China has enjoyed heroic growth rates in the last twenty five years of reform and transition, pulling more people out of poverty more quickly than at any other time in human history. Nonetheless these successes have had costs: today China is faced with increasing environmental difficulties and there is a dangerous level of inequality of income and wealth leading to large numbers of often violent disputes and demonstrations in the countryside. This book discusses the very latest issues relating to China's remarkable economic growth. It provides comprehensive coverage of these issues, including economic, political-economic, environmental and philosophical questions, presenting material in as non-technical a way as possible. The issues discussed reflect key concerns within China itself at present. These focus not just on how to sustain fast rates of economic growth but also on how to solve the problems resulting from it, problems including widening levels of income equality, new forms of environmental degradation to include water shortages, health issues, governance dilemmas and new problems for the banking, strategic industrial and agricultural sectors. This book not only encompasses the current socio-economic situation in China, accepting its strengths while highlighting dilemmas, but also provides suggestions for policy. As such, it reflects a growing recognition in China that the attainment of both continued strong economic growth and a greater degree of social harmony are mutually interdependent: that one will not be achieved without the other.

This title was first published in 2000: An examination of the potential for Chinese ecological agriculture providing a basis for sustainable development in the Chinese countryside. Richard Sanders involves primary research in seven villages and four countries in China that have adopted ecological agriculture. He examines the concept of sustainable development generally and analyses China's political-economic policies towards the countryside since 1949, the impacts on the environment and the state of China's environmental protection. The study addresses three main questions: 1. Is Chinese ecological agriculture worth adopting - specifically does CEA promise a form of sustainable rural development? 2. To the extent that it does, what are the social, political and economic conditions in the Chinese countryside which most favour its extension? 3. To the extent that these conditions are restrictive, what can the Chinese authorities do to make them less so and thus encourage its extension? The study concludes that the CEA, despite certain difficulties and problems, holds out the prospect of a more sustainable future for the rural economy than more usual forms of activity in the Chinese countryside. It finds that the conditions for adopting CEA are restrictive and that while the Chinese government is in favour of extending CEA it must reconsider questions of land management and ownership and assess long-term needs.

China has enjoyed heroic growth rates in the last twenty five years of reform and transition, pulling more people out of poverty more quickly than at any other time in human history. Nonetheless these successes have had costs: today China is faced with increasing environmental difficulties and there is a dangerous level of inequality of income and wealth leading to large numbers of often violent disputes and demonstrations in the countryside.

This book discusses the very latest issues relating to China's remarkable economic growth. It provides comprehensive coverage of these issues, including economic, political-economic, environmental and philosophical questions, presenting material in as non-technical a way as possible. The issues discussed reflect key concerns within China itself at present. These focus not just on how to sustain fast rates of economic growth but also on how to solve the problems resulting from it, problems including widening levels of income equality, new forms of environmental degradation to include water shortages, health issues, governance dilemmas and new problems for the banking, strategic industrial and agricultural sectors.

This book not only encompasses the current socio-economic situation in China, accepting its strengths while highlighting dilemmas, but also provides suggestions for policy. As such, it reflects a growing recognition in China that the attainment of both continued strong economic growth and a greater degree of social harmony are mutually interdependent: that one will not be achieved without the other.

This title was first published in 2000: An examination of the potential for Chinese ecological agriculture providing a basis for sustainable development in the Chinese countryside. Richard Sanders involves primary research in seven villages and four countries in China that have adopted ecological agriculture. He examines the concept of sustainable development generally and analyses China's political-economic policies towards the countryside since 1949, the impacts on the environment and the state of China's environmental protection. The study addresses three main questions: 1. Is Chinese ecological agriculture worth adopting - specifically does CEA promise a form of sustainable rural development? 2. To the extent that it does, what are the social, political and economic conditions in the Chinese countryside which most favour its extension? 3. To the extent that these conditions are restrictive, what can the Chinese authorities do to make them less so and thus encourage its extension? The study concludes that the CEA, despite certain difficulties and problems, holds out the prospect of a more sustainable future for the rural economy than more usual forms of activity in the Chinese countryside. It finds that the conditions for adopting CEA are restrictive and that while the Chinese government is in favour of extending CEA it must reconsider questions of land management and ownership and assess long-term needs.

