From award-winning and best-selling author, Leslie Feinberg, comes Drag King Dreams, the story of Max Rabinowitz, a butch lesbian bartender at an East... Village club where drag kings, dykes dressed as men, perform.A veteran of the women's and gay movement of the past 30 years, Max's mid-life crisis hits in the midst of the post-9/11 world. Max is lonely and uncertain about her future — fearful, in fact, of America's future with its War on Terror and War in Iraq — with only a core group of friends to turn to for reassurance. Max is shaken from her crisis, however, by the news that her friend Vickie, a transvestite, has been found murdered on her way home late one night. As the community of cross-dressers, drag queens, lesbian and gay men, and "genderqueers" of all kinds stand up together in the face of this tragedy, Max taps into the activist spirit she thought had long disappeared and for the first time in years discovers hope for her future.

HOW CAN ONE GIRL SAVE AN ENTIRE WORLD?To the nobles who live in Benden Weyr, Lessa is nothing but a ragged kitchen girl. For most of her life she has... survived by serving those who betrayed her father and took over his lands. Now the time has come for Lessa to shed her disguise—and take back her stolen birthright. But everything changes when she meets a queen dragon. The bond they share will be deep and last forever. It will protect them when, for the first time in centuries, Lessa’s world is threatened by Thread, an evil substance that falls like rain and destroys everything it touches. Dragons and their Riders once protected the planet from Thread, but there are very few of them left these days. Now brave Lessa must risk her life, and the life of her beloved dragon, to save her beautiful world. . . .

HOW CAN ONE GIRL SAVE AN ENTIRE WORLD?To the nobles who live in Benden Weyr, Lessa is nothing but a ragged kitchen girl. For most of her life she has... survived by serving those who betrayed her father and took over his lands. Now the time has come for Lessa to shed her disguise—and take back her stolen birthright. But everything changes when she meets a queen dragon. The bond they share will be deep and last forever. It will protect them when, for the first time in centuries, Lessa’s world is threatened by Thread, an evil substance that falls like rain and destroys everything it touches. Dragons and their Riders once protected the planet from Thread, but there are very few of them left these days. Now brave Lessa must risk her life, and the life of her beloved dragon, to save her beautiful world. . . .

Dragonfly Dance is a collection of poems remarkable for their candor and sense of catharsis. Writing from the vantage point of an American Indian women,... Denise Lajimodiere opens a door into the lives of Native girls and women. Her poems often reflect the deep tensions between Native culture and white culture.      Reflected in Lajimodiere's poems, life is sometimes beautiful but rarely easy. "The Necklace," the narrator details how her mother repaired a favorite beaded necklace, "her arthritic fingers patiently / threading beads / on the long thin needle, weaving / night after night." When the necklace is finally repaired, she wears it to school whereAt recess a White boy ran by, yanked it off my neck and threw it. I watched as it ascended high above the blacktop, the beads glittered, scattering their light, a rainbow against gray skies.     Unadorned, direct, and often raw, these riveting poems sear their way into our imaginations, inviting us into a world we might never have known. We are richer for the knowledge.

Contemporary / British English Young Prince Einon is dying. Only the Great Dragon can help him! But first the boy has to say, 'I won't be a cruel king.... I'll love my people and be kind to them.' But Einon is cruel, and everybody in the country is afraid. Now the Dragon, good Sir Bowen and the peasants have to fight in a great battle between Good and Bad.

Since he was first elected in 1999, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez Frias has reshaped a frail but nonetheless pluralistic democracy into a... semi-authoritarian regime—an outcome achieved with spectacularly high oil income and widespread electoral support. This eye-opening book illuminates one of the most sweeping and unexpected political transformations in contemporary Latin America. Based on more than fifteen years’ experience in researching and writing about Venezuela, Javier Corrales and Michael Penfold have crafted a comprehensive account of how the Chávez regime has revamped the nation, with a particular focus on its political transformation. Throughout, they take issue with conventional explanations. First, they argue persuasively that liberal democracy as an institution was not to blame for the rise of chavismo. Second, they assert that the nation's economic ailments were not caused by neoliberalism. Instead they blame other factors, including a dependence on oil, which caused macroeconomic volatility; political party fragmentation, which triggered infighting; government mismanagement of the banking crisis, which led to more centralization of power; and the Asian crisis of 1997, which devastated Venezuela's economy at the same time that Chávez ran for president. It is perhaps on the role of oil that the authors take greatest issue with prevailing opinion. They do not dispute that dependence on oil can generate political and economic distortions—the “resource curse” or “paradox of plenty” arguments—but they counter that oil alone fails to explain Chávez’s rise. Instead they single out a weak framework of checks and balances that allowed the executive branch to extract oil rents and distribute them to the populace. The real culprit behind Chávez’s success, they write, was the asymmetry of political power.

