Asian Review of Books

In 2016, the city of Mumbai was blanketed in toxic smog. The source? Fires at the nearby dumping ground of Deonar: the country’s oldest. The Deonar fire became an embarrassment for Mumbai, coming right before an international expo meant to announce the city to international investors and business.Law enforcement immediately blamed scrap dealers who lived alongside the landfill. The pickers are men and women–poor, sometimes very young–who comb the mountain for waste that can be resold: metal, plastic, cloth and, if they’re lucky, gold and jewelry.Saumya Roy’s Mountain Tales: Love and Loss in the Municipality of Castaway Belongings (Profile Books, 2021) looks into the lives of a few of these pickers, as they try to survive among the mountains of trash, as government officials and judges squabble above them trying to figure out what to do. More of Saumya’s work on landfills can be found here.In this interview, we talk about the trash mountains of Deonar, the families that live there, and how they navigate life on the fringes of one of India’s largest cities.Saumya Roy is a journalist and activist based in Mumbai. In 2010, she co-founded the Vandana Foundation to support the livelihoods of Mumbai's poorest micro-entrepreneurs; through this she met the community who depend on Deonar. Her writing has appeared in Forbes India Magazine, wsj.com and Bloomberg News among others, and she has contributed a chapter to Dharavi: The Cities Within (HarperCollins India: 2013), an anthology of essays on Asia's largest slum.You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of Mountain Tales. Follow on Facebook or on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia.Nicholas Gordon is an associate editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/asian-review

One of the first members of Albert Samaha’s family introduced in his memoir Concepcion: An Immigrant Family’s Fortunes (Riverhead Books, 2021) is his uncle Spanky: a baggage handler in San Francisco’s airport. Spanky emigrated to the United States from his home country, the Philippines, where he lived a very different life as a rockstar: one of the founding members of VST & Co., one of the country’s most famous bands.That’s merely one of the family members Albert Samaha profiles in Concepcion which traces the lives of generations of Filipinos, and Filipino-Americans, trying to find a better life for themselves and navigating the ups-and-downs of American society and politics.Albert Samaha is an investigative journalist and inequality editor at BuzzFeed News whose work has appeared in The New York Times, the Village Voice, San Francisco Weekly, and the Riverfront Times, among other outlets. A Whiting Foundation Creative Nonfiction Grant recipient, he is also the author of Never Ran, Never Will: Boyhood and Football in a Changing American Inner City (PublicAffairs: 2018), which was a finalist for the 2019 PEN/ESPN Literary Sports Writing Award and winner of the New York Society Library’s 2019 Hornblower Award.We’re also joined by Helen Li. Helen is a freelance journalist originally based in Asia, and has since relocated to the United States. She joined us previously for our interview with Amish Mulmi on All Roads Lead North.The three of us talk about immigration, U.S.-Filipino relations, class and how that all relates to the immigrant experience: both in general, and regarding the many members of Albert’s family.You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of Concepcion. Follow on Facebook or on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia.Nicholas Gordon is an associate editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/asian-review

December 2021 marks the 80th anniversary of Pearl Harbor and the American entry into the Second World War. In fact, this interview was recorded on December 12th: the 80th anniversary of Japanese troops landing on the Philippine island of Luzon.That invasion marked the four-year war over the Philippines: the surrender of American forces on May 8th, 1942; the invasion of Leyte by MacArthur on October 20th, 1944; and the surrender of Japan on August 15th, 1945.But what happens in between these major dates? How did Filipinos live their lives under the occupation—and how did some choose to fight back? What did resistance, whether carried out by Americans who stayed behind, or Filipinos seizing their country’s future for themselves, look like?War and Resistance in the Philippines, 1942–1944 (Naval Institute Press: 2021) by James Kelly Morningstar is one of the first attempts to repair our understanding of the war in the Philippines, showing how American, Filipino and Japanese actions influenced each other.James Kelly Morningstar is a retired U.S. Army armor officer and decorated combat veteran with degrees from West Point and Kansas State University, a master's degree from Georgetown University, and a PhD from the University of Maryland. He currently teaches military history at Georgetown. He is also the author of Patton’s Way: A Radical Theory of War (Naval Institute Press: 2017).Today, we talk about the Philippines: the Japanese invasion and occupation, the nature of resistance, and American grand strategy. We’ll also discuss what makes the resistance movement important to our understanding of today’s geopolitics.You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of War and Resistance in the Philippines: 1942-1944. Follow on Facebook or on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia.Nicholas Gordon is an associate editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/asian-review

