Michael Sheridan – författare

‘Impressive … Fascinating’ Sunday Times ‘An authoritative history’ Financial Times ‘Gripping and richly researched’ Rana Mitter A superb new history of the rise of China and the fall of Hong Kong to authoritarian rule. The rise of China and the fall of Hong Kong to authoritarian rule are told with unique insight in this new history by Michael Sheridan, drawing on eyewitness reporting over three decades, interviews with key figures and documents from archives in China and the West.The story sweeps the reader from the earliest days of trade through the Opium Wars of the 19th century to the age of globalisation and the handover of Hong Kong from Britain to China. It ends with the battle for democracy on the city’s streets and the ultimate victory of the Chinese Communist Party.How did it come to this? We learn from private papers that Margaret Thatcher anguished over the fate of Hong Kong, sought secret American briefings on how to handle China and put her trust in an adviser who was torn between duty and pride. The deal they made with Beijing did not last.The Chinese side of this history, so often unheard, emerges from memoirs and documents, many new to the foreign reader, revealing how the party’s iron will and negotiating tactics crushed its opponents. Yet the voices of Hong Kong people – eloquent, smart and bold – speak out here for ideals that refuse to die.Sheridan’s book tells how Hong Kong opened the way for the People’s Republic as it reformed its economy and changed the world, emerging to challenge the West with a new order that raises fundamental questions about progress, identity and freedom. It is critical reading for all who study, trade or deal with China.

Jim Wallis, well-known justice advocate and author, has stated that the two great hungers in the world today are for spirituality and social justice. Although social work and related fields have increasingly recognized the importance of addressing spirituality within clinical practice, less attention has been paid to the role of spirituality in promoting social justice or supporting social change within macropractice. The contributions in this edited collection highlight current developments in this area, including emerging conceptual frameworks, practice applications and research findings. Theoretical approaches to understanding the link between spirituality and justice are explored in analyses of alternative models of social justice and justice orientations of major faith traditions. The critical role of spirituality in larger system change is illustrated through exemplars of research on vulnerable populations, community practice, legislative advocacy, development of social movements, and ecological social work. The importance of including content on religion and spirituality in professional curricula is explored through research on students’ attitudes toward spirituality and social advocacy. Noting the resonating themes within all of these contributions, the volume concludes with an overview of emerging principles for spiritual activism.This book aims to stimulate further development in the vital connection between spirituality and social justice. It was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Religion & Spirituality in Social Work.

The key to a healthy, happy and successful life is handed to you each night through your dreams. This book shows how to decipher dream messages from their symbolic form. The choice is then yours to turn the key and open the door onto a bright new world. Tonight, within minutes of falling asleep you'll find yourself at the door to this mystical world. What will you learn this time on the other side of the threshold?Dreams give advice on all aspects of your life, including health, relationships, career, spirituality and life purpose. Staying true to your life purpose is a strong theme in dreams. Dreams show why you are here, what you intend to learn about yourself, what your special abilities are and karmic obligations you have taken on.Dreams reveal how all aspects of your life are interconnected and how working on one area leads to improvement in another. Real dreams are used for illustration throughout the narrative and color maps show in detail how to analyze dreams covering each subject matter.The book includes a comprehensive symbol reference and explains why a symbol has a particular meaning and how, depending on context, it can have multiple meanings.This section also uses real dreams for illustration.

Roots of Power tells five stories of plants, people, property, politics, peace, and protection in tropical societies. In Cameroon, French Polynesia, Papua New Guinea, St. Vincent, and Tanzania, dracaena and cordyline plants are simultaneously property rights institutions, markers of social organization, and expressions of life-force and vitality. In addition to their localized roles in forming landscapes and societies, these plants mark multiple boundaries and demonstrate deep historical connections across much of the planet’s tropics. These plants’ deep roots in society and culture have made them the routes through which postcolonial agrarian societies have negotiated both social and cultural continuity and change. This book is a multi-sited ethnographic political ecology of ethnobotanical institutions. It uses five parallel case studies to investigate the central phenomenon of "boundary plants" and establish the linkages among the case studies via both ancient and relatively recent demographic transformations such as the Bantu expansion across tropical Africa, the Austronesian expansion into the Pacific, and the colonial system of plantation slavery in the Black Atlantic. Each case study is a social-ecological system with distinctive characteristics stemming from the ways that power is organized by kinship and gender, social ranking, or racialized capitalism. This book contributes to the literature on property rights institutions and land management by arguing that tropical boundary plants’ social entanglements and cultural legitimacy make them effective foundations for development policy. Formal recognition of these institutions could reduce contradiction, conflict, and ambiguity between resource managers and states in postcolonial societies and contribute to sustainable livelihoods and landscapes. This book will appeal to scholars and students of environmental anthropology, political ecology, ethnobotany, landscape studies, colonial history, and development studies, and readers will benefit from its demonstration of the comparative method.

