New Book Announcement: “John Greaves, Pyramidographia and Other Writings, with Birch’s Life of John Greaves”, edited by John Anthony Butler

John Greaves, Pyramidographia and Other Writings, with Birch's Life of John Greaves", John Anthony Butler (ed) (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, August 2018)
John Greaves, Pyramidographia and Other Writings, with Birch’s Life of John Greaves”, John Anthony Butler (ed) (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, August 2018)

This is a modern-spelling edition of John Greaves’s Pyramidographia (1646), together with some miscellaneous travel-writings, letters and a biography of Greaves by Thomas Birch. It includes a full scholarly introduction and detailed notes. This book is the first of its kind in English, and undertakes a scientific evaluation of the pyramids through metrics, using state-of-the-art instruments and drawing on both ancient and modern authorities, amongst which is included Arab and Persian writers as well as Western sources.

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“The South China Sea Disputes: Historical, Geopolitical and Legal Studies” edited by Tsu-Sung Hsieh

This latest volume in the Series on Contemporary China published by World Scientific looks at the historical, geopolitical, and legal aspects of the ongoing disputes over the South China Sea and its islands, reefs, and rocks. Edited by Tsu-sung Hsieh, a retired Taiwanese navy captain and professor at the Ming Chuan University School of Law in Taipei, the book is composed of papers presented at the 2017 South China Sea Conference by scholars from Taiwan, China, the Philippines, and the United States.

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Norwegian soprano Margrethe Fredheim wins inaugural Hong Kong International Operatic Singing Competition

Norwegian soprano Margrethe Fredheim has won the inaugural Hong Kong International Operatic Singing Competition (2018) with performances of “Come scoglio” from Mozart’s Così fan tutte, “Song to the Moon” from Dvorak’s Rusalka and “Einsam in trüben Tagen” from Wagner’s Lohengrin.

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“The Flying Tigers: The Untold Story of the American Pilots Who Waged a Secret War Against Japan” by Sam Kleiner

The Second World War actually began on 7 July 1937 at the Marco Polo Bridge southwest of Beijing, when Imperial Japanese troops clashed with Nationalist Chinese forces. Japan had annexed Manchuria in 1931, but Chinese forces did not fight back then; instead, China’s leaders appealed in vain to the League of Nations. Six years later, after another Japanese-manufactured “incident”, China would fight back.

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