Excerpts

  • Pallavi Aiyar
    New Delhi: Fourth Estate, 2008
    ISBN:978-817223-746-2

    In the many comparisons about Asia’s two most populous nations, India is often categorized as an unruly democracy and China as a rigid economic powerhouse. But the contributions and challenges for both nations remain rich, subtle and unfolding, reminds Pallavi Aiyar, correspondent for the “Hindu” group of publications. In her book, “Smoke and Mirrors: An Experience of China,” Aiyar describes her curiosity and process of exploring China by getting to know people in all walks of life. “What I had learnt then was that it was deeply wrong...

  • Sadanand Dhume
    Melbourne: The Text Publishing Company, 2008
    ISBN:978-1-921351-40

    During the course of hiring an assistant to write a book about Indonesia torn between two forces, Islmization and globalization, journalist Sadanand Dhume met Herri Nurdi, managing editor of a fundamentalist magazine “Sabili.” The book, “My Friend the Fanantic: Travels with an Indonesian Islamist” combines first-person travel narrative and reporting on the world’s most populous Muslim nation enduring rapid transition from democratic moderation to rigid intolerance.

  • Susan Ariel Aaronson and Jamie M. Zimmerman
    Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008
    ISBN:978-0-521-69420-9

    Imbalanced trade is controversial trade - and imbalances in information, income, substitutes, mobility or access are common between wealthy countries and poor ones. Governments can use trade agreements to advance human rights, directly or indirectly, argue Susan Aaronson and Jamie Zimmerman in their book “Trade Imbalance: The Struggle to Weigh Human Rights Concerns in Trade Policymaking.” Aaronson is research associate professor of international affairs at the Elliott School of International Affairs and adjunct associate professor at the...

  • Benny Widyono
    Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2008
    ISBN:0742555534

    After years of war and atrocities in Cambodia, a peace agreement was signed in France in 1991, providing UN authority to share power with an array of factions over the troubled nation. The following year, Benny Widyono arrived as member of a UN team to pick up the pieces for a country that had long been a pawn in major power struggle for Southeast Asia. Widyono eventually became personal envoy to the UN secretary-general, and his book, “Dancing in Shadows: Sihanouk, the Khmer Rouge, and the United Nations” details the history behind the...

  • Harsh V. Pant
    New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008
    ISBN:978-0230604582

    Nations increasingly look to India as a rising economic power to take an active role in international affairs and contribute to resolving a range of global challenges. In his book, “Contemporary Debates in Indian Foreign and Security Policy: India Negotiates Its Rise in the International System,” Harsh Pant, who teaches at King’s College London, identifies major foreign-policy issues for the nation, and suggests that India’s political parties need to put small differences aside and determine long-term goals to develop a workable...

  • Mohammed Ayoob
    Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2008
    ISBN:978-0-472-06971-3

    About one out of every four people in the world practice Islam.Since the 9/11 attacks in 2001 and the US response, the study of “political Islam” has become a “growth industry” in the West, too often narrowly defined as a threat, explains Mohammed Ayoob, professor of international relations, in his book “The Many Faces of Political Islam: Religion and Politics in the Muslim World.” In reality, Islam and other religious traditions wield similar influence over politics. Ayoob examines the complex interplay between domestic concerns in various...

  • Alexandra Harney
    New York: The Penguin Press, 2008
    ISBN:978-1594201578

    Shoppers, manufacturers, workers and public officials are increasingly discomforted, even feeling guilt, by what has become known as the “China price” - the lowest price possible. Low prices carry the cost of environmental degradation, human-rights violations, health hazards and misery, argues Alexandra Harney in her book, “The China Price: The True Cost of Chinese Competitive Advantage.” Large multinational firms impose standards, overlooking falsified reports from managers and suppliers. A former reporter for the Financial Times, Harney...

  • Kishore Mahbubani
    New York: Public Affairs, 2008
    ISBN:978-1-58648-466-8

    Asians have absorbed many Western practices in economics, corporate governance, the rule of law and technology. As a result, by 2050, the world’s three largest economies will be China, India and Japan. To remain relevant, global groups must graciously welcome and incorporate emerging economic powers, writes Kishore Mahbubani, dean and professor of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. In Chapter 6 of his book, “The New Asian Hemisphere,” Mahbubani assesses the role of the United Nations.

  • Thomas L. Friedman
    New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008
    ISBN:978-0-374-16685-4

    Economic growth, speeded by globalization and demanding populations, is slowly destroying the planet as we know it. Every minute, yet another species vanishes, reducing the earth’s biodiversity and untapped potential of rich plant and animal resources. In his book “Hot, Flat and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution and How It Can Renew America,” Thomas Friedman makes a passionate argument to recognize what is being lost and to establish a new conservation ethic to reverse some dangerous trends.

  • Ahmed Rashid
    New York: Viking Adult, 2008
    ISBN:978-0-670-01970-0

    Poverty, with no opportunity for work or education, leads to a desperation that can be exploited by extremists. Ahmed Rashid, journalist and author, reviews how the US invaded Afghanistan in 2001 and allied with Pakistan, but seven years later, neither nation of Central Asia enjoys economic or political stability. By emphasizing a military approach, the US and Pakistan expanded the influence of extremists, creating a chaotic environment, where strategies for terror unfold and pose dangers for the region and globe.