冲绳（琉球）原为中华朝贡体系中的一个部分，19世纪被迫从该体系中分离出去，成为日本的一部分，但和中国，特别是台湾地区，一直保持相当密切的往来。第二次世界大战后期，冲绳因发生极其惨烈的战斗、大量平民的伤亡和被迫自杀而引起世界持久的关注。二战结束后，冲绳被美国占领，后又成为美国在日本的主要驻军地区，造成非常复杂的历史和现实问题，而冲绳地区人民反占领、反基地、争民主的社会运动也一直持续不止。这些因素使得冲绳成为战后东亚地区冷战的现实标本与持久的和平民主运动的重要组成部分，并在东亚区域内日趋密切的国家和地区关系中，引发了新的讨论和关注。新崎盛晖是日本著名的冲绳近现代史专家，他关于冲绳现代史的著作，在日本有很大的读者群。

How a Chinese pirate defeated European colonialists and won Taiwan during the seventeenth century

During the seventeenth century, Holland created the world's most dynamic colonial empire, outcompeting the British and capturing Spanish and Portuguese colonies. Yet, in the Sino-Dutch War―Europe's first war with China―the Dutch met their match in a colorful Chinese warlord named Koxinga. Part samurai, part pirate, he led his generals to victory over the Dutch and captured one of their largest and richest colonies―Taiwan. How did he do it? Examining the strengths and weaknesses of European and Chinese military techniques during the period, Lost Colony provides a balanced new perspective on long-held assumptions about Western power, Chinese might, and the nature of war.

It has traditionally been asserted that Europeans of the era possessed more advanced science, technology, and political structures than their Eastern counterparts, but historians have recently contested this view, arguing that many parts of Asia developed on pace with Europe until 1800. While Lost Colony shows that the Dutch did indeed possess a technological edge thanks to the Renaissance fort and the broadside sailing ship, that edge was neutralized by the formidable Chinese military leadership. Thanks to a rich heritage of ancient war wisdom, Koxinga and his generals outfoxed the Dutch at every turn.

Exploring a period when the military balance between Europe and China was closer than at any other point in modern history, Lost Colony reassesses an important chapter in world history and offers valuable and surprising lessons for contemporary times.

A marvelous global history of the pivotal year 1945 as a new world emerged from the ruins of World War II
Year Zero is a landmark reckoning with the great drama that ensued after war came to an end in 1945. One world had ended and a new, uncertain one was beginning. Regime change had come on a global scale: across Asia (including China, Korea, Indochina, and the Philippines, and of course Japan) and all of continental Europe. Out of the often vicious power struggles that ensued emerged the modern world as we know it.
In human terms, the scale of transformation is almost impossible to imagine. Great cities around the world lay in ruins, their populations decimated, displaced, starving. Harsh revenge was meted out on a wide scale, and the ground was laid for much horror to come. At the same time, in the wake of unspeakable loss, the euphoria of the liberated was extraordinary, and the revelry unprecedented. The postwar years gave rise to the European welfare state, the United Nations, decolonization, Japanese pacifism, and the European Union. Social, cultural, and political “reeducation” was imposed on vanquished by victors on a scale that also had no historical precedent. Much that was done was ill advised, but in hindsight, as Ian Buruma shows us, these efforts were in fact relatively enlightened, humane, and effective.
A poignant grace note throughout this history is Buruma’s own father’s story. Seized by the Nazis during the occupation of Holland, he spent much of the war in Berlin as a laborer, and by war’s end was literally hiding in the rubble of a flattened city, having barely managed to survive starvation rations, Allied bombing, and Soviet shock troops when the end came. His journey home and attempted reentry into “normalcy” stand in many ways for his generation’s experience.
A work of enormous range and stirring human drama, conjuring both the Asian and European theaters with equal fluency, Year Zero is a book that Ian Buruma is perhaps uniquely positioned to write. It is surely his masterpiece

In an age unhealthily obsessed with substance, this is a book on the importance of pure style. From classic poetry to pop lyrics and from the King James Bible to advertising slogans, Mark Forsyth explains the secrets that make a phrase - such as 'Tiger, Tiger, burning bright', or 'To be or not to be' - memorable. In his inimitably entertaining and witty style he takes apart famous lines and shows how you too can write like Shakespeare or Oscar Wilde. Whether you're aiming for literary immortality or just an unforgettable one-liner, The Elements of Eloquence proves that you don't need to have anything to say - you simply need to say it well.

