Rebels At The Gate

Rebels at the Gate is the dramatic story of the first Union victories of the Civil War and the events that caused Virginians to divide their state. In a defiant act to sustain President Lincoln's war effort, Virginia Unionists created their own state government in 1861-destined to become the new state of West Virginia.

Using firsthand accounts—journals, letters from British officers in the field, reports from colonial governors in the colonies—Michael Pearson has provided a contemporary report of the Revolution as the British witnessed it. Seen from this perspective, some of the major events of the war are given startling interpretations: For example, the British considered their defeat at Bunker Hill nothing more than a minor setback, especially in light of their capture of New York and Philadelphia. Only at the very end of the conflict did they realize that the Yankees had lost the battles but won the war. From the Boston Tea Party to that day in 1785 when the first U.S. ambassador presented his credentials to a grudging George III, here is the full account of "those damned rebels" who somehow managed to found a new nation.

As one of the few foundational texts to provide a critical overview of the aesthetics and politics of the leftist literary movement in China, The Gate of Darkness was previously published by the University of Washington Press in 1968 to great critical acclaim. Posthumously edited by the author's brother Professor C. T. Hsia, this book critiques the works of leftist Chinese writers including Lu Hs?n, Chiang Kuangtz'u, and the "Five Martyrs." As one of the few foundational texts to provide a critical overview of the aesthetics and politics of China's leftist literary movement, The Gate of Darkness examines the conflicting dilemmas between leftist authors' own ideals and the strict ideological frameworks imposed by the propaganda policies of the Chinese Communist Party in the early twentieth century. Numerous reviews appearing in the leading East Asian studies journals have acknowledged the historical importance of the book which has few comparisons. The cultural critic Leo Oufan Lee believes that this book gives one of the most significant scholarly analyses of Lu Xun's work towards the end of his life, revealing the "darkness" that pervaded his later works such as "Wild Grass." He calls Tsian Hsia "a creative and compassionate scholar" who has opened Lu Hs?n's inner "gate of darkness" to unveil "a fascinating world of demons and ghosts as dramatized in village operas and popular superstitions."

A 21st century take on Dispatches, award-winning VICE News journalist Aris Roussinos tells the real stories behind life in a rebel army. The hidden truth about war is how much fun it is. However they begin, whatever their aims, wars are fought by young men. They fight in burned-out buildings and shelter under thorn trees. They eat their meagre rations, and starve for days cut off from supply lines. They smoke forty cigarettes a day and ride to war stoned, listening to Craig David. But the bombs and bullets are terrifyingly real, and the guys they’re killing aren’t always faceless enemies: sometimes they’re friends. For the last three years, award-winning journalist Aris Roussinos embedded himself with rebel groups across the world. Part travelogue from the world’s most dangerous hotspots, part eyewitness testimony to recent, bloody history, this is one man’s uncensored, unflinching account of living with the enemy.

Mei Lin, a woman warrior, and pigboy Wang Lee find love, intrigue, adventure, and danger as rebels seeking to overthrow the Chinese emperor during the 1850s amid the Taiping Rebellion.

Rodney Hilton's account of the Peasant's Revolt of 1381 remains the classic authoritative text on the 'English Rising'. Hilton views the revolt in the context of a genral European pattern of class conflict. He demonstrates that the peasant movements that disturbed the Middle Ages were not mere unrelated outbreaks of violence but had their roots in common economic and political conditions and in a recurring conflict of interest between peasants and landowners. Now with a new introduction by Christopher Dyer, this survey is still a leading source for students of medieval English peasantry.

A vivid chronicle of events in the feudal states of China between 722 and 468 B.C., the Tso Chuan has long been considered both a major historical document and and an influential literary model. Covering over 250 years, these historical narratives focus not only on the political, diplomatic, and military affairs of ancient China, but also on its economic and cultural developments during the turbulent era when warring feudal states were gradually working towards unification. Ending shortly after Confucius' death in 479 B.C., the Tso Chuan provides a background to the life and thought of Confucius and his followers that is available in no other work.