Examines the Great Peace (taiping), one of the first utopian visions in Chinese history, and its impact on literati lives in Han China. Through an examination of the Great Peace (taiping), one of the first utopian visions in Chinese history, Zhao Lu describes the transformation of literati culture that occurred during the Han Dynasty. Driven by anxiety over losing the mandate of Heaven, the imperial court encouraged classicism in order to establish the Great Peace and follow Heaven’s will. But instead of treating the literati as puppets of competing and imagined lineages, Zhao uses sociological methods to reconstruct their daily lives and to show how they created their own thought by adopting, modifying, and opposing the work of their contemporaries and predecessors. The literati who served as bureaucrats in the first century BCE gradually became classicists who depended on social networking as they traveled to study the classics. By the second century CE, classicism had dissolved in this traveling culture and the literati began to expand the corpus of knowledge beyond the accepted canon. Thus, far from being static, classicism in Han China was full of innovation, and ultimately gave birth to both literary writing and religious Daoism. “Zhao’s study presents a model of intellectual history. Smartly written, it excels in connecting the analysis of specific texts and concepts with broader trends in the social-political realm. His work helps demythologize Chinese thought and makes it legible to scholars around the world.” — Miranda Brown, University of Michigan

A newsbreaking memoir that tackles head-on the toughest challenge in the world today. When a dying King Hussein shocked the world by picking his son rather than his brother, the longtime crown prince, to be the next king of Jordan, no one was more surprised than the young head of Special Operations, who discovered his life was in for a major upheaval. This is the inspirational story of a young prince who went to boarding school in America and military academy in Britain and grew up believing he would be a soldier. Back home, he hunted down terrorists and modernized Jordan's Special Forces. Then, suddenly, he found himself king. Together with his wife, Queen Rania, he transformed what it meant to be a monarch, going undercover to escape the bubble of the court while she became the Muslim world's most passionate advocate of women's rights. In this exceptionally candid memoir, King Abdullah tackles the single toughest issue he faces head-on- how to solve the Israeli-Palestinian standoff- and reveals himself to be an invaluable intermediary between America and the Arab world. He writes about the impact of the Iraq war on his neighborhood and how best to tackle Iran's nuclear ambitions. Why would a sitting head of state choose to write about the most explosive issues he faces? King Abdullah does so now because he believes we face a moment of truth: a last chance for peace in the Middle East. The prize is enormous, the cost of failure far greater than we dare imagine.

When the Israeli prime minister and the PLO chairman shook hands on the White House lawn in 1993, Israeli peace activists had good reason to celebrate this major step on the long road to peace.This book tells the story of the Israeli peace movement and the role it played in that pursuit of peace. It is an eloquent, fascinating account of a remarkably diverse and determined cast of activists: from war-weary soldiers to hard-headed politicians, careful scholars to impassioned artists.Drawing on his experience in the peace movement, Bar-On provides intimate portraits of groups like Peace Now, Yesh Gvul, and the Women in Black, he also provides a sweeping historical synthesis of the course of the Israeli-Arab conflict, especially between 1967 and 1993.

Gershon Baskin's memoir of thirty-eight years of intensive pursuit of peace begins with a childhood on Long Island and a bar mitzvah trip to Israel with his family. Baskin joined Young Judaea back in the States, then later lived on a kibbutz in Israel, where he announced to his parents that he had decided to make aliya, emigrate to Israel. They persuaded him to return to study at NYU, after which he finally emigrated under the auspices of Interns for Peace. In Israel he spent a pivotal two years living with Arabs in the village of Kufr Qara. Despite the atmosphere of fear, Baskin found he could talk with both Jews and Palestinians, and that very few others were engaged in efforts at mutual understanding. At his initiative, the Ministry of Education and the office of right-wing prime minister Menachem Begin created the Institute for Education for Jewish-Arab Coexistence with Baskin himself as director. Eight years later he founded and codirected the only joint Israeli-Palestinian public policy think-and-do tank in the world, the Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information. For decades he continued to cross borders, often with a kaffiyeh (Arab headdress) on his dashboard to protect his car in Palestinian neighborhoods. Airport passport control became Kafkaesque as Israeli agents routinely identified him as a security threat. During the many cycles of peace negotiations, Baskin has served both as an outside agitator for peace and as an advisor on the inside of secret talks—for example, during the prime ministership of Yitzhak Rabin and during the initiative led by Secretary of State John Kerry. Baskin ends the book with his own proposal, which includes establishing a peace education program and cabinet-level Ministries of Peace in both countries, in order to foster a culture of peace.

