Asia Politics

Out in the Pacific Ocean, there is a war taking place. It is a "warm war", a shoving match between the United States, since World War II the uncontested ruler of the seas, and China, which now possesses the world's largest navy. The Chinese regard the Pacific, and especially the South China Sea, as their ocean, and they're ready to defend it. Each day the heat between the two countries increases as the Chinese try to claim the South China Sea for their own, and the United States insists on asserting freedom of navigation.

Black Friday is a ghastly account of the one of the biggest terrorist attacks on Bombay, in 1993. The book chronicles the devastation caused to life and property due to the attacks and the trauma, both physical and mental, undergone by the people at large post the terrorist attacks and the consequent rift between the communities of Hindu and Muslims and hatred and clashes which often turned extremely violent.

In the early 20th century, few women in China were to prove so important to the rise of Chinese nationalism and liberation from tradition as the three extraordinary Soong sisters: Eling, Chingling, and Mayling. As told with wit and verve by Emily Hahn, a remarkable woman in her own right, the biography of the Soong sisters tells the story of China through both world wars. It also chronicles the changes to Shanghai as they relate to a very eccentric family that had the courage to speak out against the ruling regime. Greatly influencing the history of modern China, they interacted with their government and military to protect the lives of those who could not be heard, and they appealed to the West to support China during the Japanese invasion.

Charlemagne, while subjugating the people he conquered, modernized education, currency, art, music, and leadership to bring stability back to Europe, setting it on the path to thrive for years to come. Europe had been in upheaval, with threats from every direction, when Charlemagne came to power in the eighth century. The barbarian king worked to unite Germanic people into one kingdom and to spread Catholicism.

On the eve of a landmark general election, Ruchir Sharma offers an unrivaled portrait of how India and its democracy work, drawn from his two decades on the road chasing election campaigns across every major state, travelling the equivalent of a lap around the earth. Democracy on the Road takes listeners on a rollicking ride with Ruchir and his merry band of fellow writers as they talk to farmers, shopkeepers, and CEOs from Rajasthan to Tamil Nadu, and interview leaders from Narendra Modi to Rahul Gandhi.

Known as the twice-born - first into the flesh and again when initiated into their vocation - the Brahmins are a caste devoted to sacred learning. But what Taseer finds in Benares, the holy city of death also known as Varanasi, is a window on an India as internally fractured as his own continent-bridging identity.

Noam Chomsky dismisses efforts to resurrect Camelot - an attractive American myth portraying JFK as a shining knight promising peace, foiled only by assassins bent on stopping this lone hero from withdrawing from Vietnam. Chomsky argues that US institutions an political culture, not individual presidents, are the key to understanding US behavior during the Vietnam War.

Subhas Chandra Bose was a revolutionary who sought Indian independence, but as many would contend, he ended up on the wrong side of history. In order to shake off the British yoke, Bose enlisted aid from Germany and Japan during World War II. This has led some to roundly condemn Bose as nothing more than a fascist cast in the same mold as Adolf Hitler, Hideki Tojo, and Benito Mussolini. But is there more to this complicated figure than meets the eye?

An in-depth biography of the towering 20th-century Chinese military and political figure who led the government, first on the mainland and then in exile in Taiwan, from the acclaimed New Yorker correspondent who lived in China when he was head of state.

Dara Shukoh - the emperor Shah Jahan's favourite son, and heir-apparent to the Mughal throne prior to being defeated by Aurangzib - has sometimes been portrayed as an effete prince, incompetent in military and administrative matters. But his tolerance towards other faiths, and the myths and anecdotes surrounding him, continue to fuel the popular imagination. Even today, over 350 years after his death, the debate rages on: if this 'good' Mughal had ascended the throne instead of his pugnacious younger brother, how would that have changed the course of Indian history?

India was the jewel in the crown of the British Empire. There were vast riches to be exploited and vast numbers of people to be subjugated. How better to achieve these aims than by building a rail network that facilitated the export of raw material and made it easier for troops to travel around the country to tackle uprisings? India joined the railway age late: the first line was not completed until 1853, but, by 1929, 41,000 miles of track served the country.

Kwasi Kwarteng is the child of parents whose lives were shaped as subjects of the British Empire, first in their native Ghana, then as British immigrants. He brings a unique perspective and impeccable academic credentials to a narrative history of the British Empire, one that avoids sweeping judgmental condemnation and instead sees the Empire for what it was: a series of local fiefdoms administered in varying degrees of competence or brutality by a cast of characters as outsized and eccentric as anything conjured by Gilbert and Sullivan.

In the classic tradition of Sun Tzu's The Art of War, here for the first time in English is the timeless wisdom of China's greatest emperor, Tang Taizong (AD 598-649), which will show anyone who leads or manages how to achieve unparalleled results and an enduring legacy.

Strange Burdens is not a biography but a book of political commentary. It examines and analyses Rahul Gandhi's ideas and leadership since he officially entered politics in March 2004. It journeys all the way to the conclusion of the Bharat Jodo Yatra in Srinagar on 30 January 2023 and captures the dilemmas of his disqualification a couple of months later.

Following the lives of military intelligence officer Jie and his wife Moon, The Book of Secrets weaves recently found material into a narrative that not only illuminates the shadowy world of intelligence in China, but also the emotional tragedies that political extremism inflicted on those working within. Drawing on Jie’s own vivid biography of his youth, Xinran pieces together his trajectory as he joins the great hope of the Chinese young – the Communist Party – and becomes a loyal cadre until the late 1970s.

Xi Jinping verfolgt knallharte Interessen: die Formung einer Welt mit China an der Spitze. Deutschland spielt derzeit dabei nur eine nützliche Nebenrolle. Das zu erkennen, sollte uns nicht frustrieren, sondern motivieren! Wenn wir Schlüsseltechnologien, Infrastruktur und Digitalisierung vorantreiben, Entscheidungen in Politik und Wirtschaft beschleunigen und vor allem zwei Verhaltensweisen ablegen: unsere Unentschlossenheit und unser Harmoniedenken – dann können wir wieder Verhandlungspartner auf Augenhöhe werden.

A passionate student of Japanese poetry, theater, and art for much of her life, Gretel Ehrlich felt compelled to return to the earthquake-and-tsunami-devastated Tohoku coast to bear witness, listen to survivors, and experience their terror and exhilaration in villages and towns where all shelter and hope seemed lost.

In Cambodia in the 1960s, Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge declared war on their own people, enslaving and slaughtering anybody who disagreed with them. Sichan Siv knew he would soon be a target - ending up, perhaps, as one of the millions of anonymous human skeletons buried in his nation's Killing Fields - so he heeded his mother's pleas and ran. Captured and forced to perform slave labor, Siv feared that he'd be worked to death or killed. But he never abandoned hope or his improbable dream of freedom - a dream that liberated him.

Today Hong Kong, Tomorrow the World tells the complete story of how a city once famed for protests so peaceful that toddlers joined grandparents became a place where police have fired tear gas, rubber bullets and even live ammunition at their neighbors, while pro-government hooligans attack demonstrators....

What does contemporary China's diverse and exciting fiction tell us about its culture, and the relationship between art and politics? The Subplot takes us on a lively journey through a literary landscape like you’ve never seen before: a vast migrant-worker poetry movement, homoerotic romances by “rotten girls,” swaggering literary popstars, millionaire e-writers churning out the longest-ever novels, underground comics, the surreal works of Yu Hua, Yan Lianke, and Nobel laureate Mo Yan, and what is widely hailed as a golden age of Chinese science fiction.