Visitors around the world have traveled to Europe to see the tall spires and stained glass windows of the continent’s Gothic cathedrals: in Cologne, Chartres, Milan, Florence, York and Paris. The trappings of Gothic architecture have become shorthand for “medieval Europe”. Yet in Stealing from the Saracens: How Islamic Architecture Shaped Europe, Diana Darke investigates the Islamic origins of Gothic architecture, tracing its history through pre-Islamic Syria through the Islamic empires to the tall European cathedrals between the 12th and 17th centuries.
Author: Nicholas Gordon
As China grows into a major regional and global power, there are many questions about what this means for the international system. Does China threaten the United States? Does Washington want to aggressively contain China? Are we really facing a “New Cold War”? And what does this mean for everyone else?
“Decoupling” is the international relations word-of-the-day. American politicians have long criticized the massive trade deficit between the United States and China, but pandemic-driven disruptions to supply chains and deepening tensions between Beijing and Washington have now encouraged policies to start rolling back the links between the two economies. And it’s not just the United States: Europe, Japan, and Taiwan have all mooted policies to reduce their reliance on Chinese manufacturing.
There will, one imagines, be quite a few books written about Hong Kong’s year of protests, from journalistic retellings from the front-lines, memoirs from influential figures, and attempts to tie the protests to a broader “New Cold War” narrative. There have already been a few.
China’s Hong Kong has the rare privilege of being a book made extremely timely due to current events. The anti-extradition bill protests that have raged for months have made Hong Kong’s governance—normally interesting only to those that live in the city—a topic of global concern.
Nicholas Gordon talks to Lindsay Varty, author of Sunset Survivors: Meet The People Who Are Keeping Hong Kong’s Traditional Industries Alive.
Under Red Skies is being plugged as the first English-language memoir by a Chinese millennial, which already sets it apart from other books about China’s younger generation. Books like Alec Ash’s Wish Lanterns or Zak Dychtwald’s Young China, for all of their merits, were written by expats. In contrast, Chinese-born Karoline Kan tells the story of her life from its beginning in her own words.
With almost 17% year-on-year growth, India’s is the world’s fastest growing smartphone population; more than a billion phones are estimated to be sold over the next five years. There are now more Indians with smartphones than the entire population of the United States, driven by phones that cost as little as 10,000 rupees (US$150).
In January 2018, Australian Senator Sam Dastyari of the Labor Party resigned. It was the culmination of a year-long scandal involving foreign donations and influence peddling. In his support for China’s claims in the South China Sea, Dastyari disagreed with the China policy of both the government and the Australian Labor Party. It was revealed that Dastyari had accepted money from Huang Xiangmo, a Chinese businessman with links to the Chinese Communist Party.
Nicholas Gordon talks to Neal Goren, music director for the world premier run of the chamber opera Mila at the Asia Society in Hong Kong.
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