Economic transition in China has witnessed (re)centralization of resources from the margin to the core in economic, social and political senses. This book employs a marginalization lens to reveal, delineate and better understand the processes, patterns, trends, multiple dimensions and dynamics of the phenomenon, and the consequences and implications for development and well-being in the country. Bringing together a wide range of domestic and international experts and disciplinary perspectives, the book combines empirical research and conceptual analysis to provide an insightful overview of China's recent development. It contributes to the debate over marginalization and its interactions with globalization and transition in China, and has significance for various domestic and international policy arenas in respect of tackling marginalization, poverty and social exclusion effectively while striving for the achievement of the UN Millennium Development Goals in China and beyond.

In a page-turning tale brimming with adventure, author Richard Sanders tells of the remarkable exploits of Bartholomew Roberts (better known as Black Bart), the greatest of the Caribbean pirates. He drank tea instead of rum. He banned women and gambling on his ships. He never made his prisoners walk the plank, instead inviting them into his cabin for a friendly chat. And during the course of his extraordinary two-and-a-half-year career as a pirate captain, he captured four hundred prizes and brought trade in the eastern Caribbean to a standstill. In If a Pirate I Must Be..., Richard Sanders tells the larger-than-life story of Bartholomew Roberts, a.k.a. Black Bart. Born in a rural town, Roberts rose from third mate on a slave ship to pirate captain in a matter of months. Before long, his combination of audaciousness and cunning won him fame and fortune from the fisheries of Newfoundland to the slave ports of West Africa. Sanders brings to life a fascinating world of theater and ritual, where men (a third of whom were black) lived a close-knit, egalitarian life, democratically electing their officers and sharing their spoils. They were highly (if surreptitiously) popular with many merchants, with whom they struck incredibly lucrative deals. Yet with a fierce team of Royal Navy pirate hunters tracking his every move, Roberts' heyday would prove a brief one, and with his capture, the Golden Age of pirates would pass into the lore and legend of books and movies. Based on historical records, journals and letters from pirates under Roberts' command, and on writings by Roberts himself, If a Pirate I Must Be... is the true story of the greatest pirate ever to sail the Caribbean. Skyhorse Publishing, along with our Arcade, Good Books, Sports Publishing, and Yucca imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs. Our list includes biographies on well-known historical figures like Benjamin Franklin, Nelson Mandela, and Alexander Graham Bell, as well as villains from history, such as Heinrich Himmler, John Wayne Gacy, and O. J. Simpson. We have also published survivor stories of World War II, memoirs about overcoming adversity, first-hand tales of adventure, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

Economic transition in China has witnessed (re)centralization of resources from the margin to the core in economic, social and political senses. This book employs a marginalization lens to reveal, delineate and better understand the processes, patterns, trends, multiple dimensions and dynamics of the phenomenon, and the consequences and implications for development and well-being in the country. Bringing together a wide range of domestic and international experts and disciplinary perspectives, the book combines empirical research and conceptual analysis to provide an insightful overview of China's recent development. It contributes to the debate over marginalization and its interactions with globalization and transition in China, and has significance for various domestic and international policy arenas in respect of tackling marginalization, poverty and social exclusion effectively while striving for the achievement of the UN Millennium Development Goals in China and beyond.

"Footeballe is nothinge but beastlie furie and extreme violence", wrote Thomas Elyot in 1531. Nearly five hundred years later, the game may still seem furious and violent, but it has also become the most popular sport on the planet. This is the story of how the modern, professional, spectator sport of football was born in Britain in the second half of the nineteenth century. It's a tale of testosterone-filled public schoolboys, eccentric mill-owners and bolshy miners, and of why we play football the way we do. Who invented heading? Why do we have an offside law? And why are foreigners so much better than us at the game we invented? Based on exhaustive research, Beastly Fury picks apart the complex processes which forged the modern game, turning accepted wisdom on its head. It's a story which is strangely familiar - of grasping players, corrupt clubs and autocratic officials. It's a tale of brutality, but at times too, of surprising artistry. Above all it's a story of how football, uniquely among the sports of that era, became what it is today - the people's game.

Or, how a kidnapped actress, a crazy director, a native healer, a psychedelic berry and a wind spirit that follows me from Chinatown to the mountains outside LA nearly cost me my sanity and my life.

Who killed JFK? Did Hitler really commit suicide? Was Kurt Cobain murdered? Hell, as long as we're asking, did Jesus actually live and if so how did he die? I didn't think we'd ever answer those questions, until I met a savant physicist who could unlock memories coded in DNA. The results were world shaking, to say the least. Too bad the secrets in his own past were just as mysterious, just as deadly.

