Increasingly the future of the world depends on a tripartite division of interests between the Soviet Union (1982), China and the West. And if the West knows little about the real Russia, it knows even less about China. By examining China in contrast to the Soviet Union 'The Dragon and the Bear' highlights he great differences between the nations and outlines the consequences of political developments for the West.

Dragon and the Bear: Inside China and Russia Today (Abacus Books)

philip-short

SPHERE

Pol Pot was an idealistic, reclusive figure with great charisma and personal charm. He initiated a revolution whose radical egalitarianism exceeded any other in history. But in the process, his country descended into madness and his name became a byword for oppression.In the three-and-a-half years of his rule in Cambodia, more than a million people, a fifth of Cambodia's population, were executed or died from hunger and disease. A supposedly gentle, carefree land of slumbering temples and smiling peasants became a concentration camp of the mind, a slave state in which absolute obedience was enforced on the 'killing fields'. Philip Short has spent four years travelling the length and breadth of Cambodia, interviewing surviving leaders of Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge movement and sifting through previously closed archives from China, Russia and Vietnam, as well as Cambodia itself. Here, the former Khmer Rouge Head of State, Pol's brother-in-law and scores of lesser figures speak for the first time at length about their beliefs and motives, as Philip Short traces Pol Pot's life from altruistic youth to become one of the twentieth century's most egregious political monsters.

Pol Pot : The History of a Nightmare

History

Asia

John Murray

The definitive portrait of Pol Pot, the enigmatic man behind the most terrifying regime of modern times Pol Pot was an idealistic, reclusive figure with great charisma and personal charm. He initiated a revolution whose radical egalitarianism exceeded any other in history. But in the process, Cambodia desended into madness and his name became a byword for oppression. In the three-and-a-half years of his rule, more than a million people, a fifth of Cambodia's population, were executed or died from hunger and disease. A supposedly gentle, carefree land of slumbering temples and smiling peasants became a concentration camp of the mind, a slave state in which absolute obedience was enforced on the 'killing fields'. Why did it happen? How did an idealistic dream of justice and prosperity mutate into one of humanity's worst nightmares? Philip Short, the biographer of Mao, has spent four years travelling the length Cambodia, interviewing surviving leaders of Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge movement and sifting through previously closed archives. of lesser figures speak for the first time at length about their beliefs and motives.

Pol Pot: The History of a Nightmare

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

Hodder Hb

Mao Zedong was a defining figure of the twentieth century. Military strategist, statesman, fiendishly clever politician, philosopher and poet, no man has so profoundly influenced the fate of China's people since the First Emperor of Qin unified the country and built the Great Wall 2,000 years ago. The revolution engineered by Mao dragged almost a quarter of the world's people out of medieval splendour and squalor into the modern age. In this meticulously researched account, Philip Short draws on extensive interviews and on a wealth of previously secret documentary material to present for the first time a complete portrait of this bewilderingly complex and versatile leader. He traces Mao's development from idealistic student to visionary despot whose epic struggle to build a revolutionary realm of Red Virtue took the lives of more of his subjects than did any other leader in human history. Short illuminates crucial episodes in Mao's life and career which until now have been deliberately obscured.He reveals Mao's decisive role in the outbreak of the Korean war, and shows convincingly that the great political movements that followed were the logical, inevitable consequence of the deeply held ideas of a lifetime. Was Mao's life a tragic failure, imprisoned by his revolution? Or an unparalleled achievement of the human spirit, paving the way to a new Chinese golden age?

Mao : A Life

John Murray Publishers, Ltd.

In Surinam, plant hunter F. W. Hostmann allowed vampire bats to suck his toes; George Forrest narrowly escaped rampaging llamas in western China; and, in Fiji, Berthold Seemann recorded which plants cannibals used as an accompaniment to human flesh. These and other incidents are recorded in this compilation of fascinating firsthand accounts of the experiences of 19th- and early-20th-century plant collectors. Extracted from journals and letters, the accounts are a mix of adventure, images from a lost world, and stories of the practical problems associated with plant collecting. Richly illustrated with a selection of 19th-century botanical art and modern photographs, In Pursuit of Plants will appeal to botanists, gardeners, and anyone interested in natural history and travel.

In Pursuit of Plants: Experiences of Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century Plant Collectors

Science & Math

Biological Sciences

Timber Press

Putin

Putin: The explosive and extraordinary new biography of Russia’s leader

Vintage

Vladimir Putin is a pariah to the West.\nAlone among world leaders, he has the power to reduce the United States and Europe to ashes in a nuclear firestorm and has threatened to do so. He invades his neighbours, most recently Ukraine, meddles in western elections and orders assassinations inside and outside Russia. The regime he heads is autocratic and corrupt.\nYet many Russians continue to support him. Despite western sanctions, the majority have been living better than at any time in the past. By fair means or foul, under Putin's leadership, Russia has once again become a force to be reckoned with.\nPhilip Short's magisterial biography explores in unprecedented depth the personality of its enigmatic and ruthless leader and demolishes many of our preconceptions about Putin's Russia. Since becoming President in 2000, his obsession has been to restore Russia's status as a great power, unbound by western rules. What forces and experiences shaped him? What led him to challenge the American-led world order that has kept the peace since the end of the Cold War?\nTo explain is not to justify. Putin's regime is dark. He pursues his goals relentlessly by whatever means he thinks fit. But on closer examination, much of what we think we know about him turns out to rest on half-truths.\nThis book is as close as we will come to understanding Russia's ruler. It also makes us revise long-held assumptions about the course of global politics since the end of the Cold War.

Bodley Head

'Magisterial' - Guardian\n'Outstanding' - Ian Kershaw\nVladimir Putin is a pariah to the West.\nAlone among world leaders, he has the power to reduce the United States and Europe to ashes in a nuclear firestorm and has threatened to do so. He invades his neighbours, most recently Ukraine, meddles in western elections and orders assassinations inside and outside Russia. The regime he heads is autocratic and corrupt.\nYet many Russians continue to support him. Despite western sanctions, the majority have been living better than at any time in the past. By fair means or foul, under Putin's leadership, Russia has once again become a force to be reckoned with.\nPhilip Short's magisterial biography explores in unprecedented depth the personality of its enigmatic and ruthless leader and demolishes many of our preconceptions about Putin's Russia. Since becoming President in 2000, his obsession has been to restore Russia's status as a great power, unbound by western rules. What forces and experiences shaped him? What led him to challenge the American-led world order that has kept the peace since the end of the Cold War?\nTo explain is not to justify. Putin's regime is dark. He pursues his goals relentlessly by whatever means he thinks fit. But on closer examination, much of what we think we know about him turns out to rest on half-truths.\nThis book is as close as we will come to understanding Russia's ruler. It also makes us revise long-held assumptions about the course of global politics since the end of the Cold War.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by philip-short. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by philip-short

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by philip-short. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Dragon and the Bear: Inside China and Russia Today (Abacus Books)

Pol Pot : The History of a Nightmare

Pol Pot: The History of a Nightmare

Mao : A Life

In Pursuit of Plants: Experiences of Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century Plant Collectors

Putin: The explosive and extraordinary new biography of Russia’s leader

Putin

Putin