Excerpts

Despite multiple complexities and cultures, Asia is integrating in new ways. “Not for centuries has that region been so fluid, so open, so cosmopolitan,” writes Ellen L. Frost in the introduction to her book “Asia’s New Regionalism.” Connections in the world’s largest, most populated and economically dynamic continent are particularly intense and innovative along Asia’s coastal areas, notes Frost, a visiting fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Rather than stand by as mere onlookers, any nation or...

Contemporary globalization has been severely jeopardized by recent turmoil. The end of the economic expansion of the 1990s, the 9/11 tragedy, and the war in Iraq have shocked the international system to an extent not seen in years. Not only have the fairness and adequacy of globalization been doubted by various parties for some time now, but lately its very irreversibility has been called into question by the sheer force of geopolitical and economic turbulence. This book considers the forces that propel globalization and those that resist...

The West tends to overlook Latin America, but the politics and economics of the continent remain dynamic, argues Michael Reid, editor of the Americas section of the Economist who has reported on Latin America for that publication as well as the BBC and the Guardian since 1982. Two categories of leaders have emerged in the region, one set populist and the other set outward looking, and struggle to establish a vision for the continent. Reid suggests that governments in Latin America must be assessed based on the many challenges they have and...

Shari’a is considered by many as Islamic religious law. But the cultural concept covers not only moral and legal matters, including religious rituals and rules for marriage, taxation and war, but also issues of behavior and etiquette. Modern and fundamentalist Muslims are polarized over how much modern nations can rely on Shari’a. Yale professors Abbas Amanat and Frank Griffel are editors “Shari’a: Islamic Law in the Contemporary Cotext,” a book of essays that analyze Islamic thought on justice, global citizenship,...