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Asian Review of Books
Asian Review of Books February 25, 2021

Bombay Hustle

Making Movies in a Colonial City

Debashree Mukherjee

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon
In 1935, the writer Baburao Patel writes the following about Bombay’s film industry: “In India, with financing conditions still precarious, the professional film distributor thrives. . . . He comes …

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Asian Review of Books February 18, 2021

The Myth of Chinese Capitalism

The Worker, the Factory, and the Future of the World

Dexter Roberts

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon
Around the Chinese New Year period, millions of Chinese migrant workers return home from jobs in China’s major cities to their rural villages to visit their families. China’s urban centers …
Asian Review of Books February 11, 2021

Indian Sun

The Life and Music of Ravi Shankar

Oliver Craske

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon
At 10:20pm on August 15th, 1969, Ravi Shankar — then, and still, the most famous practitioner of the sitar and Indian classical music — takes the stage at Woodstock. It’s …
Asian Review of Books February 4, 2021

Field Notes from a Pandemic

A Journey Through a World Suspended

Ethan Lou

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon
We are just over a year from when global news first reported a new type of pneumonia emerging in the Chinese city of Wuhan. A lockdown of Wuhan on January …
Asian Review of Books January 28, 2021

The Moth and the Mountain

A True Story of Love, War, and Everest

Ed Caesar

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon
In 1933, Maurice Wilson — First World War hero, drifting veteran, and amateur aviator, lands in the aerodrome at Purnea in British India. His goal is to be the first …
Asian Review of Books January 21, 2021

These Violent Delights

Chloe Gong

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon
“These violent delights have violent ends. And in their triumph die, like fire and powder, which as they kiss, consume.” These Violent Delights (Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2020) is the …
Asian Review of Books January 14, 2021

Three Asian Divas

Women, Art and Culture In Shiraz, Delhi and Yangzhou

David Chaffetz

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon
The “diva” is a common trope when we talk about culture. We normally think of the diva as a Western construction: the opera singer, the Broadway actress, the movie star …
Asian Review of Books January 7, 2021

Confronting Covid-19: A Strategic Playbook for Leaders and Decision Makers

Devadas Krishnadas

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected every country around the world in a manner not seen since the Great Financial Crisis of 2008, and is perhaps one of the most transformative …
Asian Review of Books December 31, 2020

The Baddest Bitch in the Room

A Memoir

Sophia Chang

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon
Enter the Wu-Tang. Return to the 36 Chambers. People listening to these albums by the Wu-Tang Clan and its members likely never knew about Sophia Chang: a Korean-Canadian woman who …
Asian Review of Books December 24, 2020

Owls of the Eastern Ice

A Quest to Find and Save the World's Largest Owl

Jonathan C. Slaght

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon
The Blakiston’s fish owl is the world’s largest living species of owl, with larger females of the species weighing as much as ten pounds. It lives in the Russian Far …
Asian Review of Books December 17, 2020

White Ivy

A Novel

Susie Yang

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon
“Ivy Lin was a thief but you would never know it to look at her” White Ivy (Simon & Schuster: 2020), the debut novel by Susie Yang, is the story …
Asian Review of Books December 10, 2020

A Good True Thai

Sunisa Manning

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon
Det, Chang and Lek are young university students living in Thailand during the 1970s. It is a turbulent time for the country’s politics: student-led protests in 1973 succeeded in (briefly) …
Asian Review of Books December 3, 2020

Stealing from the Saracens

How Islamic Architecture Shaped Europe

Diana Darke

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon
Visitors around the world have travelled to Europe to see the tall spires and stained glass windows of the continent’s Gothic cathedrals: in Cologne, Chartres, Milan, Florence, York and Paris …
Asian Review of Books November 25, 2020

Blockchain Chicken Farm

And Other Stories of Tech in China's Countryside

Xiaowei Wang

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon
Most of our discussions about how “technology will change the world” focus on the global cities that drive the world economy. Even when we talk about China, we focus on …
Asian Review of Books November 19, 2020

Young Mongols

Forging Democracy in the Wild, Wild East

Aubrey Menard

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon
Mongolia is sometimes seen as one of the few examples of a successful youth-led revolution, where a 1990 movement forced the Soviet-appointed Politburo to resign. In Young Mongols: Forging Democracy …
Asian Review of Books November 12, 2020

Stranger in the Shogun's City

A Japanese Woman and Her World

Amy Stanley

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon
“To mother, from Tsuneno (confidential). I’m writing with spring greetings. I went to Kanda Minagawa-chō in Edo—quite unexpectedly—and I ended up in so much trouble!” This letter, hidden in an …
Asian Review of Books November 5, 2020

The Glass Kingdom

Lawrence Osborne

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon
Sarah Mullins, an American woman, arrives at the Kingdom: a fading luxury apartment complex in Bangkok. She is there to lay low, after passing over forged collectors’ items in Hong …
Chinese Studies October 28, 2020

Has China Won?

The Chinese Challenge to American Primacy

Kishore Mahbubani

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon
As China grows into a major regional and global power, there are many questions about what this means for the international system. Does China threaten the United States? Does Washington …
East Asian Studies October 21, 2020

Trade Wars Are Class Wars

How Rising Inequality Distorts the Global Economy and Threatens International Peace

Michael Pettis and Matthew C. Klein

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon
Trade imbalances have long been a sticking point in international economics, most recently between the United States and China. The conversation about persistent trade imbalances tends to take on a …