Non-Fiction Reviews

Non-Fiction Reviews
“The Women Who Ruled China: Buddhism, Multiculturalism, and Governance in the Sixth Century” by Stephanie Balkwill
24 February 2025
The Northern Wei (386-534) are having a moment. Heritage projects, including large-scale digitization efforts, have brought renewed attention to Northern Wei sites of Buddhist statuary, including the Yungang and Longmen grottoes. The live-action Mulan movie thrust the iconic “Chinese” heroine, believed to originate in the multicultural milieux of the Northern Wei, back into the global…
Read More “The Women Who Ruled China: Buddhism, Multiculturalism, and Governance in the Sixth Century” by Stephanie Balkwill
Non-Fiction Reviews
“Early Southeast Asia: From First Humans to First Civilizations” by Charles Higham
21 February 202521 February 2025
Quite a lot of archaeological water, to say nothing of history writing, has flowed under the bridge since Early Southeast Asia’s first edition in 2014.
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Non-Fiction Reviews
“In Praise of Floods” by James C Scott
18 February 202521 February 2025
In Praise of Floods is the final book by James C Scott, a renowned anthropologist and political scientist, published posthumously after he died in 2024. Much of Scott’s earlier work has focused on agrarian politics and acts of political resistance, this is a rather different book, focusing instead on the life history of a river,…
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Non-Fiction Reviews
“The Gujaratis: A Portrait of a Community” by Salil Tripathi
8 February 20258 February 2025
Does the world need a 700-page book about one people within the Indian Union? Considering that Gujaratis number 65 to 70 million, you could argue that they deserve as much attention as, say, the French. Indeed, Ted Zeldin’s “The History of French Passions” only covers the period 1848-1945 in twice as many pages. Western readers…
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Non-Fiction Reviews
“More Swindles from the Late Ming: Sex, Scams, and Sorcery” by Zhang Yingyu
5 February 2025
Some years back as a graduate student enrolled in a mandatory DEI training for college teaching, I distinctly recall raising a question about dealing with the unabashed misogyny, depictions of sexual violence and child abuse bursting out of the primary sources so often used in the history classroom. Encountering More Swindles from the Late Ming:…
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Non-Fiction Reviews
“The Great Transformation: China’s Road from Revolution to Reform” by Odd Arne Westad and Chen Jian
4 February 20254 February 2025
China’s history under the Communist Party has been demarcated, like geological ages, into neat, self-contained phases. There is the Great Leap Forward (1958-62); the Cultural Revolution (1966-76); and Reform and Opening (December 1978-1989). The bits outside these branded groups of years, including the first nine years of CCP rule, can feel a little fuzzy, while…
Read More “The Great Transformation: China’s Road from Revolution to Reform” by Odd Arne Westad and Chen Jian
Non-Fiction Reviews | Reviews
“The Dead Sea: A 10,000 Year History” by Nir Arielli
2 February 20254 February 2025
The Dead Sea—and its environs of Jericho and the Jordan River—is perhaps second only to Jerusalem as a place where history, archaeology, religion, politics and international relations meet and mix. It is, as Nir Arielli points out in his new book, quite a bit older, and today is as much a place of environmental as…
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Non-Fiction Reviews
“Other Everests: one mountain, many worlds”
26 January 20254 February 2025
Released in late 2024, 100 years after the most infamous mountaineering event in history, Other Everests: one mountain, many worlds is not a retelling of the Mallory expedition, but rather an attempt to widen the framing of Everest beyond western mountaineering exploits. Everest has often been seen through the eyes of western explorers and been…
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Non-Fiction Reviews
Podcast with Avinash Paliwal, author of “India’s Near East: A New History”
24 January 202530 January 2025
After student protests toppled Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina last year, New Delhi and Dhaka have been at odds. Indian politicians complain about Hindus being mistreated in the Muslim-majority country; Bangladesh’s interim government fears that Hasina may launch a bid to return to power from India.
Read More Podcast with Avinash Paliwal, author of “India’s Near East: A New History”
Non-Fiction Reviews
“InterAsian Intimacies across Race, Religion, and Colonialism” by Chie Ikeya
22 January 20255 March 2025
Chie Ikeya’s InterAsian intimacies across race, religion and colonialism focuses on inter-Asian marriage in colonial Burma. Ikeya argues that over time these marriages became “the subject of political agitation, legislative activism and collective violence”.
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Non-Fiction Reviews
“Discovered but Forgotten: The Maldives in Chinese History, c 1100-1620” by Bin Yang
21 January 20255 March 2025
China has been one of the leading sources of overseas visitors to the Maldives in recent years. Bin Yang, a professor of history at City University of Hong Kong, makes the argument in Discovered but Forgotten that this is to some extent a rerun of the situation in the 14th and 15th centuries when the…
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Non-Fiction Reviews
“Poética Urbana: Urban Poetry”, photography by Gonçalo Lobo Pinheiro
20 January 202530 January 2025
A picture, they say, is worth a thousand words. Gonçalo Lobo Pinheiro’s photographs of Macau are certainly worth that and more. This latest collection consists of 100 photos taken during the last five years, a period which included Covid-19. The photojournalist, who been resident in Macau for well over a decade manages both to capture…
Read More “Poética Urbana: Urban Poetry”, photography by Gonçalo Lobo Pinheiro
Non-Fiction Reviews
“Later Chinese Bronzes for the Scholar’s Studio” by Paul Bromberg
18 January 20255 March 2025
Most people “collect” stuff, but Paul Bromberg is a “collector”, the difference being that he proceeds with intent and purpose, focusing on a relatively narrow group of objects.
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Non-Fiction Reviews
“Alchemy: Contemporary Indian Painting and Miniature Traditions” by Geeti Sen
15 January 2025
The word miniature in fact comes from the Larin miniare or “to paint red”; early European miniatures—palm sized pieces that are parts of manuscripts and books facing a verse or an intense moment in a story or placed behind one—were initially delineated in that pigment. There was an Asian tradition of such painting as well,…
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Non-Fiction Reviews
“Ten Indian Classics”
13 January 202513 January 2025
It is a tribute to the literary diversity of India that this anthology of ten excerpted classics includes eight or nine different languages. They also represent four different religious traditions. Yet the texts are unmistakably Indian, sharing a love for words, sounds and images and exhibiting an exuberance rarely found in other cultural traditions.
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