Showcases the growing politicization of Asian American women and their emerging feminist movement. These prominent writers, artists, and activists draw... on a wealth of personal experience and political analysis to address issues of immigration, work, health, domestic violence, sexuality, and

The author of The Soong Dynasty gives us our most vivid and reliable biography yet of the Dowager Empress Tzu Hsi, remembered through the exaggeration... and falsehood of legend as the ruthless Manchu concubine who seduced and murdered her way to the Chinese throne in 1861.

Nominated for the 1989 John W. Campbell Award, this book tells the story of Rohan, who has become the new prince of the desert. Rohan seeks to bring... peace to his world of divided nations. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

No nation on Earth is as newsworthy as 21st-century China—and no book could be timelier than Dragon Rising, as world attention focuses on China's... all-out effort to present itself as a modern world power and on the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Becker is the ideal guide to the profound changes within China that are reshaping global economic, diplomatic, and military strategies. He weaves analysis with anecdotes to address today's pressing uncertainties: How will China cope with pollution, unemployment, and demand for energy? What form will its government take? Can Shanghai's success with urban capitalism be replicated elsewhere? Each chapter focuses on a specific region and its local issues—minority unrest, poverty, corruption—then places them in the broader context of China society as a whole. Vividly illustrated with photographs that capture the paradox of an ancient culture remaking itself into a dynamic consumer society, Dragon Rising is a wonderfully written, well-rounded, wide-ranging portrait of China's problems and prospects.

Dragons & Violins is a narrative nonfiction account of the tumultuous early life of George Edgar, who was born in Persia (now Iran) at a time when... Turks & Kurds were determinedly carrying out unimaginable violence against Assyrian, Armenian and Pontic Greek Christians. Born Sargis Georges Yadgar, George Edgar's Assyrian family escaped to southern Russia, where they were caught up in the chaos of World War I and the Russian revolution and civil war. They eventually escaped to Constantinople, and finally made their way to Ellis Island and the United States on July 4th, 1921. As a poor immigrant kid surviving the Great Depression in New York, he encountered figures as renowned as violinist Fritz Kreisler, Yankee great Joe Dimaggio, and gangster Dutch Schultz. He married the beautiful "Miss Assyria" of the 1933 Chicago World's Fair, and was barred from participating as a gymnast in the 1936 Olympics because he wasn't a native-born American. But as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in World War II, he helped build dozens of assault bridges in combat at the front lines of the Allies' push from the beaches of Normandy to the outskirts of Berlin. A man who struggled throughout his life to gain the respect of his father, George Edgar, like many immigrant men of his generation, drove himself to succeed at whatever he set his heart on. His singular life unfolded against the backdrop of some of the most consequential events of the first half of the twentieth century. But despite all obstacles, nothing deterred him from his one true dream... to be a violinist.

Dragons and Tigers: A Geography of South, East, and Southeast Asia, Third Edition is the only book that covers all three regions – South Asia, East... Asia, and Southeast Asia.  It is the most comprehensive book on the market for a Geography of Asia course.  It contains updated and additional maps covering distribution of religions, physical features, linguistic and religious pluralism in Southeast Asia, and more. Using a cross-disciplinary approach, the author discusses evolving physical and cultural landscapes. New to this edition is added content coverage on the impact of globalization, environmental issues, recent environmental disasters and their effects on the region, the recent global economic crisis, migration and urbanization, gender and child welfare issues, religious conflict, agribusiness and sustainability and new patterns of trade.

The new competitive challenge from Chinese businesses is like nothing seen by Western companies since the Japanese arrived twenty years ago with their... cars and consumer electronics. To fend off these fierce competitors, managers must forget yesterday's image of Chinese companies as producers of cheap, low-quality imitations flooding world markets. In fact, by strategically implementing what the authors call cost innovation, Chinese firms are advancing into high-end products and industries and competing for such high-value activities as engineering, design, and even R&D. The first book to examine this new competitive force, "Dragons at Your Door" exposes the strategies, strengths, and weaknesses of these fast-rising Chinese competitors, surfaces the underlying logic that enables Chinese firms to attack high-end industries, and provides critical new insight into these very different competitors.

The story of Tzu Hsi is the story of the last empress in China. In the novel, Nobel Prize Winner, Pearl S. Buck recreates the life of one of the most... interesting rulers during a time of intense turbulence.Pearl S. Buck's knowledge of and fascination with the Empresses' life are contagious. She reveals the essence of this self-involved and infamous last empress, at the same time she takes the reader through China's struggle for freedom and democracy.