All our books and encyclopedias are available in digital formats, most of them at other locations, from OxfordReference and eBooks.com to Amazon.com and Smashwords. A few popular titles are also available for direct download from our website at prices ranging from $0 to $14.99, depending on length and how recently they were published.
In this revised and updated edition, China expert Kerry Brown provides insightful answers to today’s questions about the world’s newest superpower. Beyond that, This Is China provides an engaging historical and cultural overview, as a framework for understanding China's meteoric rise and the complex challenges of the post-COVID-19 world. With all this in little more than 100 pages, This Is China is the shortest expert-written introduction to both historic and contemporary China. Listen to the podcast.
The Way of Eating: Yuan Mei`s Manual of Gastronomy (the Suiyuan Shidan) is, remarkably, the first translation into English of one of the world's most famous books about food. It is a treatise, cookbook, and memoir written in the late eighteenth century by the Qing dynasty poet Yuan Mei. It is the little sister edition of Berkshire's bilingual academic version of the book, which is published as Recipes from the Garden of Contentment. It includes recipes for well-known dishes such as birds nest and sharks fin, and offers modern readers an appealing perspective on Chinese history and culinary culture, and was translated and annotated by Sean J. S. Chen with editorial advice from E. N. Anderson and Jeffrey Riegel. This edition is in English only but it includes and explains some important Chinese terms. It's a unique introduction to the true cuisines of China, designed for readers interested in the social history of food as well as in techniques and recipes. The editorial team’s aim was to convey the charm, humor, and erudition of one of China’s greatest writers. Chinese food expert Nicole Mones, author of the novel The Last Chinese Chef, has contributed an engaging introduction to Yuan Mei and his work. “This is far more than a cookbook: "The Way of Eating is food history at its finest, a window into a fascinating and long-lost world.” Ruth Reichl, former editor of Gourmet magazine and author of Save Me the Plums.
This Is America: A Short History of the United States offers a unique guide to the United States of America, a nation that in recent history has been the most affluent, influential, and powerful on Earth, known for innovation as well as for its belief in its own “exceptionalism.” This book will give US citizens and people elsewhere a more nuanced view of the "beautiful country."
Becoming a Dragon: Forty Chinese Proverbs, is a bilingual (English-Chinese) collection of proverbs, popular phrases, and two-part allegorical sayings, designed for self-study and classroom teaching. Each proverb comes with the story behind the proverb and its source in both English and Chinese, a literal translation, the figurative meaning, an English equivalent, a vocabulary list, and examples of how the proverb is used in modern written and spoken Chinese.
This Is Islam presents a lively introduction to a religion that has a dramatic history and plays a crucial role in the world today.
Women and Leadership: History, Concepts, and Case Studies provides valuable research by experts on leadership and women’s history to help students and citizens who want a more nuanced explanation of what we know about women as leaders – and about how they have led in different fields, in different parts of the world, and in past centuries.
In this thoughtful appraisal of the novels and writings of Jane Austen, Mr. Mudrick shows Austen to be a writer of acute and irreverent sensibilities who, despite the constricted circumstances of her life, managed to create in her novels an enduring microcosm of the larger world. With deep insight into the creative mind and its artistic motives, Mr. Mudrick examines all of her writings as aspects of a developing personal irony, an irony that later became the vital principle of her art. It was her ironic detachment, he maintains, that enabled her to expose and dissect, in novels that are masterpieces of comic wit and brilliant satire, the follies and delusions of eighteenth-century English society.- Sale!
This illustrated edition of The Autobiography of W. E. B. Du Bois is the first to be arranged and dedicated in accordance with Du Bois’s manuscript notes. It begins with these words: "I was born by a golden river and in the shadow of two great hills, five years after the Emancipation Proclamation which began the freeing of American Negro Slaves." Du Bois was born in the town where Berkshire Publishing Group is located. His autobiography tells the story of a little boy, the only Black boy in his school, who became the first African American PhD at Harvard, an educator, editor, and activist, and a writer of expressive, lyrical, and accessible prose. While the Communism he praised did not turn out to offer the utopia so many hoped for, the problems he identified are still with us. His reasoning will resonant with modern readers who share his frustration with the continued inequities in our society. Read about Karen Christensen's discovery of the original manuscript: "A Du Bois Discovery." 
Home Ecology: how to make your world a better place is not a green consumer guide. It is about living better, not buying better. Karen Christensen discusses ecological issues such as conservation, pollution, and recycling in terms of simple. There are many practical suggestions covering all areas of domestic, social, and working life, from the importance of utilizing natural sunlight, to growing organic tomatoes in a windowbox or substituting natural and biodegradable cleaners instead of bleach. Home Ecology isn't about guilt, or perfection, but about beginning a process of change to a healthy, sustainable way of life. Alan Durning of the Worldwatch Institute called Home Ecology is the pick of the environmental lifestyle titles of the '90s because of its “humor and common sense critique of consumerism.” Home Ecology was first published in the UK by Arlington Books, and later in the United States by Fulcrum Books.
The Joy of Tippling is a toast to importance of drinking together, crafted by the ultimate tippler. Like Ray Oldenburg's bestselling The Great Good Place, his new book is packed with factual information, humor and wit, personal insights, and sound sociological observations. The Joy of Tippling is a celebration of third places, and a call to community. “Great news, tipplers! The killjoys, buzzcrushers, pinch-faced scolds, and puritans are WRONG. Knocking a couple back at the local bar is good for you. In The Joy of Tippling, sociologist and inveterate tippler Ray Oldenburg tells us why, backed up with solid research, indisputable facts and real news, all cheerfully served with dash and wit.” — John Tebeau, author of Bars, Taverns, and Dives New Yorkers Love
Sewing Circles, Dime Suppers, and W. E. B. Du Bois: A History of the Clinton A. M. E. Zion Church offers fresh insight into a small New England church's role in the national civil rights movement. This is the original edition. An updated edition is also available, with the title The African American Community in Rural New England: W. E. B. Du Bois and His Boyhood Church.- Sale!
The Good Library Manual is a practical guide to transforming any public library—large and small, city and rural—by making every aspect of the library experience appealing and enjoyable, from the moment someone sees the building and walks in the door to the time when they check out.