John King Fairbank was the West's doyen on China, and this book is the full and final expression of his lifelong engagement with this vast ancient civilization. It remains a masterwork without parallel. The distinguished historian Merle Goldman brings the book up to date, covering reforms in the post-Mao period through the early years of the twenty-first century, including the leadership of Hu Jintao. She also provides an epilogue discussing the changes in contemporary China that will shape the nation in the years to come.

This book surveys the ways sex and sexuality have been made the subjects of history. It critically analyses some of the key histories of the last forty years; from the early efforts of historians like Steven Marcus to work out a model for sexual history, through to the extraordinary impact of French philosopher Michel Foucault. It explores the vigorous debates about essentialism and social constructionism in the 1980s and early 1990s and the emergence of contemporary debates about historicism, queer theory, embodiment, gender and cultural history shaping the now vast and diverse historical scholarship on sex and sexuality. Histories of Sexuality also focuses on a number of key debates about the history of sex and sexuality in Britain, Europe and America.

With original essays by leading scholars, this book explores the social history of the medieval eastern Roman Empire and offers illuminating new insights into our knowledge of Byzantine society.
Provides interconnected essays of original scholarship relating to the social history of the Byzantine Empire.
Offers groundbreaking theoretical and empirical research in the study of Byzantine society.
Includes helpful glossaries of sociological/theoretical terms and Byzantine/medieval terms.

The first single-volume reference work on the history and culture of medieval France, this information-filled Encyclopedia of over 2,400 entries covers the political, intellectual, literary, and musical history of the country from the early fifth century to the late 15th. The shorter entries offer succinct summaries of the lives of individuals, events, works, cities, monuments, and other important subjects, followed by essential bibliographies. Longer essay-length articles provide interpretive comments about significant institutions and important periods or events. The Encyclopedia is thoroughly cross-referenced and includes a generous selection of illustrations, maps, charts, and genealogies

Humorist Barry offers a look at the new millennium thus far in this collection of the annual reviews that Barry offers through his newspaper columns. It consists of month-to-month commentary on the most outrageous events of the year—Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction, the "heck of a job" done by Michael Brown during Hurricane Katrina, the failure to find WMDs in Iraq—all delivered with Barry's hilarious look at the absurdities of American life. The book includes 32 line drawings that add to the fun, as well as a bonus look at history during the first millennium, from 1000 through 1999. Barry fans and readers looking for a lighter perspective on the history of world events will enjoy this book.