1937-1945年的上海，正经历着由孤岛转为全面沦陷的最黑暗时期。乱世求生与民族大义，成为每个中国人必须面对的道德困境与政治抉择。本书以王统照、李健吾和《古今》作者群为代表，通过大量翔实的史料和精彩的文本分析，记录了身处“灰色上海”的中国文人或隐退、或反抗、或合作的相互纠结的生存形态，细致逼真地还原出他们所经历的残酷精神拷问和无情的道德审判。本书的杰出之处不仅在于为我们记录了这段讳莫如深的民族精神史，更在于它向正统的历史叙述发出了挑战：究竟谁是汉奸？汉奸该怎样认定？谁能做出最终的判决？究竟该如何理解这段沉默的历史？本书带来全新的阐释。

现代社会中，最能称得上“甲之甘露，乙之砒霜”者，大概非香烟莫属。在如今日益高涨的禁烟呼声中，香烟的形象蒙上了阴影，虽然它在公共场所中渐渐销声匿迹，却并未远离公众的视线。
吸烟习惯最早见于美洲的印第安部落，后由西方殖民者传遍欧洲。尽管盛行吸鼻烟的法国曾一度表示抗拒，但经拿破仑一世到三世，吸食热烟的风尚最终以风卷残云之势征服了整个法兰西大地：无论高贵的君王、时髦的绅士，还是平凡人家乃至风尘女子，似乎大家指间都夹着一支雪茄。随着时间的推移，香烟制造从最初的作坊加工演变为工业化生产，香烟外形也逐渐变为尺寸一致的圆柱体。二战时期的美国大兵们将扁平烟盒包装引入了欧洲，彩色缎带捆扎的传统包装形式由此退出了历史的舞台……

The story of a man's obsession with whales, which takes him on a personal, historical and biographical journey -- from his childhood to his fascination with Moby-Dick and his excursions whale-watching. All his life, Philip Hoare has been obsessed by whales, from the gigantic skeletons in London's Natural History Museum to adult encounters with the wild animals themselves. Whales have a mythical quality -- they seem to elide with dark fantasies of sea-serpents and antediluvian monsters that swim in our collective unconscious. In 'Leviathan', Philip Hoare seeks to locate and identify this obsession. What impelled Melville to write 'Moby-Dick'? After his book in 1851, no one saw whales in quite the same way again. This book is an investigation into what we know little about -- dark, shadowy creatures who swim below the depths, only to surface in a spray of spume. More than the story of the whale, it is also the story of our own obsessions.

在线阅读本书
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize. In this "artful, informative, and delightful" (William H. McNeill, New York Review of Books) book, Jared Diamond convincingly argues that geographical and environmental factors shaped the modern world. Societies that had had a head start in food production advanced beyond the hunter-gatherer stage, and then developed religion --as well as nasty germs and potent weapons of war --and adventured on sea and land to conquer and decimate preliterate cultures. A major advance in our understanding of human societies, Guns, Germs, and Steel chronicles the way that the modern world came to be and stunningly dismantles racially based theories of human history. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science, the Rhone-Poulenc Prize, and the Commonwealth club of California's Gold Medal.

