Operation Yao Ming

The riveting story behind NBA giant Yao Ming, the ruthless Chinese sports machine that created him, and the East-West struggle over China’s most famous son. The NBA’s 7‘6" All-Star Yao Ming has changed the face of basketball, revitalizing a league desperate for a new hero while becoming a multimillionaire pitchman for Reebok and McDonald’s. But his journey to America—like that of his forgotten foil, 7‘1" Wang Zhizhi—began long before he set foot on the world’s brightest athletic stage. Operation Yao Ming opens with the story of the two boys’ parents, basketball players brought together by Chinese officials intent on creating a generation of athletes who could bring glory to their resurgent motherland. Their children would have no more freedom to choose their fates. By age thirteen, Yao was pulled out of sports school to join the Shanghai Sharks pro team, following in the footsteps of Wang, then the star of the People’s Liberation Army team. Rumors of the pair of Chinese giants soon attracted the NBA and American sports companies, all eager to tap a market of 1.3 billion consumers. In suspenseful scenes, journalist Brook Larmer details the backroom maneuverings that brought China’s first players to the NBA. Drawing on years of firsthand reporting, Larmer uncovers the disturbing truth behind China’s drive to produce Olympic champions, while also taking readers behind the scenes of America’s multibillion-dollar sports empire. Caught in the middle are two young men—one will become a mega-rich superstar and hero to millions, the other a struggling athlete rejected by his homeland yet lost in America.

A behind-the-scenes profile of the Chinese NBA star and the factors that drove his career reveals how his basketball player parents were brought together by Chinese officials intent on creating Olympic athletes, his role as a corporate pitchman, and the struggle between China and America over his NBA draft, in an account that simultaneously traces the life of fellow athlete Wang Zhizhi. 50,000 first printing.

In 2002, Yao Ming became the NBA's first foreign #1 draft pick and a media sensation. Sports writer Ric Bucher was the only American reporter with unrestricted access to Yao's first year in the NBA. Now available in paperback, Yao: A Life in Two Worlds captures Yao's private story and traces his remarkable journey from Chinese success story to international icon. Whether winning over skeptical teammates, or treading lightly with ever-watchful Chinese officials, Yao reveals the many challenges he has faced with delicacy and humor. Spanning sports, politics, business, and popular culture, Yao's fascinating memoir reveals the humble, profoundly likeable young man behind the myth.

Key advances in Semiconductor Terahertz (THz) Technology now promises important new applications enabling scientists and engineers to overcome the challenges of accessing the so-called "terahertz gap". This pioneering reference explains the fundamental methods and surveys innovative techniques in the generation, detection and processing of THz waves with solid-state devices, as well as illustrating their potential applications in security and telecommunications, among other fields. With contributions from leading experts, Semiconductor Terahertz Technology: Devices and Systems at Room Temperature Operation comprehensively and systematically covers semiconductor-based room temperature operating sources such as photomixers, THz antennas, radiation concepts and THz propagation as well as room-temperature operating THz detectors. The second part of the book focuses on applications such as the latest photonic and electronic THz systems as well as emerging THz technologies including: whispering gallery resonators, liquid crystals, metamaterials and graphene-based devices. This book will provide support for practicing researchers and professionals and will be an indispensable reference to graduate students in the field of THz technology. Key features: Includes crucial theoretical background sections to photomixers, photoconductive switches and electronic THz generation & detection. Provides an extensive overview of semiconductor-based THz sources and applications. Discusses vital technologies for affordable THz applications. Supports teaching and studying increasingly popular courses on semiconductor THz technology.

