Little Emperors


Book Description

Short-listed for the 2009 City of Victoria Butler Book Prize Much has been made about how the New China has become an economic juggernaut in today’s world while civil liberties and basic freedoms remain constricted. We know where the aging leadership has taken and is taking China, but what about the very young? What are they like? When JoAnn Dionne arrived in Guangzho, she came prepared to live and teach elementary school in a Communist country. She expected to see soldiers in the streets, people in grey Mao suits, and lineups to buy toilet paper. Instead she found the world’s oldest country, throwing itself headlong into the future. She found traffic jams and 24/7 constructions, neon lights and smog, shopping malls and modern high-rises. And then she met the people who would live in that future – her students. Along with crisp insights into Chinese culture as seen through the eyes of a North American, Dionne provides a funny, often poignant glimpse of a nation undergoing rapid transformation.




Little Emperors


Book Description

JoAnn Dionne, who travelled to China to teach elementary school, offers a funny, poignant glimpse of a nation undergoing rapid transformation.




The Little Emperors


Book Description

As barbarian hordes cut Britania off from Rome, ‘little emperors’ step into the power void... Having served at the Imperial Court itself, Felix, treasurer of Britannia, struggles in provincial Britain. Every penny is needed to fight the invading barbarians. Preoccupied with status and finances, he barely notices that his wily father-in-law is engineering a coup – one which forces Felix to flee for his life. Barbarians have cut off contact with Rome and ‘little emperors’ are springing up across Albion, ready to rule in Caesar’s stead. Who will survive this dangerous game of power? An extraordinary novel of the Roman empire, filled with intrigue and danger, perfect for fans of Simon Scarrow, Ben Kane and Christian Cameron. Praise for Alfred Duggan ‘A story of intrigue and revolt, of suspense and action... Duggan is an enormous talent.’ Queen




Feeding China’s Little Emperors


Book Description

This book focuses on how the transformation of the food habits of Chinese children—involving snack foods, soft drinks, and fast foods from such Western outlets as McDonald's and Kentucky Fried Chicken—has changed the intimate relationship of childhood, parenthood, and family life.




Little Emperors and Material Girls


Book Description

China is the world's fastest-growing economic powerhouse. Everybody knows this. But behind the headlines a once-in-a-generation sexual and cultural revolution is taking place - all in the bars, cafes and streets of China's growing mega-cities. Welcome to this new China. Writer and journalist Jemimah Steinfeld meets the young people behind the world's fastest-moving nation to unveil their attitudes towards love, life and sexuality. Young Chinese have new words to describe the world they live in: 'little emperors' - single men who have grown up under the one child policy - they're bossy and selfish; 'bare branches' - those without children; 'leftovers' - women over twenty-six who aren't married; 'comrade' - how the gay community identifies itself; 'love markets' - weekend gatherings across China where parents attempt to find husbands and wives for their children, and others show up to match-make young singles and even offer boyfriends for hire.Jemimah Steinfeld introduces the people at the heart of this world, from the woman starting China's first online dating agency to the mistresses of the rich and powerful; from the company trying to sell sex toys to China's middle-classes to the sino-punks of Beijing's bar scene. Little Emperors and Material Girls is the book which will change the way you see China.




The Little Emperors’ New Toys


Book Description

Drawing on original research I conducted in the late 1980s, the book argues for a critical approach to the study of children and television. It begins with critical reappraisals of previous empiricist and interpretative studies to set the ground for a different theoretical inquiry which links biography with history. The situated activity of children’s television viewing therefore has to be related to the broader historical and cultural formations in post-Mao China. By way of a methodological pluralism of questionnaire survey, in-depth interviews and observation, the book provides the reader with a thorough critical analysis of the rise of the new commercial ethic in Chinese society in general, and in the sector of media and communications in particular, at the very historical turning point of the late 1980s. Soon after that, Deng Xiaoping made his significant tour to south China, reckoning a big step forward towards further liberalization and started to form a brave new world in China ever since. ​




The Little Emperors


Book Description




Little Emperors and Material Girls


Book Description

China is the world's fastest-growing economic powerhouse. Everybody knows this. But behind the headlines a once-in-a-generation sexual and cultural revolution is taking place - all in the bars, cafes and streets of China's growing mega-cities. Welcome to this new China. Writer and journalist Jemimah Steinfeld meets the young people behind the world's fastest-moving nation to unveil their attitudes towards love, life and sexuality. Young Chinese have new words to describe the world they live in: 'little emperors' - single men who have grown up under the one child policy - they're bossy and selfish; 'bare branches' - those without children; 'leftovers' - women over twenty-six who aren't married; 'comrade' - how the gay community identifies itself; 'love markets' - weekend gatherings across China where parents attempt to find husbands and wives for their children, and others show up to match-make young singles and even offer boyfriends for hire.Jemimah Steinfeld introduces the people at the heart of this world, from the woman starting China's first online dating agency to the mistresses of the rich and powerful; from the company trying to sell sex toys to China's middle-classes to the sino-punks of Beijing's bar scene. Little Emperors and Material Girls is the book which will change the way you see China.




Only Hope


Book Description

This is the first book to examine the high-pressure lives of teenagers born under China's one-child family policy. Based on a survey of 2,273 students and 27 months of participant-observation in Chinese homes and schools, it explores the social, economic, and psychological consequences of the one-child policy.




The Emperor's New Drugs


Book Description

Do antidepressants work? Of course -- everyone knows it. Like his colleagues, Irving Kirsch, a researcher and clinical psychologist, for years referred patients to psychiatrists to have their depression treated with drugs before deciding to investigate for himself just how effective the drugs actually were. Over the course of the past fifteen years, however, Kirsch's research -- a thorough analysis of decades of Food and Drug Administration data -- has demonstrated that what everyone knew about antidepressants was wrong. Instead of treating depression with drugs, we've been treating it with suggestion. The Emperor's New Drugs makes an overwhelming case that what had seemed a cornerstone of psychiatric treatment is little more than a faulty consensus. But Kirsch does more than just criticize: he offers a path society can follow so that we stop popping pills and start proper treatment for depression.