About the Book: This book explores our ideas of self, repeatedly revealing "who we are not" to gently bring us into peace without attempting to alter our external conditions. It is well known that when we dissociate ourselves from all our worldly identities, we will naturally come to peace. This book lays out a clear roadmap to achieve enduring peace through detachment. But detachment does not mean renouncement of all types of pleasures and living a life of inactivity and boredom. In truth, detachment can relieve us of all the burdens and baggage we carry, leaving us free to enjoy all the genuine pleasures available on earth to the fullest. The only condition is that we must not cling to the pleasures but be ready to let them go freely. Hence our life here can be one of unending joy and achievement. About the Author: Born in 1960 in the rich culture of South India and educated in English, he was exposed to two opposing world views enabling him to achieve synergy and realize true harmony. He belongs to the linguistic community "Saurashtra" who were silk weavers patronised by kings of yore. His ancestors are said to have migrated from the western part of India to Tamil Nadu in the south several centuries ago. Born to a father who served in the lower ranks of the Indian Central Government and a mother who was less educated, he was brought up by his grandmother, a very traditional woman, in the extended family. With his two younger brothers he was afforded English education from the beginning that enabled him to become fluent in the language right from his childhood. Graduating in Agriculture from the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University in Coimbatore in 1982, he secured the prestigious position of Probationary Officer in State Bank of India, the premier bank in India. After a dedicated service of over two decades, he ventured out on his own to learn about real life outside the cocoon of privileged living that his parents and his job had offered him till then. Growing up in the country as India underwent its pangs of Westernisation, he was able to synthesise the self-oriented Western perspective with the community oriented native one to arrive at a wholesome concept of self after considerable efforts and experimentation. This book is the culmination of decades of efforts in discovering his real place in the world. Married to Vijayashree with a daughter Meenalochani, who has gifted him with a lovely granddaughter, he lives in the Southern Indian cities of Bangalore and Coimbatore with his family and his aged aunt.

During the last one hundred years, programmatic social reform legislation has increasingly been accepted as an essential economic, social and political component of advanced capitalist nations. The Search for Social Peace investigates the reform movement in France—from its origins in the 1890s until the First World War—and details the struggle to end class conflict and achieve social peace. Who the reformers were, what they argued and how successful they were in fulfilling their promises are among the questions answered in The Search for Social Peace. Facing the pressures of an industrializing economy and the rise of an active, enfranchised working class, French reformers coalesced into a parliamentary force which, by 1910, could claim passage of a number of major reform laws. Judith Stone examines the results of this reform effort and demonstrates why legislation failed to alter deeply entrenched patterns in labor relations. Her study deepens our understanding of the social and political stalemate during the Third Republic. Social legislation, its cost and impact on the labor market and labor relations, is again the subject of intense debate. The current political climate makes all the more relevant the earlier reform effort, its supporters, their goals, their opponents—all of which are covered in this lucid work.

"Here's a powerful, biblical antidote to despair!"--LEE STROBEL, New York Times bestselling author God's peace, his shalom, can penetrate every aspect of your life--spiritually, mentally, physically, and emotionally. Although the word shalom appears 550 times in the Scriptures and was a constant theme in Jesus' teachings, it is a neglected topic today. As a result, God's peace has been elusive to so many followers of Jesus. This book charts a course of shalom for you! As Greg Laurie writes in the foreword, since we are made in God's image, you could say we have been prewired for happiness. We are prewired for hope. We are prewired for peace. If you are longing for healing and wholeness, noted Bible scholar Jeremiah J. Johnston will help you discover how to · Unleash shalom in your life · Live and apply shalom in God's world · Protect your shalom in difficult times This uplifting book is also helpful for ministry leaders and everyone else who recognizes the church's incredible opportunity today to help individuals and families dealing with anxiety, worry, and mental pain. Let this be your guide into the peace that passes all understanding. Shalom! "This is more than surviving; we are offered the gift of truly flourishing."--SHEILA WALSH, author of Holding On When You Want to Let Go "In this reassuring meditation on Christian happiness... Johnston's mix of scholarly and uplifting notes will speak to solace seekers and their ministry leaders alike."--PUBLISHERS WEEKLY