From the former New York Times Beijing bureau chief comes a closely observed story of a struggling Chinese basketball team and its quixotic, often comical attempt to make the playoffs by copying the American stars of the NBA. When the worst professional basketball team in China, the Shanxi Brave Dragons, hired former NBA coach Bob Weiss to improve its fortunes, the team's owner, Boss Wang, promised that Weiss would be allowed to Americanize his players by teaching them "advanced basketball culture." That promise would be broken from the moment Weiss landed in China. As we follow this team of colorful oddballs on a fascinating road trip through modern China, we see Weiss learn firsthand what so many other foreigners there have discovered: that changing China happens only when and how China wants to be changed.

"A major contribution to the study of global events in times of global media. Owning the Olympics tests the possibilities and limits of the concept of 'media events' by analyzing the mega-event of the information age: the Beijing Olympics. . . . A good read from cover to cover." —Guobin Yang, Associate Professor, Asian/Middle Eastern Cultures & Sociology, Barnard College, Columbia University From the moment they were announced, the Beijing Games were a major media event and the focus of intense scrutiny and speculation. In contrast to earlier such events, however, the Beijing Games are also unfolding in a newly volatile global media environment that is no longer monopolized by broadcast media. The dramatic expansion of media outlets and the growth of mobile communications technology have changed the nature of media events, making it significantly more difficult to regulate them or control their meaning. This volatility is reflected in the multiple, well-publicized controversies characterizing the run-up to Beijing 2008. According to many Western commentators, the People's Republic of China seized the Olympics as an opportunity to reinvent itself as the "New China"---a global leader in economics, technology, and environmental issues, with an improving human-rights record. But China's maneuverings have also been hotly contested by diverse global voices, including prominent human-rights advocates, all seeking to displace the official story of the Games. Bringing together a distinguished group of scholars from Chinese studies, human rights, media studies, law, and other fields, Owning the Olympics reveals how multiple entities---including the Chinese Communist Party itself---seek to influence and control the narratives through which the Beijing Games will be understood. digitalculturebooks is an imprint of the University of Michigan Press and the Scholarly Publishing Office of the University of Michigan Library dedicated to publishing innovative and accessible work exploring new media and their impact on society, culture, and scholarly communication. Visit the website at www.digitalculture.org.

Bill Carter, executive producer of CNN’s docuseries The Story of Late Night and host of the Behind the Desk: Story of Late Night podcast, details the chaotic transition of The Tonight Show from host Jay Leno to Conan O’Brien—and back again. In 2010, NBC’s CEO Jeff Zucker, had it all worked out when he moved Jay Leno from behind the desk at The Tonight Show, and handed the reins over to Conan O'Brien. But his decision was a spectacular failure. Ratings plummeted, affiliates were enraged—and when Zucker tried to put everything back the way it was, that plan backfired as well. No one is more uniquely suited to document the story of a late-night travesty than veteran media reporter and bestselling author, Bill Carter. In candid detail, he charts the vortex that sucked in not just Leno and O'Brien—but also Letterman, Stewart, Fallon, Kimmel, and Ferguson—as frantic agents and network executives tried to manage a tectonic shift in television’s most beloved institution.

Sex, Booze, Violence, Racism, Easy Money, Hard Fouls & Cheap Laughs in the NBA Autobiography of Jayson Williams, the all-star centre for the New Jersey Nets, one of the best players in the NBA, probably the strongest, and definitely the funniest man in basketball. His irreverent take on life, on and off court, have drawn comparisons with Dennis Rodman but the difference is that Williams is actually very funny.

This book presents cutting-edge theories, techniques, and methodologies in the multidisciplinary field of high-speed railways, sharing the revealing insights of elite scholars from China, the UK and Japan. It demonstrates the achievements that have been made regarding high-speed rail technologies in China from all aspects, while also providing a macro-level comparative study of related technologies in different countries. The book offers a valuable resource for researchers, engineers, industrial practitioners, graduate students, and professionals in the fields of Vehicles, Traction Power Supplies, Materials, and Infrastructure.

Electrochromic Smart Materials covers major topics related to the phenomenon of electrochromism, including fundamental principles, classes and subclasses of electrochromic materials, device processing and manufacturing.