“Maoism: A Global History” by Julia Lovell
Despite Chinese amnesia and Western disdain, Maoism’s impact on history has been global and persistent.
“Atiśa Dīpamkara” by James B Apple & “The Life of Jamgon Kongtrul the Great” by Alexander Gardner
Hagiography. What a fascinating word; at one time I thought the “hag” implied the study of witches! The word, which of course literally means “writings on [the lives of] saints”, has also taken on a pejorative meaning, in the sense that since saints are supposedly exceptionally good people, even considered “perfectly-formed at birth” as Alexander…
“The Land Question in China: Agrarian Capitalism, Industrious Revolution, and East Asian Development” by Zhan Shaohua
It can be difficult to remember today, but before 1978—the beginning of the reform era—famines struck China with depressing regularity. Many (or perhaps most) of them were human-induced. That certainly goes for the terrible famine of 1959-1961, which resulted from Mao Zedong’s so-called “Great Leap Forward” economic development program. A key element of this murderous…
“How to Read a Japanese Poem” by Steven D Carter
Anyone who has ever studied literature has probably come across the now rather hackneyed line by the American poet Archibald MacLeish (1892-1982), “A poem should not mean, but be.” Steven Carter, the Yamato Ichihashi Emeritus Professor of Japanese History and Civilization at Stanford University, notes that the Japanese poet Shōtetsu (1381-1459) expressed similar sentiments long…
“Animal Intimacies: Beastly Love in the Himalayas” by Radhika Govindrajan
Society consists of more than just people; many studies of society, indeed, focus on people’s interaction with material things. Fewer delve into the relationships between people and animals.
“Maoism: A Global History” by Julia Lovell
At the end of a network of quiet alleys just to the east of Beijing Railway Station sits Kuijiachang Hutong—Armor Factory Alley. Few stumble across it; you have to search it out. In imperial times, as the name suggests, this was an area dedicated to the manufacture of munitions and the paraphernalia of war. It…
“Ottoman Odyssey: Travels through a Lost Empire” by Alev Scott
Much of early-modern history, up until the early 20th century, was characterized by empire—not just or even particularly the colonial projects of Britain and Spain, but contiguous empires of Russia, Austria-Hungary, China and the Ottomans. These latter were multi-ethnic and—using modern sensibilities—in some ways multinational edifices. They all came to an end around the time…
“All Ships Follow Me: A Family Memoir of War Across Three Continents” by Mieke Eerkens
Relatively little had been written about Indonesia during World War II and the conflict between the Dutch and Japanese in the Pacific. In her recent memoir, All Ships Follow Me, Mieke Eerkens starts with the complexity of her father’s upbringing in colonial Indonesia. The son of a Dutch family that had lived in what was…
“An Appeal to the Ladies of Hyderabad: Scandal in the Raj” by Benjamin B Cohen
On 26 April 1895, the trial of Oscar Wilde began at the Old Bailey. He was there because he had attempted to prosecute the marquess of Queensberry for libel, an action which had led to unforeseen revelations about Wilde’s sexuality (Queensberry, whose command of spelling didn’t equal Wilde’s, had called Wilde a “somdomite” [sic]), forced…
“A Savage Dreamland: Journeys in Burma” by David Eimer
There is sometimes a feeling—it may even be a sort of implied ASEAN policy—that Southeast Asia will, or at least should, converge: that the countries of the region will develop economically and differentials in standards of living will lessen, that the military will ease itself out of politics, that civil society will strengthen. This has,…
“Thailand’s Movie Theatres: Relics, Ruins and the Romance of Escape” by Philip Jablon
Even if Philip Jablon had kept strictly to his original premise of documenting Thailand’s purpose-built movie theatres—an obsession he claims first took hold in 2008—this volume would’ve filled a worthy niche. From the book’s earliest temple of celluloid, Bangkok’s Prince Theatre from 1912, Jablon’s photographs capture a wealth of 20th-century architectural styles, from Bangkok’s tropical…
“Unruly Waters: How Rains, Rivers, Coasts, and Seas Have Shaped Asia’s History” by Sunil Amrith
Geography used to be considered destiny, but this once-popular notion that terrain and climate drove history has gone out of fashion. Now a new generation of environmental historians are bringing hard, physical materiality back into mainstream history with a more nuanced approach, looking at the historically situated interaction between people and their physical environments.
“Epic Continent: Adventures in the Great Stories of Europe” by Nicholas Jubber
Perhaps all travel writers should come home in the end.
“Seven Hundred Years, A History of Singapore” by Kwa Chong Guan, Derek Heng, Peter Borschberg and Tan Tai Yong
Even as Singapore marks two hundred years since Englishman Stamford Raffles set up an East India Company factory there, the citystate is promoting another date. In 1299, according to the Malay Annals, a Srivijayan prince, Sri Tri Buana, arrived at the island then known as Temasek and founded Singapura. The motto of the bicentennial is…
“Betwixt and Between” by Margaret Sun & “Shanghai Daisy” by Daisy Kwok
There always comes a time when, as people age, events move from being “within living memory” to “history”. There is even more urgency to capture these voices in a place like China where, for reasons of war and turmoil, fewer voices were, on the whole, captured at the time.