"Among the many books written on Germany after the collapse of Hitler's Thousand Year Reich, this book by Milton Mayer is one of the most readable and most enlightening."--Hans Kohn, "New York Times Book Review "
"It is a fascinating story and a deeply moving one. And it is a story that should make people pause and think--think not only about the Germans, but also about themselves."--Ernest S. Pisko, "Christian Science Monitor "
"Writing as a liberal American journalist of German descent and Jewish religious persuasion Mr. Mayer aims--and in the opinion of this reviewer largely succeeds--at scrupulous fairness and unsparing honesty. It is this that gives his book its muscular punch."--Walter L. Dorn, "Saturday Review "
"Once again the German problem is at the center of our politics. No better, or more humane, or more literate discussion of its underlying nature could be had than in this book."--August Heckscher, " New York Herald Tribune "

扶桑十旬记（外三种） 》收录了1903—1907四位出使日本的清朝官员的见闻笔记：杨芾《扶桑十旬记》、王景禧《日游笔记》、许柄榛《甲辰考察日本商务日记》、张维兰《乙巳东游日记》四种。

本書從政治、外交、社會和文化的多重視角，闡析中共如何借鏡蘇聯經驗，運用小說、教科書、歌曲、電影等媒介及勞動模範和女拖拉機手典型，塑造「新人」；傳播「新人」必須具備的條件，包括站穩無產階級立場，實踐黨國至上、集體為重、勞動光榮和男女平等諸多觀 念。蘇聯經驗是毛澤東時代中共施政的重要參照座標；但隨著中蘇關係從蜜月到反目的翻轉，中共宣傳「新人」的重點也隨之產生變化。全書藉由比較與對照中蘇風俗習慣、國家發展，以及領袖觀念與價值偏好，分析蘇聯經驗在中國發生變化的背後成因，進而討論斯大林模式在中國的適用性。毛澤東不斷強化階級鬥爭的觀點和政策，是對斯大林模式的重大修正。此外，研究中共所宣傳的新人觀，也有助於了解紅衛兵在文革前十七年的養成教育，以及毛澤東政權的本質。毛時代中共對「新人」的宣傳，造成二元對立的價值觀，其影響至今猶見。

All who lived in the early 1950s remember the fear of polio and the elation felt when a successful vaccine was found. Now David Oshinsky tells the gripping story of the polio terror and of the intense effort to find a cure, from the March of Dimes to the discovery of the Salk and Sabin vaccines--and beyond. Here is a remarkable portrait of America in the early 1950s, using the widespread panic over polio to shed light on our national obsessions and fears. Drawing on newly available papers of Jonas Salk, Albert Sabin and other key players, Oshinsky paints a suspenseful portrait of the race for the cure, weaving a dramatic tale centered on the furious rivalry between Salk and Sabin. Indeed, the competition was marked by a deep-seated ill will among the researchers that remained with them until their deaths. The author also tells the story of Isabel Morgan, perhaps the most talented of all polio researchers, who might have beaten Salk to the prize if she had not retired to raise a family. As backdrop to this feverish research, Oshinsky offers an insightful look at the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, which was founded in the 1930s by FDR and Basil O'Connor. The National Foundation revolutionized fundraising and the perception of disease in America, using "poster children" and the famous March of Dimes to raise hundreds of millions of dollars from a vast army of contributors (instead of a few well-heeled benefactors), creating the largest research and rehabilitation network in the history of medicine. The polio experience also revolutionized the way in which the government licensed and tested new drugs before allowing them on the market, and the way in which the legal system dealt with manufacturers' liability for unsafe products. Finally, and perhaps most tellingly, Oshinsky reveals that polio was never the raging epidemic portrayed by the media, but in truth a relatively uncommon disease. But in baby-booming America--increasingly suburban, family-oriented, and hygiene-obsessed--the spectre of polio, like the spectre of the atomic bomb, soon became a cloud of terror over daily life.

