1 comments about Go2Guides China Ages 5-7 (Travel Guides for Kids Who Are Going Places).

1. I have always wanted a guide that is written for children! The Go2Guides are perfect. So much information is a colorful and unique guide. My children are adopted from China and we are planning a trip back to see and learn about their country and heritage. These guides gave them so much critical and interesting information. I especially like that there are guides for the different age levels. My thirteen year old loved hers and my 6 year old was thrilled with her guide. It was obvious that each were written with the age level, interest level, and reading level in mind! I can't recommend them enough. Even if you never travel to China, the Go2Guides wonderful to expose your children do different countries. I am looking forward to the next ones!

No comments about Where Hong Kong CityGuide (Where Cityguides).

1 comments about Tibet Style.

1. A delightful photo essay recording the innate sense of style in the way the beautiful Tibetan people have dressed themselves for centuries. The combinations and compositions of textiles, color, animal skins , embellishments and ornamentation is nothing less than spectacular...considering they had no access to any parisian couture salon. Often with many cases of tribal dressing, there is more function than pure design at work, but despite, the aesthetic is stunningly raw, yet eye catchingly oppulent. And their natural rugged, even harsh, environment only enhances the glorious, majestic glamour of their native clothing.

1 comments about Chiang Mai Travel Map (Globetrotter Travel Map).

1. Not much to say other than this is a well organized map and certainly does the trick for anyone heading to CNX.

No comments about Shark's Fins and Millet.

1 comments about San Francisco, Chinatown: A Walking Tour.

1. As a professional tour director and author I'm always on the lookout for good reference books to popular cities for my tours. I am often asked to do walking tours of the Chinatown area in San Francisco and this guide is the one I refer to. It is also useful in understanding other Chinatowns in North America. It's laid out and written very well. I hope she does an updated version in 2002 or 2003.

1 comments about Beijing & Shanghai: China's Hottest Cities, Second Edition (Odyssey Illustrated Guides).

1. I always travel with two guides to a place--one to read and the other to tell me where to eat. With "literary excerpts" and topical features on the naming and renaming of Beijing and the "singsong houses" of old Shanghai, this is a book to read before, during, and after a trip to the two cities. Each of the two sections is written by a resident of the city, and each takes a different approach, as these very dissimilar cities demand. Illustrations and maps abound. Listings of hotels, restaurants and shops are limited and likely to be out of date, as the books by this publisher seem to be updated every two or three years.

1 comments about River Road to China: The Search for the Source of the Mekong, 1866-73.

1. Osborne's book is an excellent account of the first European expedition up the Mekong River, from Saigon into the Southwestern region of the Chinese empire. As it is based on official and unofficial records of the exploration, written by the actual members of the French team, the account is both vivid and accurate, and conveys so much of the hardship and heartache experienced by the Frenchmen and those who accompanied them. It is also a profound and readable introduction to the history of Southeast Asia, its relation to China, and its position as the centerpiece of a colonial competition for trade, conquest, and scientific discovery. Great book!

3 comments about China's Space Program - From Conception to Manned Spaceflight (Springer Praxis Books / Space Exploration).

1. For those in the West with little overall knowlwdge of the Chinese space effort, this is the primer. The book provides a fun read through the preperations and efforts to launch the first Chinese human to space orbit. Brian Harvey provides very useful insight to those who are looking globally in the human quest for space access. The book provides hope that the third nation to launch humans to space will mature and take serious the rhetoric of building a space station, or better yet, a Chinese program to put humans on the Moon. Harvey's book would have been made better with utilization of color photos splashed about the book.



2. China is still a developing country. But it has the distinction of being only the third country to launch a human into space, after Russia and the US. Harvey tells of the arduous path that China took. There have been the driving forces of international prestige and the building of a credible nuclear deterrent. The latter has required the ability to launch missiles into space in a controlled manner.
   
   Harvey has conducted impressive research into a subject still heavily shrouded in secrecy. He describes many successes made by the Chinese. But also failures. Though the reader should remember that Russia and America have had their share of disasters, including the loss of lives.
   
   The text also shows that in recent years, the Chinese space program has increasingly turned to commercial applications. Notably satellite imaging of the earth and communications. This reflects China's massive growth, with the increased need for such tasks as better analysis of weather patterns for agriculture. Also, the space program has started to perform more scientific research. All of this is a good sign for the future, both for China and the rest of the world.



