Chu, Cindy Yik-yi, and Paul Philip Mariani, eds. People, Communities, and the Catholic Church in China. Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020. xix+157 pp. ISBN: 978-981-15-1679-5. On 22 October 2022, the Holy See announced a second two-year extension of the controversial Provisional Agreement with People’s Republic of China (PRC) regarding the appointment of Bishops. The volume People, […]
Reviews
Asia in 2022: The impact of the Russia-Ukraine war on local crises
Anno di pubblicazione: 2023
The end of the great game in Mongolia
Matteo Miele, Mongolian Independence and the British: Geopolitics and Diplomacy in High Asia, 1911-1916, Bristol: E-International Relations, 2022, xv+222 pp. (ISBN: 978-1-910814-64-2). Looking at Mongolia today, we see a country squeezed between two giant neighbors. A fledgling democracy, Mongolia is dependent economically on both Russia and China, and must often tailor its foreign and […]
Korea’s colonial history as seen from abroad
Ku Daeyeol, Korea 1905-1945: From Japanese Colonialism to Liberation and Independence, Kent, CT: Renaissance Books, 2021, 468 pp. (ISBN: 978-1-912961-21-4). The period of Japanese colonial rule over the Korean Peninsula has been covered widely. Ku Daeyeol’s treatment is unique, however, in that he examines the vicissitudes of Korean history between 1905 and 1945 from […]
Recovering the Asian roots of the Philippine revolution
Nicole CuUnjieng Aboitiz, Asian Place, Filipino Nation. A Global Intellectual History of the Philippine Revolution, 1887-1912, New York: Columbia University Press, 2020, 272 pp. (ISBN: 9780231192156). For long, Filipino, Spanish, and US historiographies that dealt with the long Philippine Revolution (1896-1906) did so following national boundaries.1 They generally placed their respective institutions and agents at […]
Laos and the Global Land Rush: Precarious gains and the ongoing strive for state-building
Michael B. Dwyer, Upland geopolitics: Postwar Laos and the Global Land Rush, Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 2022, xvii+232 pp. (ISBN: 9780295750491). In James Scott’s enlightening perspective, the uplands of Southeast Asia have long been loci of desertion and opposition to the state. In these natural theaters, characterized by mountainous and forest environments, […]
How the BJP wins: It did not win and then it did
Vinay Sitapati, India Before Modi: How the BJP Came to Power, London: Hurst and Company, 2021, xiv+409 pages (ISBN: 9781787385375). Nalin Mehta, The New BJP: Modi and the Making of the World’s Largest Political Party, Chennai: Westland Non-Fiction, 2022, xxxvi+809 pages (ISBN: 9789391234003). 1. Introduction These books offer timely and complementary insights into the […]
The historian, the colonial past of India, its persistence, and the duty of enquiry
Aditya Mukherjee, Political Economy of Colonial and Post-Colonial India, New Delhi: Primus Books, 2022, pp. 592 (ISBN: 978-93-5572-180-8), Hard-cover price ₹1950; $84.95; £74.95. From many points of view, India’s relationship with colonialism is not a closed chapter in the country’s history. Although British rule over the subcontinent ended 77 years ago, its legacies are still […]
The role of citizenship in the coming of Hindu Rashtra
Anupama Roy, Citizenship Regimes, Law, and Belonging: the CAA and NRC, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022, 270 pp. (ISBN: 978-0-19-285908-2) Since the Indian People’s Party (Bharatiya Janata Party, BJP) gained national power in New Delhi for the first time in 1998, Hindu nationalist organisations have started to transform the Indian republic in mainly two ways: […]
India’s first dictatorship: The emergency, 1975-77
Christophe Jaffrelot & Pratinav Anil, India’s First Dictatorship: The Emergency, 1975-77, London: C. Hurst & Co., 2020, 508 pp. (ISBN: 9781787384026). Historians working on South Asia have long regarded the end of British rule in the Indian subcontinent as a veritable boundary for their research. This caesura has been rapidly dismantled in the last decade […]
Dalits and «Hindu» nationalism: an ex-insider’s perspective
Meghwanshi, Bhanvar, I Could not be Hindu: The Story of a Dalit in the RSS, New Delhi: Narayana Private Publshing, 2020, 236 pp. (ISBN 9788189059934). Translated from Hindi by Nivedita Menon. This lucidly written riveting autobiography narrates the political journey and activism of an estranged RSS (Rashtriya Swayam-sevak Sangh/National Self-help Organisation) worker from a […]
Oration and narration: Fashioning India through prime ministerial speeches
Anandita Bajpai, Speaking the Nation: The Oratorical Making of Secular, Neoliberal India, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2018, 335 pp. (ISBN: 9780199481743). Oratory occupies a crucial position in electoral and mass politics in many countries around the world, including India. This is so much so that certain speeches become stately rituals themselves; for instance, […]
A brief political history of Iran 1979-2022
Mehran Kamrava, Triumph and Despair: In Search of Iran’s Islamic Republic, London: Hurst and Co., 2022, 304 pp. (ISBN 978-1-78-738803-1). A prolific writer and scholar of the Persian Gulf studies, Mehran Kamrava publishes his latest book Triumph and Despair: In Search of Iran’s Islamic Republic at an intense time as the Iranian regime faces […]
A superb book for understanding Iran
Mehran Kamrava, A Dynastic History of Iran: From the Qajars to the Pahlavis, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022, 230 pp. (ISBN 978-1-0092-2464-2). A dynastic history of Iran is a superb book for understanding Iran – Persia until the 1930s – since the late 18th century until the 1978-1979 revolution. Mehran Kamrava is an authority on […]
Saudi Arabia and Iran: The struggle to shape the Middle East
Edward Wastnidge and Simon Mabon (eds.), Saudi Arabia and Iran: The Struggle to Shape Middle East, Manchester University Press, 2022, pp. 200 (ISBN 978-1-5261-5083-7). If one single phenomenon marked the last 40 years of Middle Eastern politics, it would be the long-standing rivalry between the two regional powerhouses of Saudi Arabia and Iran. This […]