《干校札记》为中国社科院经济所研究员张纯音之女徐方所作的回忆录。1969年，徐方随母亲及学部（中国社科院前身）的一众学者下放到河南息县“五七”干校。当时只有十五六岁的她，用少年的眼光写出了顾准、俞平伯、何其芳、吕叔湘、丁声树、陆志韦、巫宝三、骆耕漠、吴敬琏、陈瑞铭等知识分子的灰色往事，首度大量披露了其中鲜为人知的一手材料。《干校札记》另外还收录了作者关于张纯音、张耀翔、陈翰笙和孙家琇等老一辈知识分子的回忆文章，具有极高的史料和文学价值。

In this thrilling panorama of real-life events, Patrick Radden Keefe investigates a secret world run by a surprising criminal: a charismatic middle-aged grandmother, who from a tiny noodle shop in New York’s Chinatown managed a multi-million dollar business smuggling people.
Keefe reveals the inner workings of Sister Ping’s complex empire and recounts the decade-long FBI investigation that eventually brought her down. He follows an often incompetent and sometimes corrupt INS as it pursues desperate immigrants risking everything to come to America, and along the way, he paints a stunning portrait of a generation of illegal immigrants and the intricate underground economy that sustains and exploits them. Grand in scope yet propulsive in narrative force, The Snakehead is both a kaleidoscopic crime story and a brilliant exploration of the ironies of immigration in America.

Life's Greatest Secret is the story of the discovery and cracking of the genetic code. This great scientific breakthrough has had far-reaching consequences for how we understand ourselves and our place in the natural world. The code forms the most striking proof of Darwin's hypothesis that all organisms are related, holds tremendous promise for improving human well-being, and has transformed the way we think about life. Matthew Cobb interweaves science, biography and anecdote in a book that mixes remarkable insights, theoretical dead-ends and ingenious experiments with the pace of a thriller. He describes cooperation and competition among some of the twentieth-century's most outstanding and eccentric minds, moves between biology, physics and chemistry, and shows the part played by computing and cybernetics. The story spans the globe, from Cambridge MA to Cambridge UK, New York to Paris, London to Moscow. It is both thrilling science and a fascinating story about how science is done.

The human head is exceptional. It accommodates four of our five senses, encases the brain, and boasts the most expressive set of muscles in the body. It is our most distinctive attribute and connects our inner selves to the outer world.
Yet there is a dark side to the head’s preeminence, one that has, in the course of human history, manifested itself in everything from decapitation to headhunting. So explains anthropologist Frances Larson in this fascinating history of decapitated human heads. From the Western collectors whose demand for shrunken heads spurred massacres to Second World War soldiers who sent the remains of the Japanese home to their girlfriends, from Madame Tussaud modeling the guillotined head of Robespierre to Damien Hirst photographing decapitated heads in city morgues,from grave-robbing phrenologists to skull-obsessed scientists, Larson explores our macabre fixation with severed heads.

臺灣近代70年，一路怎樣走過來？
看清藏在歷史中的影武者
讓政治歸政治，讓歷史還原歷史……
1945年二戰結束後，在美、蘇爭霸的世界局勢中，美國把從日本統治中奪回的臺灣交給蔣介石接收，「扶蔣反共」策略定調，從此開啟了戰後臺灣史的新頁……
在美國戰略布局謀略之下，臺灣人剛掙脫「皇民化」，又立刻成為防阻共產勢力跨越的「西太平洋防線」樞紐。臺灣北承阿留申群島、日本、韓國、琉球群島，下接菲律賓、紐西蘭、澳洲，外有美、蘇角力，內有國、共相抗……在這樣的大時代背景下，臺灣人走過二二八事件、戒嚴、報禁、黨禁、白色恐怖、兩蔣統治、十大建設、聯招、萬年國會、美麗島事件、野百合學運等重大事件，歷經各類社會運動與抗爭後，終於一路走向民主化。
作者出生於1930年代，和臺灣同步走過1945～2015年的光陰，本於客觀立場，跳脫「統獨爭議」，以歷史和國際法的俯瞰角度，細究每個重大事件的前因後果。全書同時收錄二十個「WHY」，針對敏感話題抽絲剝繭，鑑古知來，豁然開朗；並輔以珍貴的歷史照片，讓讀者回顧近代臺灣史的重要時刻與人事物，重溫戰後七十年走過的點點滴滴。