. I really like this book."---Brad Warner, Author of Hardcore Zen --

This book brings to life the remarkable stories of five exceptional international development leaders and influencers: Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Domingo Cavallo, Ela Bhatt, Dzingai Mutumbuka, and Adolfo Figueroa. Together, their experiences and accomplishments challenge us to rethink conventional notions of leadership and international development and to reflect on how others from Africa, Asia, and Latin America will change the world in the years ahead. Drawing on the author’s decades-long relationships with each of the five, the book tells how they overcame incredible barriers and dreadful odds to rise from ordinary and challenged backgrounds to achieve extraordinary impact in important roles, both in their countries and globally. With original firsthand insights, the book explores the character-revealing decisions they made, confronting moral dilemmas between protecting their country, their career, their values, and even their lives when threatened by corrupt antagonists. The book combines a free-flowing storytelling style with an analytical framework to examine how these five determined individuals struggled to reduce poverty, protect basic rights, and promote justice. The book will be invaluable for the international development community, practitioners, students, and researchers. It will also captivate general readers new to the fascinating subject of how African, Asian, and Latin American countries develop and what that will mean for the world as a whole. While many books have been written on what should be done to help rising nations thrive, this one takes readers inside the human story of who brings about change and how.

This novel is a scathing portrayal of the reformer Kang Youwei by the revolutionary Huang Shizhong at a critical juncture in Beijing imperial rule and overseas Chinese politics.

An attempt to identify America's enemy in the war on terror and why it is so hard for Americans to name the enemy. An explanation of why Islamic law should be declared sedition.