China's emerging financial markets reflect the usual contrast between the country's measured approach toward policy, regulatory, and market reform, and the dynamic pace of rapid economic growth and development. But they also offer unusual challenges and opportunities. In the past five years, the pace of opening and reform has accelerated sharply. Recapitalization and partial privatization of the largest banks, and the allowance of some joint venture and branch operations for foreign financial institutions, are making rapid headway in developing and expanding financial services and improving access to domestic business and households. This book provides the most extensive look available at the evolving Chinese financial system. It begins with alternative perspectives on the evolution of the financial system and the broad outlines of its prospects and potential contribution to economic growth. Three articles review broad aspects of the financial system. Franklin Allen, Jun ''QJ'' Qian, Meijun Qian, and Mengxin Zhao lead off with overviews of the banking system and performance of the equity market and other institutions.

The rise of Islamic radicalism has led to heated discussions about how best to address the threat of religious terror. Disputes covering the right and wrong of war with Iraq, and the even bigger war on terrorism, continue to rage across America. But this is not the first argument of this nature-America was faced with a similar moral dilemma on the eve of World War II. Fascism was conquering Europe, and religious leaders across the nation vehemently debated how to confront Nazi Germany. In The End of Illusions: Religious Leaders Confront Hitler's Gathering Storm, Joseph Loconte brings together pieces from the most significant religious thinkers of the pre-war period. In these essays, the writers eloquently and passionately present their arguments for going to war or maintaining the peace. In doing so, they explore issues vibrantly relevant today, including the Christian cause for war, the problem of evil, and America's role in the world. These urgently written pieces connect the past with the present and resonate with renewed clarity and poignancy.

China's emerging financial markets reflect the usual contrast between the country's measured approach toward policy, regulatory, and market reform, and the dynamic pace of rapid economic growth and development. But they also offer unusual challenges and opportunities. In the past five years, the pace of opening and reform has accelerated sharply. Recapitalization and partial privatization of the largest banks, and the allowance of some joint venture and branch operations for foreign financial institutions, are making rapid headway in developing and expanding financial services and improving access to domestic business and households. This book provides the most extensive look available at the evolving Chinese financial system. It begins with alternative perspectives on the evolution of the financial system and the broad outlines of its prospects and potential contribution to economic growth. Three articles review broad aspects of the financial system. Franklin Allen, Jun ''QJ'' Qian, Meijun Qian, and Mengxin Zhao lead off with overviews of the banking system and performance of the equity market and other institutions.

A landmark of postmodern American fiction, "Letters" is (as the subtitle genially informs us) "an old time epistolary novel by seven fictitious drolls and dreamers each of which imagines himself factual." Seven characters (including the Author himself) exchange a novel's worth of letters during a 7-month period in 1969, a time of revolution that recalls the U.S.'s first revolution in the 18th century - the heyday of the epistolary novel. Recapitulating American history as well as the plots of his first six novels, Barth's seventh novel is a witty and profound exploration of the nature of revolution and renewal, rebellion and reenactment, at both the private and public levels. It is also an ingenious meditation on the genre of the novel itself, recycling an older form to explore new directions, new possibilities for the novel.

Karl Barth was one of the most important theologians of the 20th century and, according to Pope Pius XII, the most important since Thomas Aquinas. His magnum opus, Church Dogmatics, runs to thirteen volumes and is one of the most substantial works of systematic theology ever written. 'On Religion' presents a central chapter from the Barth's masterpiece, in which he explores the phenomenon religion itself. Including a substantial introduction and commentary, this is an essential introduction to the Church Dogmatics.