Roots of Power tells five stories of plants, people, property, politics, peace, and protection in tropical societies. In Cameroon, French Polynesia, Papua New Guinea, St. Vincent, and Tanzania, dracaena and cordyline plants are simultaneously property rights institutions, markers of social organization, and expressions of life-force and vitality. In addition to their localized roles in forming landscapes and societies, these plants mark multiple boundaries and demonstrate deep historical connections across much of the planet’s tropics. These plants’ deep roots in society and culture have made them the routes through which postcolonial agrarian societies have negotiated both social and cultural continuity and change. This book is a multi-sited ethnographic political ecology of ethnobotanical institutions. It uses five parallel case studies to investigate the central phenomenon of "boundary plants" and establish the linkages among the case studies via both ancient and relatively recent demographic transformations such as the Bantu expansion across tropical Africa, the Austronesian expansion into the Pacific, and the colonial system of plantation slavery in the Black Atlantic. Each case study is a social-ecological system with distinctive characteristics stemming from the ways that power is organized by kinship and gender, social ranking, or racialized capitalism. This book contributes to the literature on property rights institutions and land management by arguing that tropical boundary plants’ social entanglements and cultural legitimacy make them effective foundations for development policy. Formal recognition of these institutions could reduce contradiction, conflict, and ambiguity between resource managers and states in postcolonial societies and contribute to sustainable livelihoods and landscapes. This book will appeal to scholars and students of environmental anthropology, political ecology, ethnobotany, landscape studies, colonial history, and development studies, and readers will benefit from its demonstration of the comparative method.

Jim Wallis, well-known justice advocate and author, has stated that the two great hungers in the world today are for spirituality and social justice. Although social work and related fields have increasingly recognized the importance of addressing spirituality within clinical practice, less attention has been paid to the role of spirituality in promoting social justice or supporting social change within macropractice. The contributions in this edited collection highlight current developments in this area, including emerging conceptual frameworks, practice applications and research findings. Theoretical approaches to understanding the link between spirituality and justice are explored in analyses of alternative models of social justice and justice orientations of major faith traditions. The critical role of spirituality in larger system change is illustrated through exemplars of research on vulnerable populations, community practice, legislative advocacy, development of social movements, and ecological social work. The importance of including content on religion and spirituality in professional curricula is explored through research on students’ attitudes toward spirituality and social advocacy. Noting the resonating themes within all of these contributions, the volume concludes with an overview of emerging principles for spiritual activism.This book aims to stimulate further development in the vital connection between spirituality and social justice. It was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Religion & Spirituality in Social Work.

'Michael Sheridan is one of the best informed and wisest writers on China' - Chris Patten, last governor of Hong KongThe Red Emperor presents an eye-opening portrait of Xi Jinping, the man who presides over 1.4 billion people and the second largest economy on earth. Born a 'princeling' to one of Communist China's ruling families, the young Xi was exiled to the countryside during the Cultural Revolution. He fought his way back to the top by stealth, privilege and guile. In 2012, following the spectacular fall of his rival Bo Xilai, Xi Jinping became the leader of China.In a compulsively readable narrative, veteran foreign correspondent Michael Sheridan takes the reader from the poor, isolated country of Xi's youth to the military and economic superpower of today. In Xi's new China, family mafias struggle for power amid murder, corruption and sex scandals as ministers and generals vanish in purges. No one is safe in his techno-security state. Xi is an absolute ruler whose word is law on everything from war and peace to the ruthless campaign against Covid-19. He aims to dominate world trade, to defeat Western democracy and to make China the supreme power in the East. A loner and a risk-taker, he is the most consequential leader of our time.Drawing on intimate stories from the closed world of China's leading families and two decades of first-hand reporting, Michael Sheridan sheds new light on the history and politics of China. The book reveals that behind the façade of the Chinese Communist Party there is a modern dynasty and a new emperor.

'Michael Sheridan is one of the best informed and wisest writers on China' - Chris Patten, last governor of Hong KongThe Red Emperor presents an eye-opening portrait of Xi Jinping, the man who presides over 1.4 billion people and the second largest economy on earth. Born a 'princeling' to one of Communist China's ruling families, the young Xi was exiled to the countryside during the Cultural Revolution. He fought his way back to the top by stealth, privilege and guile. In 2012, following the spectacular fall of his rival Bo Xilai, Xi Jinping became the leader of China.In a compulsively readable narrative, veteran foreign correspondent Michael Sheridan takes the reader from the poor, isolated country of Xi's youth to the military and economic superpower of today. In Xi's new China, family mafias struggle for power amid murder, corruption and sex scandals as ministers and generals vanish in purges. No one is safe in his techno-security state. Xi is an absolute ruler whose word is law on everything from war and peace to the ruthless campaign against Covid-19. He aims to dominate world trade, to defeat Western democracy and to make China the supreme power in the East. A loner and a risk-taker, he is the most consequential leader of our time.Drawing on intimate stories from the closed world of China's leading families and two decades of first-hand reporting, Michael Sheridan sheds new light on the history and politics of China. The book reveals that behind the façade of the Chinese Communist Party there is a modern dynasty and a new emperor.