The Lit-Crit Take: A genre-bending, character-driven thriller about memory, identity and making peace with the past. The Pure Plot Pitch: Sure, we all know about arrogant, self-centered media executives. But how about one who served time as a teen for murdering her sister? And who suddenly believes she's possessed by the spirit of Indira Gandhi? And now, at the height of her power, a secret from her past is threatening to destroy her empire, while someone from that past is trying to take her life. Stop the damn presses

The Lit-Crit Take: A genre-bending, character-driven, word-burning thriller about politics, love and the haunting pain of memory. The Pure Plot Pitch: I didn't know-or care-much about the tight race for governor of New York until someone took a shot at one of the candidates and killed his wife instead. The main suspect, it turns out, was an anti-government crazy (and a devoted quilter-yes, you heard that right) I once did time with. Searching for the killer, hoping to stop another attack, I was suddenly sucked into the panicky heart of a closely fought election campaign, an affair with a troubled political operative and the dangerously surreal world of people who prefer casting their vote with a sniper's bullet.

THE LIT-CRIT TAKE: A character-driven thriller, centering on the themes of terrorism, understanding and hope. THE PURE PLOT PITCH: Here's bad day: Guy sets out to rob a bank but ends up pulling a carjacking, and when he's arrested a body is found in the trunk. The victim is a Sunni community leader, and why was he killed? Who killed him? The search for answers takes me into the homegrown Islamic underground, into plots, counterplots, deceptions and love affairs, all leading to an attack on a major NYC landmark.

The debate over affirmative action has raged for over four decades, with little give on either side. Most agree that it began as noble effort to jump-start racial integration many believe it devolved into a patently unfair system of quotas and concealment. Now, with the Supreme Court set to rule on a case that could sharply curtail the use of racial preferences in American universities, law professor Richard Sander and legal journalist Stuart Taylor offer a definitive account of what affirmative action has become, showing that while the objective is laudable, the effects have been anything but.Sander and Taylor have long admired affirmative action's original goals, but after many years of studying racial preferences, they have reached a controversial but undeniable conclusion: that preferences hurt underrepresented minorities far more than they help them. At the heart of affirmative action's failure is a simple phenomenon called mismatch. Using dramatic new data and numerous interviews with affected former students and university officials of colour, the authors show how racial preferences often put students in competition with far better-prepared classmates, dooming many to fall so far behind that they can never catch up. Mismatch largely explains why, even though black applicants are more likely to enter college than whites with similar backgrounds, they are far less likely to finish why there are so few black and Hispanic professionals with science and engineering degrees and doctorates why black law graduates fail bar exams at four times the rate of whites and why universities accept relatively affluent minorities over working class and poor people of all races.Sander and Taylor believe it is possible to achieve the goal of racial equality in higher education, but they argue that alternative policies,such as full public disclosure of all preferential admission policies, a focused commitment to improving socioeconomic diversity on campuses, outreach to minority communities, and a renewed focus on K-12 schooling ,will go farther in achieving that goal than preferences, while also allowing applicants to make informed decisions. Bold, controversial, and deeply researched, Mismatch calls for a renewed examination of this most divisive of social programs,and for reforms that will help realize the ultimate goal of racial equality.

He was told he had exactly eight days to live. By a blind psychic photographer. Okay, Wooly Cornell was plenty crazy-not to mention a huge asshole-but he asked me to help him. So I did. And as the countdown to his death began and I found myself facing threats, shootouts, a mysterious scarred woman and weird predictions that somehow managed to come true, I could only come to one conclusion: Fate is one strange thing to fight.

The sex tape of a famous actress suddenly turns up on the internet, showing her on the last night of her life. The full version is being offered for sale, and the reason for its high price goes way beyond celeb voyeurism. The video also contains a clue to who killed her. That's why everyone is--literally--dying to see it.

What do you do when clues to an unsolved murder have been coded in a stolen $50 million painting? You try to steal it back. Only you have to deal with corrupt collectors, crazy thieves, lust-powered women, shootouts, betrayals, double-crosses and surprises. And a psychic dog named Hillary.It's not as easy as it sounds.

Just before he dies in a downtown hospital, a doctor passes along the half-formula for a powerful new hallucinogenic drug. Find the other half, and you've got a miracle drug-one that can save lives, save the world, and make a lot of money. Which, of course, makes it worth killing for.