East Asia

As a National Public Radio reporter covering the last stand of the Taliban in Afghanistan's southern borderland, Sarah Chayes became deeply immersed in the attempt to rebuild a broken nation. With her NPR assignment finished in early 2002, she left reporting to help turn around the country's fortunes, accepting a job running a nonprofit founded by President Hamid Karzai's brother. With remarkable access to leading players in the postwar government, Chayes witnessed a tragic, perverse turn of events.

The British East India Company served as one of the key players in the formation of the British Empire. From its origins as a trading company struggling to keep up with its superior Dutch, Portuguese, and Spanish competitors to its tenure as the ruling authority of the Indian subcontinent to its eventual hubristic downfall, the East India Company serves as a lens through which to explore the much larger economic and social forces that shaped the formation of a global British Empire.

During the occupation of Japan after WWII, the US had an important decision to make. Should they hold those responsible for atrocities during the war accountable or should they take the information to advance national interest? The researchers who worked at Unit 731, the biological and chemical warfare research and development unit, were given immunity in exchange for their research data. Unit 731 included factories filled with humans, tested with various diseases, as well as field tests on civilians of the Soviet Union and China.

Making sense of today's world can often seem like a daunting task, especially when it comes to understanding cultures and societies seemingly diametrically opposed to one another, such as China and the United States. Fact-dense and charmingly insightful, Kaleidoscope of the East focuses on Chinese history, culture, societal development, politics, religion, and arts. This expansive collaboration introduces Western audiences to aspects of China usually forgotten by media seeking sensationalized stories.

Are you interested in the beautiful cultures of the east? Are you looking for a historic account for how the east has developed? If so, look no further. This bundle provides a fascinating look into the rich and diverse cultures of the East. In this bundle, you'll discover the unique stories and struggles of each country, from the ancient kingdoms to modern-day societies.

Afghanistan, a landlocked country in Central Asia, has improbably been at the center of international geopolitics for four decades. After the Soviet Union invaded in 1980, Afghanistan descended into an unending conflict that featured at various points most of the world's major powers. In Afghanistan: What Everyone Needs to Know, leading scholar Barnett R. Rubin provides an overview of this complicated nation. After providing a concise history of Afghanistan, he explores the various peoples and cultures of the country and its relations with neighbors like Pakistan and Iran.

Huge international companies and corporations are a normal part of our everyday lives today. For most, their unimaginable wealth and power, rivaling even some of the smaller countries of the world, is something we take for granted. And we see them as the living embodiment of the capitalist system, regardless if we take it as a good or a bad omen. However, this wasn’t always the case.

The key to understanding the calamitous Afghan war is the complex, ultimately failed relationship between the powerful, duplicitous Karzai family and the United States, brilliantly portrayed here by the former Kabul bureau chief for The Washington Post.

For more than 2,500 years, the forbidding territory of Afghanistan has served as a vital crossroads not only for armies but also for clashes between civilizations. As a result of the United States' engaging in armed conflict with the Afghan regime, an understanding of the military history of that blood-soaked land has become essential to every American.

This is the story of three terrible famines. The first is an Gorta Mór, the great hunger of Ireland, which began in 1846. The second is the deadly famine that struck Bengal in 1943. The third is the Ethiopian famine, which first sprung up in lethal form in the 1970s under Emperor Haile Selassie and then reappeared under the brutal dictator Mengistu in the 1980s.

In this dramatic first-person narrative, Greg Mortenson picks up where Three Cups of Tea left off in 2003, recounting his relentless, ongoing efforts to establish schools for girls in Afghanistan; his extensive work in Azad Kashmir and Pakistan after a massive earthquake hit the region in 2005; and the unique ways he has built relationships with Islamic clerics, militia commanders, and tribal leaders. He shares for the first time his broader vision to promote peace through education and literacy.

Zulaikha hopes. She hopes for peace, now that the Taliban have been driven from Afghanistan; a good relationship with her hard stepmother; and one day even to go to school, or to have her cleft palate fixed. Zulaikha knows all will be provided for her "Inshallah," God willing. Then she meets Meena, who offers to teach her the Afghan poetry she taught her late mother. And the Americans come to her village, promising not just new opportunities and dangers, but surgery to fix her face. These changes could mean a whole new life for Zulaikhabut can she dare to hope they'll come true?

This New York Times best-seller delivers the untold story behind the last battle of the Cold War, the rise of militant Islam, and how a colorful congressman from Texas conspired with a rogue CIA operative to launch the most successful covert operation in CIA history.

Shahan Mufti’s family history, which he can trace back 1,400 years to the inner circle of the prophet Muhammad, offers an enlightened perspective on the mystifying history of Pakistan. Mufti uses the stories of his ancestors, many of whom served as judges and jurists in Muslim sharia courts of South Asia for many centuries, to reveal the deepest roots - real and imagined - of Islamic civilization in Pakistan.

Eight years ago we chased the Taliban from Kabul and forced al-Qaeda to find a new home. One by one the militants crossed the border into Pakistan and settled in its tribal areas, building alliances with locals and terrorizing or bribing their way to power. This place---Pakistan's lawless frontier---is now the epicenter of global terrorism. It is where young American and British jihadists go to be trained, where the kidnapped are stowed away, and where plots are hatched for deadly attacks all over the world.

Greater Than a Tourist - Dhaka Bangladesh, by Mehnaz Meem, offers the inside scoop on Dhaka.

Greater Than a Tourist: Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates by Ranim Nourallah offers the inside scoop on Abu Dhabi. As part of the Greater Than a Tourist series, this audiobook will give you travel tips from someone who has lived at your next travel destination. You’ll discover advice that will help you throughout your stay. This audiobook will not tell you exact addresses or store hours but instead will give you excitement and knowledge from a local that you may not find in other travel audiobooks.

In 2008, American journalist Jere Van Dyk was kidnapped and held for 45 days. At the time, he had no idea who his kidnappers were. They demanded a ransom and the release of three of their comrades from Guantanamo, yet they hinted at their ties to Pakistan. In The Trade, Jere Van Dyk uses the sinuous path of his own kidnapping to explain the recent rise in the taking of Western hostages across the greater Middle East.

Born in Britain, Saira Shah was inspired by her father's dazzling stories to rediscover the now lost life their forebears knew for 900 years within sight of orchards, snow-topped mountains, and the minarets of Kabul. This is Saira, part sophisticated and sensitive Western liberal, part fearless (even fierce) life-gulping Afghan, falling in love with her ancestral myth, chasing Afghanistan.

Constructed over a span of about 20 years in the mid-17th century as a mausoleum for the wife of Emperor Shah Jahan, the Taj Mahal is aptly described by UNESCO, which designated it a World Heritage site, as "the jewel of Muslim art in India and one of the universally admired masterpieces of the world's heritage".