On the sidelines of COP26, Nepali Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba met his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi as part of an effort to find a way to rebuild ties between Kathmandu and New Delhi--which had grown sour in the recent years, with a boundary dispute between the two as its low point. Around the same time, China trumpeted a donation of 1.6 million COVID vaccine doses to Nepal, as the country stays around a 30% vaccination rate.Discussions of Nepal often reduce it to a country sitting between two great powers—especially as relations between those two great powers worsen. Or, perhaps, as a strategically important country—but one whose history and people are rarely brought up.Amish Raj Mulmi’s All Roads Lead North: Nepal’s Turn to China (Context, 2021) published internationally by Hurst early next year, helps to fill in these critical details. Combining insights from centuries of history, to on-the-ground reporting along the China-Nepal border, Mulmi gives a full representation of Nepal’s long relationship with its neighbors.Helen Li, freelance writer and journalist, joins Amish and me for this interview. Helen was stranded in Nepal during the COVID pandemic, and saw firsthand the interconnected between Nepal, India and China.In this interview, Amish, Helen and I talk about Nepal and China: what connects their countries, their economies, and their peoples. We talk about historical links, Tibetan exiles, investment, and what India thinks about all this.Amish Raj Mulmi's writings have been published in The Himalayan Arc: Journeys East of South- east and The Best Asian Speculative Fiction 2018; and Al Jazeera; Roads & Kingdoms; Himal Southasian; India Today; The Kathmandu Post and The Record.You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of All Roads Lead North. Follow on Facebook or on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia.Nicholas Gordon is an associate editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/asian-review

With COP26 and high fossil fuel prices, energy is back in the headlines. And Russia, as one of the world’s largest producers of hydrocarbons, is part of the conversation--most recently, in Putin’s refusal to expand oil production to ease global prices.The world is coming up on three major transitions—peak use of fossil fuels, renewables competing with non-renewables, and a warming climate likely to surpass the 1.5 degree threshold set by the IPCC.What do those trends mean for Russia: a great power, a major oil and gas producer, an Arctic country covered in permafrost, and an economy with strong, but increasingly outdated, levels of technological development.Klimat: Russia in the Age of Climate Change (Harvard University Press, 2021), by Professor Thane Gustafson, examines how Russia might react—or be forced to react—to a changing environment and energy market.In this interview, the three of us will talk about how Russia will have to change as the world warms. As the world shifts to renewables, will Russia be able to keep up? As Arctic ice melts, will Russia see shipping opportunities? And will climate change get greater salience among the Russian public?Thane Gustafson is Professor of Government at Georgetown University. A widely recognized authority on Russian political economy and formerly a professor at Harvard University, he is the author of many books, notably The Bridge: Natural Gas in a Redivided Europe (Harvard University Press: 2020) and Wheel of Fortune: The Battle for Oil and Power in Russia (Harvard University Press: 2017), as well as Russia 2010: And What It Means for the World (Vintage: 1995), coauthored with Daniel Yergin.We’re also joined in this interview by Yvonne Lau. Yvonne is the Asia Markets Reporter for Fortune Magazine, with a longtime interest in Russia, especially its post-Soviet economic development and its growing ties with China.You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of Klimat. Follow on Facebook or on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia.Nicholas Gordon is an associate editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/asian-review

“The Europeans raise all the cattle, but the Chinese get all the milk.”This joke, told in colonial Singapore, was indicative of the importance of the Chinese diaspora throughout Southeast Asia. Chinese migrants were miners, laborers, merchants and traders: the foundation of many colonial cities throughout Asia--while also making sure that their own communities back home benefited.Distant Shores: Colonial Encounters on China's Maritime Frontier (Princeton University Press: 2021), written by Professor Melissa Macauley, looks at one particular community within the Chinese diaspora: the Chaozhou people--also known as the “Chiu Chow” people--hailing from the Shantou--also known as Swatou--area in Eastern Guangdong Province. The Chouzhouese traveled far and wide, engaging in trade, commerce and business--a history that survives to this day, with many Southern Chinese and Southeast Asian business tycoons having ties to this migrant community.Professor Melissa Macauley is a Professor at Northwestern University, where she specializes in late imperial and modern Chinese history from 1500 to 1958. Her research focuses on such topics as the interrelated history of southeastern China and Southeast Asia; colonialism and imperialism in East and Southeast Asia; and legal culture in Chinese social history. Her first book, Social Power and Legal Culture: Litigation Masters in Late Imperial China (Stanford University Press: 1998)We’re joined in this interview by fellow NBN host Sarah Bramao-Ramos. Sarah is a PHD candidate at Harvard University that studies Qing China.Today, the three of us talk about the Chouzhouese people, and how their trading efforts throughout the region challenges the way we think about “empire” and “colonialism”.You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of Distant Shores. Follow on Facebook or on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia.Nicholas Gordon is an associate editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/asian-review

