“The Hour of the Wolf” by Fatima Bhutto
Author and journalist Fatima Bhutto reflects on how caring for her pet dog shed light on her own relationships in this tender and insightful memoir of a doomed love affair.
“Echoes from the Sino-Burmese Borderlands” by Wen-Chin Chang
The Myanmar-China border stretches for over 2,000 kilometres between China’s Yunnan Province and Myanmar’s Kachin and Shan States. The border has long been a site of migration, trade and cultural exchange, and became a particularly significant area of escape during periods of political and economic hardship. The impact of this border on individual lives is…
“Pāṇini’s Perfect Rule: A Modern Solution to an Ancient Problem in Sanskrit Grammar” by Rishi Rajpopat
Can grammar function like a machine? Can a set of mechanical procedures, or rules, generate perfectly correct sentences in a given language? This is a question that preoccupies linguists, but not language users. It is natural to assume that language is too sloppy, too idiosyncratic, too human, in the end, to be generated by a…
“The Worlds of Jain Art: 17th to 21st Centuries”, edited by Phyllis Granoff and Nandita Punj
Jainism, an older contemporary of Buddhism, is rooted in the ideals of austerity. While Buddhism spread outside India, very little is known about Jainism worldwide. Similarly, in terms of art, it is subsumed within the larger Hindu and Buddhist traditions of rock-cut architecture. In terms of painting, the Kalpasutra and Uttaradhyaynasutra are two texts thought…
“The Wall Dancers” by Yi-Ling Liu
In 1998, Ma Baoli, a closeted gay police officer living in Hebei, China, stumbled on the online novel Beijing Story while visiting an alleyway internet café. Deeply moved by its tale of gay romance, Ma’s life was changed forever, not just by the discovery of media made for gay men, but by the internet as…
“Ghosted: Delhi’s Haunted Monuments” by Eric Chopra
Ghosted: Delhi’s Haunted Monuments delves into the often-overlooked monuments of Delhi through the lens of jinns, Sufi saints and the horror tales associated with them, revealing both the brutality and humanity embedded in the collective history of the monuments and those who are tethered to them. Historian Eric Chopra contends that “to make sense of…
“McNamara at War: A New History” by Philip Taubman and William Taubman
Robert Strange McNamara was arguably one of the worst public servants in post-World War II American history. Decades after the Vietnam War ended, McNamara, who served as US Defense Secretary in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, admitted that as early as 1965 he believed that the United States could not win that war yet he…
“Phantom Paradise: Escape from Manchuria” by Kay Enokido
Kay Enokido was the longtime president of the stately Hays-Adams hotel in Washington, DC, hosting dignitaries like the Japanese monarchy and the Obama family before the president was sworn in. But before she was a hotelier, and before that a journalist, she had another, earlier story, one that provides the heart of her book, Phantom…
“The Dig: Keeladi and the Politics of India’s Past” by Sowmiya Ashok
The importance of archaeological developments can take a long time to register in the general public consciousness. This is perhaps because excavations take years, results are often published long after the work begins, the significance is not immediately apparent, or conclusions are denied when they run counter to conventional narratives. Keeladi, near Madurai, is a…
“The Devil Takes Bitcoin: Cryptocurrency Crimes and the Japanese Connection” by Jake Adelstein
When Bitcoin first became a buzzword among early adopters around 2011, it was spoken of by devotees as a revolutionary force, promising to upend finance much like Jimi Hendrix redefined rock music with his electric guitar riffs. But for ‘normies’ or everyday people, the idea was baffling. How could something intangible, not backed by governments…
“Two Paths to Prosperity: Culture and Institutions in Europe and China, 1000–2000” by Avner Greif, Guido Tabellini and Joel Mokyr
Edmund Burke remarked in 1790 that “… which in the first instance is prejudicial may be excellent in its remoter operation… The reverse also happens: and very plausible schemes, with very pleasing commencements, have often shameful and lamentable conclusions.” The course of the French Revolution soon proved him right. Two Paths to Prosperity reaffirms Burke’s…
“Islamic China: An Asian History” by Rian Thum
“The goal of this book”, writes Rian Thum in his introduction, “is to reach an understanding of Islamic Chinese history that makes the Muslims of China unsurprising, even ordinary.” The layman who has visited, say, Xi’an, might be surprised that this should be deemed necessary.
“Kirpa Ram Vij: The Volunteer Who Launched an Army” by Ramachandran Menon
On 9 August 1965, Singapore was expelled from Malaysia, which had itself only become an independent country two years earlier. But Malaysia insisted that Malaysian troops be permitted to remain in Singapore. Singapore’s future Prime Minister Lee Kwan Yew later said that Malaysia’s insistence “stiffened our resolve” to “build up the Singapore Armed Forces”. The…
“O que foi, não volta a ser… Vol 2”, photo-album by Gonçalo Lobo Pinheiro
Due, one presumes, to the success of his first photo-album matching images of yesteryear with their current appearance, Macau-based photographer Gonçalo Lobo Pinheiro has returned with an encore.
“The New Byzantines: The Rise of Greece and Return of the Near East” by Sean Mathews
Back in the (pre-EU) day, the American Government and US corporations would place Greece into a Middle Eastern or Near Eastern department; I seem to recall my 1980s-era employer doing so, to the (mild) annoyance of its Greek distributor. Europe was more tightly-defined in those days.