3. China is clearly one of the space players in this century. Her resources are ample, both regarding technical knowhow and intellectual power, there is an unfailing sense of the ultimate goal - manned presence outside the Earth, and the intermediate goals - using the space for earthly purposes, are well understood. The Chinese space programme dates from the fifties, when the US, to their ultimate regret, evicted one of the fine minds who, at that time, was busy pioneering American astronautics. Political unrest - to say the least - on and off threatened to derail the development of missile technology, launchers and satellite technology. The space leaders come through as steadfast in the turmoil of the times, and as the political leadership in China moved from revolutionary fervour onto controlled economic evolution, so the space programme has moved more steadily tovards orderly development. All this and more are presented in this book, which bears the Harvey hallmark of being well researched, lucidly expositioned and showing deep insight in the subject at hand. I read it as one reads a novel of suspence and mystery, it now occupies a honored place along my other reference litterature on space.
   When, during the coming years, we await new Chinese exploits in space, we need the understanding put forth in this book on the Chinese approach to development. Harvey illustrates how, in face of adversities, the Chinese space leaders, like the proverbial turtle, contrive to move slowly but inexorably towards their goals, when the hares in and of the United States fritters away resources by jumping hither and yon. It may well be that the tortoise yet overtakes the hare, if not in a race to the surface of the Moon, then to the sands of Mars.

5 comments about Mapping the Tibetan World.

1. 
   
   If one is not interested in purely religious destinations, another book might be in order.
   This book is concerned only with religious destinations in Tibet.
   Mountain climbers, trekkers, or bikers concerned perhaps with more terrestrial matters would be better served by a book with mile markers, better maps, and more information on lodging.
   
   I was in Tibet in March of 2002 climbing Mt. Nojin Kansa. I had this book; another guy had a book I won't bother to name. I constantly referred to the other book for mile markers, pass altitudes, international phone providers, etc.
   
   This book will get thee to a nunnery in short order. It will not provide the best maps or travel details.



2. 'Mapping the Tibetan World' is a very ambitious project, and one that succeeds brilliantly.

   The once-great Tibetan world, though based on common culture and language, has splintered over the centuries into slabs attached to China, India and Nepal--with Bhutan the sole independent nation remaining. This book reassembles the complex jigsaw into a cohesive whole again, making it the perfect guidebook for travellers keen on visiting overlapping regions of the Tibetan plateau on a single trip.

   The marvel is how all the complex data is compressed into 424 pages. The maps are highly detailed and many are not found in other sources: among them are excellent trekking maps.

   If you want to explore the Tibetan sphere of influence, this is the book.

   Michael Buckley, travel writer, author of Heartlands: Travels in the Tibetan World and the Tibet Travel Adventure Guide




3. 'Mapping the Tibetan World' is a very ambitious project, and one that succeeds brilliantly.

   The once-great Tibetan world, though based on common culture and language, has splintered over the centuries into slabs attached to China, India and Nepal--with Bhutan the sole independent nation remaining. This book reassembles the complex jigsaw into a cohesive whole again, making it the perfect guidebook for travellers keen on visiting overlapping regions of the Tibetan plateau on a single trip.

   The marvel is how all the complex data is compressed into 424 pages. The maps are highly detailed and many are not found in other sources: among them are excellent trekking maps.

   If you want to explore the Tibetan sphere of influence, this is the book.

   Michael Buckley, travel writer, author of Heartlands: Travels in the Tibetan World and the Tibet Travel Adventure Guide




4. You must have for its massive information and detail map which inculding every need of buddhism pilgrims (It's kind of rare on popular market), but for the traveling data quite out of date, especially for Tibet's situation. (I am not sure for rest of India, Nepal and Bhutan.... cause I didn't use this book as other areas.)



5. We spent a month in Tibet and that included more than 2000 miles overland across the tibetan plateau from Lhasa to Mt Kailash and back. This book was a continous companion of mine and I have to admit I have never come across a better guidebook while I travelled to other continents. You will not realize it till you look back at those amazing weeks and the tattered book of yours, to realize that how much you referred to it. The guys who wrote it, please accept my hearty congratulations. You have done a phenomenal job. just one minor suggestion. I have yet to come across a tibetan guidebook that recommends wearing masks or carrying them. Once you are out in the open desert in a 4x4, unless you have a mask, 2 weeks of exposure would lead to nose-bleed due to dry air and continuous dust dumped into your 4x4 (at least it did in my case- call me a pansy :-)