Product Description: With his smooth, warm, red face which radiated light in all directions, Chairman Mao Zedong was a fixture in Chinese propaganda posters produced between the birth of the People's Republic in 1949 and the early 1980s. These infamous posters were, in turn, central fixtures in Chinese homes, railway stations, schools, journals, magazines, and just about anywhere else where people were likely to see them...read more

Product Description: In Hong Kong Corner Houses, the internationally renowned German photographer Michael Wolf continues with his visual quest for the overlooked and underappreciated urban phenomena that give a city its special character. This time, he draws our attention to Hong Kong's urban corners and buildings that are often inconspicuous amid the high-rise, high-density urban clutter of Hong Kong...read more

Amazon.com Review: Michael J. Wolf says that all businesses--even banks and supermarkets--will increasingly need to be entertaining to thrive. In The Entertainment Economy, Wolf, one of the media industry's top strategists, demonstrates how business is becoming synonymous with entertainment--a trend that is exploding because of the Internet. Although no substitute for quality, a company's "E-Factor" is critical in establishing brand and attracting fickle consumers, he writes. "We have come to expect that we will be entertained all the time," Wolf says. "Products and brands that deliver on this expectation are succeeding. Products that do not will disappear." Entertainment is becoming a big part of some industries you might not think of in this regard. For example, CNBC, a business-news cable station, is a hit because it treats the stock market like entertainment, Wolf writes. Tommy Hilfiger, a clothing retailer, became a "cool brand" by promoting rock stars and other celebrities. No merchant can escape the impact of entertainment--especially on the Internet. An online business must grab people or it will perish. When businesses stake out a position on the Web, they can't just provide online ordering. They must also feature compelling "entertainment content" to win customers. The author, a consultant for Viacom, Newscorp, and other media giants, sprinkles his book with inside stories about Ted Turner, Barry Diller, and Steven Spielberg. This book is for business owners, advertising pros, and people interested in a different take on what's driving the economy. --Dan Ring

Product Description: This trip through one of the most densely populated areas of the world is also a journey through a strangely underpopulated place, inhabited only by the traces of city dwellers.The dark back alleys that crisscross the city are home to objects that, at first glance, seem to be discarded—the random detritus of the man-made world...read more

Product Description: The calculus of variations is a beautiful subject with a rich history and with origins in the minimization problems of calculus. Although it is now at the core of many modern mathematical fields, it does not have a well-defined place in most undergraduate mathematics curricula...read more

Product Description: This is a strange book about design and lifestyle. In China, chairs are as varied as the occasions for sitting. They are not elegant, and not always comfortable. But neither are they mass-produced items: they are individuals. Each chair and stool has its own character, is a companion, a bastard, or a venerable elder...read more

Product Description: What distinguishes differential geometry in the last half of the twentieth century from its earlier history is the use of nonlinear partial differential equations in the study of curved manifolds, submanifolds, mapping problems, and function theory on manifolds, among other topics...read more