Of all the three great sects of Zen in Japan, the Soto school is perhaps the best-known and most inclusive, admitting to its ranks lay people and women in addition to monks. It’s one of the most widely practiced forms of Buddhism in Japan, where there are reportedly nearly fourteen thousand temples dedicated to it….
This political biography of the current Indonesian President Joko Widodo, known as Jokowi, explains why his style is so successful and what his major undertakings as president have been. The stated aim of Jokowi and the New Indonesia by Darmawan Prasodjo with assistance from Tim Hannigan, is to give a full picture of the man…
The Mediterranean, the body of water that now divides and buffers Europe from the “over there” of Africa and the Middle East, used (many centuries ago) to unite a region. The “Mare Nostrum” of the Romans was a conduit for internal commercial and cultural communication. And for several centuries prior to becoming a Roman lake,…
On 27 July 1905, the United States Secretary of War met with the Prime Minister of Japan. Both men spoke for industrializing countries with recent military victories in Asia. The potential for conflict loomed, distant but real. Happily, the two statesmen found a solution. In the Taft-Katsura Memorandum, the US recognized Japan’s suzerainty over Korea…
At this time of shifting geopolitical relationships—“decoupling” between China and the US, rapprochement between China and Russia—it is unsurprising that the cultural and intellectual as well as political history of these relationships has attracted increasing attention. Recent volumes on Sino-Soviet “internationalist” interaction is now joined by Arise, Africa! Roar, China!, Gao Yunxiang’s recent study of…
This large-format book of wonderful photographs by Jon Kolkin, an American doctor and artist who has spent many years in Asia practicing both his avocations, takes readers away from the purely visual impact of the subject matter to something beyond.
“World War II in the Asia Pacific created the modern world,” writes Peter Harmsen in the beginning of Volume 3 of his War in the Far East, which examines the final twenty months of the War in the region and its immediate aftermath. The United States emerged from the war as the leading world power,…
Following the Great Rebellion in 1857, the last Mughal Emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, was deposed, packed in a bullock card, and exiled to Rangoon. The termination of Mughal rule marked the advent of the Raj, but the British still had to contend with hundreds of regional power brokers whose loyalty had to be ascertained. These…
The grand churches of Europe are studied as great works of art and architecture. They continue to fascinate believers, historians, and art historians alike. The great names behind these works are hailed as legends and visionaries blending beauty with devotion to give meaning to the rituals that these buildings were home to. Compared to these…
In the world of religion, it seems that one can find an abundance of crazy or eccentric people whose sayings and doings have found their way into folklore, or who are venerated by generations of people who incorporate them into their spiritual lives as if they were guides, family members or friends.
Karen Cheung’s new book, The Impossible City: A Hong Kong Memoir, about growing up and coming of age in a city she feels is like no other, is characterized by a narrative style both intimate and candid. It’s hard to avoid being swept up by her story from the beginning as she describes the day…
Sergei Tretyakov is on something of a roll. The Soviet writer has featured in several recent books, including a new translation of (among other plays) Roar, China!, a new biography and a study of the Soviet-led drive for a “Leftist Literary Commons”. He also is a main character, arguably the protagonist, in Edward Tyerman’s Internationalist…
In her new book Ancient India: Culture of Contradictions, historian Upinder Singh seeks to correct the way Indians project the concerns and aspirations of the present onto the past. Apart from making complex, highly contentious matters of histories of faith, caste, non-violence, desire and tolerance simple to engage with, Singh has a unique quality of…
On 9 August 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Nagasaki and three Soviet armies invaded imperial Japan’s puppet state of Manchukuo. Six days later, Emperor Hirohito’s recorded broadcast to the Japanese people told them that the end of the war had arrived. Most Japanese troops in Manchukuo surrendered…
By most standards, David Tran is an American success story. A major in the South Vietnamese Army, he escaped to the United States in the late 1970s and went on to become a billionaire from his world-famous Sriracha hot sauce. Tran’s success is also a Hong Kong story.