{"title":"Richard J Smith","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"chinese-maps-book-richard-j-smith-9780195859492","title":"Chinese Maps","description":"For nearly two thousand years the Chinese emperor, ruler of \"All under heaven\", demanded the obedience not only of his subjects in China but also of tributary peoples throughout the known world. This work explores the history of Chinese map-making, giving special emphasis to the political, military, and administrative uses of maps, the images of foreign \"barbarians\" seen in maps and encyclopaedias, and the role of these materials in the maintenance of China's image of itself as the Middle Kingdom.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50345530097937,"sku":"CIN0195859499G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52505409749265,"sku":"GOR009274245","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0195859499.jpg?v=1750972655"},{"product_id":"negotiating-environment-and-science-book-richard-j-smith-9780415505482","title":"Negotiating Environment and Science","description":"In this thought-provoking new book, career U.S. State Department negotiator Richard J. Smith offers readers unprecedented access to the details about some of the most complex and politically charged international agreements of the late and immediate post Cold War era. During his nine years as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, Smith led U.S. negotiations on many significant international agreements. In Negotiating Environment and Science, Smith presents first-hand, in-depth accounts of eight of the most high-profile negotiations in which he was directly involved. The negotiations Smith covers are wide-ranging and include the London agreement to amend the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, the international space station agreement, the U.S.-Soviet (eventually, U.S.-Russian) agreement on scientific cooperation, the U.S.-Canada acid rain agreement, the negotiations in Sofia, Bulgaria that established a first link between human rights and the environment, and a contentious confrontation with Japan over driftnet fishing. Smith chronicles the development of these negotiations, the challenges that emerged (as much within the U.S. delegations as with the foreign partners), and the strategies that led to substantive treaties. Smith infuses his narrative with unique historical insight as well as astute observations that can guide U.S. strategies toward productive international agreements in the future. His book also highlights the shift in diplomatic focus over the past 25 years from arms control and other security-related agreements to international and trans-boundary agreements that address global environmental threats and promote cooperative approaches in science and technology. 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This book is written for retired persons, or persons near retirement. Younger people may enjoy it as an insight into old age. \u003cem\u003eTales from a Twilight House\u003c\/em\u003e is a compilation of commentary, poetry and prose written by a man residing in a continuing care retirement community on the west coast of Florida. At the age of eighty-nine, having lost his wife of sixty-four years and many friends, he looks at life from the top of a ladder of years and decades. His insights from that perch offer readers a philosophy to grow old by.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50387485982993,"sku":"CIN1646630068G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1646630068.jpg?v=1750763991"},{"product_id":"musings-of-an-old-man-book-richard-j-smith-9781633935952","title":"Musings of an Old Man","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eMusings of an Old Man: Some Prose and Poetry \u003c\/em\u003eto Ponder is like a bowl of vegetable soup.\u003c\/strong\u003e Each selection is nourishing in itself, and in combination leave readers intellectually and emotionally satisfied.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe selections are humorous, serious, thought-provoking and written with an economy of words. The subject matter ranges from the idiosyncrasies of the English language to observations of nature to living well in old age.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eMusings of an Old Man\u003c\/em\u003e is a book that can be picked up and put down at any time. The short narratives, essays and poetry all address the everydays of life we often fail to notice. They prompt both smiles and tears. Each offers something to think about and discuss with others. All are to be enjoyed while giving the reader thoughts to ponder.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50397435199761,"sku":"CIN1633935957G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1633935957.jpg?v=1750895634"},{"product_id":"fathoming-the-cosmos-and-ordering-the-world-book-richard-j-smith-9780813927053","title":"Fathoming the Cosmos and Ordering the World","description":"Fathoming the Cosmos and Ordering the World is the first full-length study in any Western language of the development of the Yijing in China from earliest times to the present. Drawing on the most recent scholarship in both Asian and Western languages, Richard J. Smith offers a fresh perspective on virtually every aspect of Yijing theory and practice for some three thousand years. Smith introduces the reader to the major works, debates, and schools of interpretation surrounding this ancient text, and he shows not only how the Book of Changes was used in China as a book of divination but also how it served as a source of philosophical, psychological, literary, and artistic inspiration.Among its major contributions, this study reveals with many vivid examples the richness, diversity, vitality, and complexity of traditional Chinese thought. In the process, it deconstructs a number of time-honored interpretive binaries that have adversely affected our understanding of the Yijing - most notably the sharp distinction between the school of images and numbers (xiangshu) and the school of meanings and principles (yili).  