Bienvenue en Chine – Le petit guide du savoir vivre

A new guide of Chinese etiquette and business practices

By Li Xin and Natalie Monegier du Sorbier

This book is the result of a friendly collaboration between Li Xin (Director of Etudes Chinoises) and Natalie Monegier du Sorbier (a businesswoman with more than 30 years of experience in industry and finance). The writing is clear and funny, guiding the reader through the essentials of daily and business life in China, and giving concrete advice on how to improve communication between Westerners and Chinese, no matter what their relationship (be it business-related or intimate). Bienvenue en Chine shows the true China. It gives the reader a useful reference for better understanding Chinese culture and emphasizes Chinese views on Westerners' behavior.

Africa's Future: Darkness to Destiny

How the past is shaping Africa's economic evolution

By Duncan Clarke

Africa's unique economic evolution impacted the continent's current economies and will shape its future. Today, as economists, politicians and experts from within and outside the continent seek to "fix" Africa and its perceived problems, the need to understand its mysteries has never been greater. Africa's Future: Darkness to Destiny tells the tale of the continent's economic evolution, providing unique prisms through which to view its story – ultimately one of triumph over the influences of nature and multiple political tragedies. It explains how Africa effectively devolved for 1,500 years, from the Roman Empire to 1500 CE. Only in more recent times has Africa gradually begun to move forward, reaching a point at which its modern and archaic economies uneasily coexist. Modern Africa has developed diverse economic pathways to betterment – yet survivalist economies still litter the landscape. The continent's paradox of "subsistence with many faces" is manifested in its tiny middle class, its growing wealthy population, and the ever-greater numbers of poor expected in the future.

River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze

By Peter Hessler

When Peter Hessler went to China in the late 1990s, he expected to spend a couple of peaceful years teaching English in Fuling, a town on the Yangtze River. But what he experienced - the natural beauty, cultural tension, and complex understanding that one gains when living in a radically different society - surpassed anything he could have imagined. Hessler observes firsthand how major events such as the death of Deng Xiaoping, the return of Hong Kong to the mainland, and the controversial construction of the Three Gorges Dam affected the locals in the remote town of Fuling. Poignant, thoughtful and utterly compelling, "River Town" is an unforgettable portrait of a place caught mid-river in time, much like China itself - a country seeking to understand both what it was and what it will one day become.