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Home » Book ReviewsThe REVIEW’s editors and contributors review the books about the region you need to know about. Over the month, we gradually post the reviews from the last issue of the REVIEW in this free section, as well as additional reviews.
Four Crises and a Peace Process: American Engagement in South Asia
by P. R. Chari, Pervaiz Iqbal Cheema, and Stephen P. Cohen
Reviewed by Samanth Subramanian
July 2008
If political scientists had to design for themselves a petri dish to examine the behavior of states in conflict, they couldn't do much better than placing India and Pakistan under the microscope. On one side of the Line of Control is a constitutionally secular republic, with the glorious messes of democracy, a nuclear arsenal and a hurrying economy. On the other side is an Islamic state, also nuclear, intermittently democratic at best, and dominated by its military. Around them, in apprehension, sits the international community, pulling what strings it has. As a laboratory, it's riveting.
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Beijing Time
by Michael Dutton
Reviewed by Nicholas Frisch
May 2008
As a non-expert in urban theory, I can hardly presume to marshal a surefooted command of postmodern and postcolonial analysis in critiquing Michael Dutton’s elaborate theoretical edifice. One thing, however, is certain: Beijing Time is a terrible read. Since misery loves company, perhaps I should inflict a bit of the prose upon our readers.
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The White Tiger
by Aravind Adiga
Reviewed by Ben Frumin
May 2008
Aravind Adiga’s debut novel, The White Tiger, portrays India as a place that “has no drinking water, electricity, sewage system, public transportation, sense of hygiene, discipline, courtesy, or punctuality.” It is not a place where village life, often exalted in Indian literature, is built upon family unity, but a place where parents don’t bother to name their children. Mr. Adiga’s is an India where votes are bought and elections are fixed, where never-ending bribes are packed in expensive Italian handbags, and where working “with near total dishonesty, lack of dedication and insincerity” leads to enrichment and success.
Posted May 15, 2008
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King Hui: The Man Who Owned All the Opium in Hong Kong
by Jonathan Chamberlain
Reviewed by Paul Mozur
April 2008
The short story In a Grove by Ryunosuke Akutagawa (the basis of Akira Kurosawa’s movie Rashomon) tells the tale of a murder through three conflicting accounts of the crime, one told by the deceased victim, one by the victim’s wife and the third by the accused criminal. Each account is very different and the reader can easily see the ways each narrator attempts to cast him or herself in a certain light. But each is also consistent with corroborating stories and the physical evidence at the scene of the crime. At the end of the story, one is left with the hopeless task of cobbling together some semblance of truth from the three narratives.
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A Floating City of Peasants
by Floris-Jan van Luyn
Reviewed by Malia Politzer
May 2008
In 2005, there were 191 million international migrants, or people living outside their native countries, according to data from the United Nations. Compare this to as many as 210 million Chinese migrant workers moving from their rural homes to cities, and it's easy to see why some immigration experts call it the largest mass migration in human history.
Posted May 13, 2008
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Eating India: Exploring a Nation's Cuisine
by Chitrita Banerji
Reviewed by Samanth Subramanian
April 2008
While the old cliché that one can never judge a book by its cover holds true, it is occasionally possible to make some accurate judgements based on how far apart the book’s covers are. In the case of Chitrita Banerji’s Eating India: Exploring a Nation’s Cuisine, the covers are separated by 329 pages – which either indicates that the sheer ambition of this project will have proved foolhardy, or that the book is printed in microscopic print.
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Rising Star
by Bates Gill
Reviewed by Arthur Waldron
February 2008
The argument of this well-researched and useful volume is that since the middle of the last decade, Beijings foreign and security policy have shifted away from previous unilateralism toward cooperation, consultation and the playing of a responsible and constructive role with respect to areas ranging from regional security to nuclear proliferation.
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Billions of Entrepreneurs
by Tarun Khanna
Reviewed by Salil Tripathi
Mr. Khanna adopts a sober tone in this work, maintaining steadfast neutrality in analyzing the astonishing growth of the two countries, which will surely do much to reshape the way the world looks in the coming years. Besides neutrality, Mr. Khanna combines limpid prose and a sound evidence-based approach to make the book a refreshing alternative to many arcane, elliptical academic tracts on the subject.
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China Modernizes
by Randall Peerenboom
Reviewed by Nicholas Bequelin
February 2008
Is China proving that developing countries are better off under an authoritarian regime that focuses on developing the economy, rather than under a democratic regime that gives emphasis to political participation? And if the enjoyment of human rights improves with economic prosperity, isnt it wiser to restrict them in the short term and allow them only once income levels take off?
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