The book also demonstrates that, contrary to prevailing opinion among Western scholars, the rise of evidential research (kaozheng xue) in late imperial China did not necessarily mean the decline of Chinese cosmology. Smith's study reveals a far more nuanced intellectual outlook on the part of even the most dedicated kaozheng scholars, as well as the remarkable persistence of Chinese correlative thinking to this very day.Finally, by exploring the fascinating modern history of the Yijing, Fathoming the Cosmos and Ordering the World attests to the tenacity, flexibility, and continuing relevance of this most remarkable Chinese classic.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":50707099287825,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50707099582737,"sku":"GOR014043023","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0813927056.jpg?v=1750979724"},{"product_id":"brain-exercises-for-older-adults-book-richard-j-smith-9781614937753","title":"Brain Exercises for Older Adults","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51095734550801,"sku":"NIN9781614937753","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52539081294097,"sku":"NLS9781614937753","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1614937753.jpg?v=1750895824"},{"product_id":"mapping-china-and-managing-the-world-book-richard-j-smith-9780415685092","title":"Mapping China and Managing the World","description":"From the founding of the Qin dynasty in 221 BCE to the present, the Chinese have been preoccupied with the concept of order (zhi). This cultural preoccupation has found expression not only in China’s highly refined bureaucratic institutions and methods of social and economic organization but also in Chinese philosophy, religious and secular ritual, and a number of comprehensive systems for classifying every form of human achievement, as well as all natural and supernatural phenomena. Richard J. Smith’s Mapping China and Managing the World focuses on several crucial devices employed by the Chinese for understanding and ordering their vast and variegated world, which they saw as encompassing \"all under Heaven.\"   The book begins with discussions of how the ancient work known as the Yijing (Classic of Changes) and maps of \"the world\" became two prominent means by which the Chinese in imperial times (221 BCE to 1912) managed space and time. Smith goes on to show how ritual (li) served as a powerful tool for overcoming disorder, structuring Chinese society, and maintaining dynastic legitimacy. He then develops the idea that just as the Chinese classics and histories ordered the past, and ritual ordered the present, so divination ordered the future. The book concludes by emphasizing the enduring relevance of the Yijing in Chinese intellectual and cultural life as well as its place in the history of Sino-foreign interactions.   This selection of essays by one of the foremost scholars of Chinese intellectual and cultural history will be welcomed by Chinese and East Asian historians, as well as those interested more broadly in the cultures of, and interactions between, China and East Asia.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51130547732753,"sku":"NIN9780415685092","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52522123723025,"sku":"NLS9780415685092","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0415685095.jpg?v=1750740648"},{"product_id":"please-step-aside-i-am-a-frequent-flyer-book-richard-j-smith-9781460911310","title":"Please Step Aside - I AM A FREQUENT FLYER","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51132613886225,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51132615688465,"sku":"NIN9781460911310","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1460911318.jpg?v=1751306056"},{"product_id":"china-s-cultural-heritage-book-richard-j-smith-9780813313474","title":"China's Cultural Heritage","description":"The Qing Dynasty (16441912)a crucial bridge between traditional and modern Chinawas a period remarkable for its expansiveness and cultural sophistication.  In this extensively revised and expanded edition of his highly regarded book, Richard J.  Smith shows how the Chinese of the Qing Dynasty viewed the world; how their outlook was expressed in their institutions, material culture, and customs; and how Chinas preoccupation with order, unity, and harmony contributed to the remarkable cohesiveness and continuity of traditional Chinese civilization.  In addition to offering a new and challenging interpretation of Chinese culture as a whole, he provides a fresh perspective on a wide variety of topics, from gender issues, philosophy, religion, and mythology, to language, aesthetics, and symbolism.  He also examines a number of important but too-often neglected aspects of traditional Chinese daily life, including divination, food, music, sexual practices, festivals, child-rearing, and games. Based on the authors careful rethinking of certain themes and arguments presented in the first edition, this revised version of Chinas Cultural Heritage also draws heavily upon the enormous body of new scholarship on Chinese history and culture that has appeared in the last decade.  Although focused primarily on the Qing Dynasty, the book not only sheds valuable light on the distant past but it helps us to understand Chinas contemporary problems of modernization.  A concluding chapter systematically explores the legacy of traditional Chinese culture to the twentieth century.