Many Western entrepreneurs and businesses have foundered in trying to set up shop in China. Different expectations, different ways of doing business, different institutions and platforms—all come together to remove any pretensions that one can easily transplant a foreign business model into the Chinese market.One of these entrepreneurs was Xavier Naville, who moved to China in 1997 where he built Creative Food. Unlike many others, his venture was a success. It's now a key supplier to major restaurant chains across the country including McDonald's, KFC and Starbucks.The Lettuce Diaries: How A Frenchman Found Gold Growing Vegetables In China tells Xavier’s story growing Creative Foods: managing a Chinese team as a foreign manager, trying to work with farmers to improve how they conducted agriculture, and navigating investor demands. In this interview, Xavier and I talk about his time in China, what he learned about starting a business, and whether things are different in a more developed, more advanced economy.You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of The Lettuce Diaries. Follow on Facebook or on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia.Nicholas Gordon is an associate editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/asian-review

The Second Battle of El-Alamein, alongside Stalingrad and Midway, is taught in schools the world over as one of the turning points of the Second World War—or, depending on who you talk to, the turning point.But what led to that battle? How did Rommel’s army push so far across North Africa? And why, perchance, did he push one time too many? What were those in Egypt and the Middle East—and not just their British overseers, thinking about the coming invasion.War of Shadows: Codebreakers, Spies, and the Secret Struggle to Drive the Nazis from the Middle East (PublicAffairs: 2021), written by Gershom Gorenberg, tells the story leading to the British Army holding off the Nazis at El Alamein: a battle not just of soldiers and tanks, but spies and codebreakers.In this interview, Gershom and I talk about the years preceding the Battle for Egypt: those who broke Enigma, the spies who unlocked their enemies secrets, and the troubled relations between nominal allies. Gershom Gorenberg’s previous books are The Unmaking of Israel (HarperCollins: 2011), The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, 1967-1977 (Macmillan: 2007), and The End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount (Oxford University Press: 2002). He also co-authored The Jerusalem Report’s 1996 biography of Yitzhak Rabin, Shalom Friend, winner of the National Jewish Book Award. Gershom is a columnist for The Washington Post, and has written for The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times Magazine, the New York Review of Books, The New Republic, and in Hebrew for Ha’aretz. He can be followed on Twitter at @GershomGYou can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of War of Shadows. Follow on Facebook or on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia.Nicholas Gordon is an associate editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/asian-review

Globalization is possibly the most important economic phenomenon of the past several decades. Opening borders, increasing trade and deepening integration has transformed our economies, our societies and our politics. Globalization changed establishment politics; the reaction against it transformed those against the establishment.But there’s a world of difference between Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders’ critiques of globalization. And those who have concerns about globalization due so for different reasons, building different alliances as they work to implement, reform or roll back globalization.Anthea Roberts and Nicolas Lamp, authors of Six Faces of Globalization: Who Wins, Who Loses, and Why It Matters (Harvard University Press: 2021) looks more closely at these debates, building out distinct narratives that classify how we should think about the politics of globalization, and how different political movements understand who wins from globalization: everyone, a few, or nobody.Those interested in learning more about the book and its arguments: “Who wins and who loses from globalization? There are (at least) six answers”, a book excerpt published on BigThink “Want to know what future battles over globalization will be about? Look to the chip shortage”, a commentary piece published on Fortune Paul Krugman and Branko Milanovic in conversation with Anthea Roberts and Nicolas Lamp In this interview, Anthea, Nicolas and I talk about the politics of globalization: the arguments used to support it, and the stories used to criticize it. We explore some of the interesting intersections between these arguments … and where we think the politics of globalization might go from here.Anthea Roberts is professor in the School of Regulation and Global Governance at Australian National University and author of the prizewinning Is International Law International? (Oxford University Press: 2017).Nicolas Lamp is associate professor in the Faculty of Law at Queen’s University, Ontario. Before joining Queen’s University, he worked as a dispute settlement lawyer at the World Trade Organization.You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of Six Faces of Globalization. Follow on Facebook or on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia.Nicholas Gordon is an associate editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/asian-review

As most of us are stuck at home, whether due to lockdowns or border closures, some of us have returned to the idea of travel writing: nonfiction that charts someone’s journey to a different land, a different people, and a different culture.Once a mainstay of bookstores in the eighties, travel writing has fallen behind a bit, both commercially and academically, as scholars critique some of the assumptions and perspectives that drove much of that writing.Tim Hannigan, author of The Travel Writing Tribe: Journeys in Search of a Genre (Hurst, 2021), tackles these questions head-on. In a series of interviews with some of the most famous and illustrious travel writers over the past few decades, Tim digs into these debates and hears--from the writers themselves--what drove them to write about what they saw and experienced.In this interview, Tim and I talk about what it means to be a travel writer, and why he decided to interview so many of the most prominent travel writers around today. We talk about some of the debates that have emerged on the subject, and what travel writing means in the age of COVID.Tim Hannigan is a writer and academic, and the author of several narrative history books, including A Brief History of Indonesia and the award-winning Raffles and the British Invasion of Java. He holds a PhD from the University of Leicester.You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of The Travel Writing Tribe. Follow on Facebook or on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia.Nicholas Gordon is an associate editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/asian-review