New Books Network Podcast

Asian Review of Books September 28, 2023

Sovereigns of the Sea

Omani Ambition in the Age of Empire

Seema Alavi

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon

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It’s one of the strange artifacts of history that Zanzibar, off the coast of Tanzania, was once controlled by the Sultanate of Oman. In 1832, then Sultan Sayyid Saïd bin …

Asian Review of Books September 21, 2023

China Incorporated

The Politics of a World Where China is Number One

Kerry Brown

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon

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How do we talk about China? It’s a question every analyst, academic, policymaker, and reporter probably needs to ask themselves. Is China, as some of the hawks claim, an existential …

Asian Review of Books September 14, 2023

Ancient Persia and the Book of Esther

Achaemenid Court Culture in the Hebrew Bible

Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon

The Book of Esther, one of the historical books in the Torah and the Old Testament, is known as a story of community, discrimination, and human ingenuity. It’s core to …

Asian Review of Books September 7, 2023

Plains of Discontent

A Political History of Nepal’s Tarai (1743-2019)

Maximillian Mørch

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon

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When we think of Nepal, we think of its high Himalayan mountains, or maybe the highlands of Kathmandu. But somewhere between a quarter and a third of the country is …

Asian Review of Books August 31, 2023

The Best Possible Experience

Stories

Nishanth Injam

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon

The characters in Nishanth Injam’s The Best Possible Experience (Pantheon, 2023), his debut short story collection, are like many in India or in Indian communities in the United States: Working …

Asian Review of Books August 24, 2023

Northeast India

A Political History

Samrat Choudhury

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon

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For much of the past three months, the northeastern Indian state of Manipur—nestled right up against the border with Myanmar—has been the site of a conflict between two groups: the …

Asian Review of Books August 17, 2023

Modernity's Corruption

Empire and Morality in the Making of British India

Nicholas Hoover Wilson

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon

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When Robert Clive, the man who established Company rule in India was hauled in front of Parliament to answer for crimes of corruption, he allegedly responded by saying, essentially, he …

Asian Review of Books August 10, 2023

Fortune's Bazaar

The Making of Hong Kong

Vaudine England

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon

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The legacy of the businessmen who built Hong Kong are all over the city. Bankers work in Chater House—named after Paul Chater, the Armenian businessman behind much of the city’s …

Asian Review of Books August 3, 2023

Angels Tapping at the Wine-Shop's Door

A History of Alcohol in the Islamic World

Rudi Matthee

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon

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When meeting an expatriate friend on my first trip to Dubai, the host at the restaurant where we were meeting quickly ushered me up to the second floor. For foreigners …

Asian Review of Books July 27, 2023

Korea at War: Conflicts That Shaped the World

Michael J. Seth

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon

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The Korean War “ended” exactly fifty years ago at Panmunjom. On July 27, 1953, United States and United Nations commanders on one side, and the North Koreans and Chinese commanders …

Asian Review of Books July 20, 2023

The Great Mongol Shahnameh

Robert Hillenbrand

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon

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It’s amazing that art historians like Robert Hillenbrand got to study the “Great Mongol Shahnama” at all. 500 pages of Firahdosi’s epic poem, with 300 illustrations, in a manuscript whose …

Asian Review of Books July 13, 2023

Korea

A New History of South and North

Victor Cha and Ramon Pacheco Pardo

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon

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As a member of the U.S. National Security Council, Victor Cha flew over the DMZ separating North and South Korea in 2007, following negotiations with Pyongyang. He writes in Korea …

Asian Review of Books July 6, 2023

Regnum Chinae

The Printed Western Maps of China to 1735

Marco Caboara

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon

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Regnum Chinae: The Printed Western Maps of China to 1735 (Brill, 2022) does something that no one has ever done before: collect just about every Western printed map of China …

Asian Review of Books June 29, 2023

Dear Chrysanthemums

A Novel in Stories

Fiona Sze-Lorrain

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon

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Dear Chrysanthemums: A Novel in Stories (Scribner: 2023) jumps from character to character, location to location, time period to time period. Two cooks working for Madame Chiang-Kai Shek. A dancer …

Asian Review of Books June 22, 2023

The White Mosque

A Memoir

Sofia Samatar

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon

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In the late 19th century, a group of Mennonites leave Russia for what is now Uzbekistan. Driven out by Russian demands that the pacifist group make themselves available for conscription …

Asian Review of Books June 15, 2023

The War Diary of Asha-san

From Tokyo to Netaji's Indian National Army

Tanvi Srivastava

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon

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On a trip many years ago to New Delhi, I was struck by an official memorial to Subhas Chandra Bose, the wartime leader of the Indian National Army, the Japan-affiliated …

Asian Review of Books June 8, 2023

The Opium Business

A History of Crime and Capitalism in Maritime China

Peter Thilly

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon

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Opium is an awkward commodity. For the West, it’s a reminder of some of the shadier and best forgotten parts of its history. For China (and a few other countries) …

Asian Review of Books June 1, 2023

Black Girl from Pyongyang

In Search of My Identity

Monica Macias

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon

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Monica Macias, the youngest daughter of Equatorial Guinea’s first president at just seven years old, lands in Pyongyang, North Korea in 1979. Her father had sent her to the country …

Asian Review of Books May 25, 2023

Yamuna's Journey

Translated by Deepra Dandekar

Baba Padmanji

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon

In 1856, the East India Company imposed the Hindu Widow Remarriage Act, allowing widows to remarry after their husband’s death. The Act was controversial at the time: Hindu traditionalists, particularly …

Asian Review of Books May 18, 2023

China and Russia

Four Centuries of Conflict and Concord

Philip Snow

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon

If there’s a starting point to the relationship between Russia and China, it’s likely the 1650s—when Manchu and Cossack forces clash near Khabarovsk, and when Russia sends its first, and …