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51323708113169,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51323710472465,"sku":"CIN0813313473G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0813313473.jpg?v=1750947055"},{"product_id":"qing-dynasty-and-traditional-chinese-culture-book-richard-j-smith-9781442221932","title":"The Qing Dynasty and Traditional Chinese Culture","description":"The Qing dynasty (1636-1912)--a crucial bridge between traditional and modern China--was remarkable for its expansiveness and cultural sophistication. This engaging and insightful history of Qing political, social, and cultural life traces the complex interaction between the Inner Asian traditions of the Manchus, who conquered China in 1644, and indigenous Chinese cultural traditions. Noted historian Richard J. Smith argues that the pragmatic Qing emperors presented a Chinese face to their subjects who lived south of the Great Wall and other ethnic faces (particularly Manchu, Mongolian, Central Asian, and Tibetan) to subjects in other parts of their vast multicultural empire. They were attracted by many aspects of Chinese culture, but far from being completely sinicized as many scholars argue, they were also proud of their own cultural traditions and interested in other cultures as well. Setting Qing dynasty culture in historical and global perspective, Smith shows how the Chinese of the era viewed the world; how their outlook was expressed in their institutions, material culture, and customs; and how China's preoccupation with order, unity, and harmony contributed to the civilization's remarkable cohesiveness and continuity. Nuanced and wide-ranging, his authoritative book provides an essential introduction to late imperial Chinese culture and society.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51687902642449,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51687903985937,"sku":"NIN9781442221932","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52348568142097,"sku":"NLS9781442221932","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":53499786559761,"sku":"CIN1442221933G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1442221933.jpg?v=1759402515"},{"product_id":"cosmology-ontology-and-human-efficacy-book-richard-j-smith-9780824814434","title":"Cosmology, Ontology and Human Efficacy","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51695531720977,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":51695532540177,"sku":"CIN0824814436A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0824814436.jpg?v=1751076996"},{"product_id":"fathoming-the-cosmos-and-ordering-the-world-book-richard-j-smith-9780813940465","title":"Fathoming the Cosmos and Ordering the World","description":"Offers the first full-length study in any Western language of the development of the Yijing in China from earliest times to the present. 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Setting Qing dynasty culture in historical and global perspective, Smith shows how the Chinese of the era viewed the world; how their outlook was expressed in their institutions, material culture, and customs; and how China's preoccupation with order, unity, and harmony contributed to the civilization's remarkable cohesiveness and continuity. Nuanced and wide-ranging, his authoritative book provides an essential introduction to late imperial Chinese culture and society.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52587016061201,"sku":"NLS9781442221925","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781442221925.jpg?v=1761055544"},{"product_id":"chinese-almanacs-book-richard-j-smith-9780195852882","title":"Chinese Almanacs","description":"Despite efforts by Chinese governments to suppress their popularity, and the influence of Western ideas and science, almanacs have been one of the most widely distributed and read publications in Chinese societies all over the world. Perhaps no other single class of artifacts reflects more clearly the essence of inherited culture and its evolution in China in late imperial and modern times. Beautifully illustrated with block-prints and full-color covers, Chinese almanacs provide a unique insight into the structure, beliefs, hopes, and concerns of Chinese societies around the world. This perceptive introduction traces the almanacs' links with traditional calendars, astrology, and divination, and examines their importance as indexes of continuity and change, popular hopes and fears, aesthetic preferences, ethical concerns, and symbolic expression from the Tang dynasty to the present day.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53146999914769,"sku":"GOR004213487","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53147448803601,"sku":"GOR006757911","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780195852882.jpg?v=1771690734"},{"product_id":"fortune-tellers-and-philosophers-book-richard-j-smith-9780367159801","title":"Fortune-tellers and Philosophers","description":"Providing an analysis of Chinese divination as a means of organizing and interpreting reality, Richard Smith examines a wide variety of mantic techniques - from the use of the hallowed Yjing to such popular practices as siting (geomancy), astrology, numerology, physiognomy, the analysis of written characters, meteorological divination, the use of mediums (including spirit-writing), and dream interpretation. As he explains the pervasiveness and tenacity of divination in China, the author explores not only the connections between various mantic techniques but also the relationship between divination and other facets of Chinese culture, including philosophy, science and medicine. He discusses the symbolism of divination, its aesthetics, its ritual aspects, and its psychological and social significance, pointing out that in traditional China divination helped to order the future, just as history helped to order the past, and rituals the present.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53644470976785,"sku":"NLS9780367159801","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780367159801.jpg?v=1781273429"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/collections\/author-books-by-richard-j-smith.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}