Genre: History
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China’s Troubled Waters
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adminSteve Chan affirmed at the outset that his book will not repeat the conventional/popular views out there. After all, having gone through 35 years of ascendance, every decent academic with an aim to pursuing a tenured position, has had to try every conceivable manner to cut and slice China into many…
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Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire
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admin“Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire,” speaks about the three deficits faced by America in expanding its reach to the rest of the world. These are: the economic-deficit; the man-power deficit; and the attention-deficit. The first refers to the inability of America to expand its economic imprint…
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The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia: Volume II, Part II
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adminSoutheast Asia, is not so much an academic and political category, as it is a proverbial sponge of world forces. In “The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia: Volume II, Part II,” edited by Nicholas Tarling, the focus from World War II to the present read like a well-written script of…
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Fire On The Water
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adminThe future of the Pacific rests on China’s behavior in South China and East China Sea. Since intentions do change, and on most cases are hard to discern, Robert Haddick is of the view that the US needs to get ready to face China head on. By 2010, China had…
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The Ideas That Conquered The World
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adminMichael Mandelbaum, a seasoned political analyst and professor at Johns Hopkins University, is a prolific author. He has produced numerous books of immense import. This is one of them, to say the least. “The Ideas That Conquered the World,” isn’t written from the post-modern or constructive perspective. He actually mapped…
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The Last Warrior
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adminThe name Andrew Marshall is often spoken, either quietly or openly, with awe. He is one of the few Americans to have served more than eight Presidents and fifteen Secretaries of Defense, going back to as early as the 1950s after the end of the Second World War. But his…
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A History Of Islamic Societies
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adminThe Islamic world, or, what Muslims refer to as the “Ummah,” is a mess. Notwithstanding the Arab Spring, every single step forward has been met with many reversals. Libya is now ruled by thugs and tribal warlords; not entirely different from Afghanistan. Only 20 percent of Syria is under the…
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Provincializing Europe
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adminTalented historians or post-colonial thinkers are hard to come by; especially those who think and operate within the context of global history. In the new discipline of global history, all forms of local, national, and regional history, are connected to the larger whole. For example, when did Korea acquire its…
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Civilization: The West and The Rest
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adminWestern civilization is a social construct. It is not there writ large; as hidden underneath any civilization is a multitude of cultures, sub-cultures; and even a Bohemian way of life, that is anathema to what civilization is all about: order, discipline, functionality, and resilience, that can be passed down from…
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The South China Sea: The Struggle for Power in Asia
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admin“South China Sea: The Struggle for Power in Asia,” as written by Bill Hayton, has got everything right, except, the fluid nature of the issue. South China Sea is often seen through the prism of a conflict, or, even a potential war involving China and the United States. But China,…