Chad Kohalyk
Everyone hates a long essay, but everyone loves a quick book. This essay-as-book dates from 2013 and is an early exploration into some recognizable Graeber themes: how Enlightenment values such as freedom and equality we not necessarily borne of Western Europe. This book feels like an experimental prequel to the much much longer, and ultimately much more convincing [b:The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity 56269264 The Dawn of Everything A New History of Humanity David Graeber https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1617072525l/56269264.SX50.jpg 87659801].
Anissa Dadia does an excellent job as narrator keeping you interested in a book that starts out featuring an angsty teenage dark mage who is in a terrible place by force. Naomi Novik deserves credit for setting up such a difficult task as an author. But as things progress, and the book wins the reader over, we get to see Novik's ability to subtly include allegory on a number of real world social ills. That and some very nice language work... plus a very good ending making me get the second volume right away. 4.5 stars rounded up!
After introducing a (very concise) framework to describe the economic bubbles of the last 300 years, including marketability, money/credit, and speculation (like the fire triangle of Oxygen, Fuel, and Heat), the book profiles a number of historical bubbles. In conclusion, bubbles are difficult to spot if just looking through the lenses of finance and economics. Our current globalized economic system is a “tinderbox” and governments and the media are not particularly trustworthy on putting the brakes on bubbles. It is down to the individual to examine each opportunity “like a fire inspector” in order not to get burned.
Buddhism entered Japan in the mid-6th century from Korea, after taking a 1000 years to cross continental Asia from India. The teachings of the Buddha have proven to be very flexible, adapting to local conditions as it moves from culture to culture, all the while maintaining a shining thread of a path to the release of suffering.
In Japan, at the far edge of Asia, Buddhism has some remarkable characteristics: temples are inherited, priests are married with children, and meat is certainly on the menu. However, despite a millennium and a half of history, the current shape of Buddhism in Japan is overwhelmingly influenced by the country's modernization efforts around the turn of the 20th century.
So I was very happy to pick up a new sourcebook from the University of Hawaii Press, which I reviewed at BooksOnAsia.net. Read the full review here: https://booksonasia.net/2021/11/03/review-buddhism-and-modernity-sources-from-nineteenth-century-japan/
I listened to the audiobook, which was probably a mistake (despite an excellent reading by the narrator). This book deserves a close reading, but has others have said, the language is overly wrought, and too florid for the ear. This is not the kind of book you can put on and let wash over you. I had to stay still and listen closely (a waste of the audio format!), and used things like https://www.litcharts.com/lit/imagined-communities to actually understand each chapter. A quick extract for illustrative purposes:
The cosmic clocking which had made intelligible our synchronic transoceanic pairings was increasingly felt to entail a wholly intramundane, serial view of social causality; and this sense of the world was now speedily deepening its grip on Western imaginations.
A serviceable survey of Japan's history. He sometimes chooses the obvious examples, but I appreciate some of his more critical takes (eg. emphasis on Emishi, Meiji colonialism in Hokkaido, labour issues, etc). However, the book promises “posing important questions regarding ... environmental and climatological uncertainties” but does not fully deliver on this. Rather than an “ecological history” this is more of a standard history where each chapter has a section seemingly tacked on near the end with some environmental point. I would totally read a purely “ecological history” of Japan, and I hope publishers let Brett Walker write one someday.
This is one of those books that ties everything together, but each strand provides a whole intellectual universe to go off and study on your own. I highlighted so much to follow up on, and I know I will be returning to this book. Even though it is jam-packed with information (and densely footnoted), it is concise and easy to read, and not very long. The only way I would improve it would be to include more images of the people... there are so many characters in the book, and being able to associate their names to a face might be helpful.
Very concise, yet comprehensive read. A nice reference to have on the shelf. It was tantalizing to read about the intricacies. I really need to take the next step and learn more!
Merged review:
Very concise, yet comprehensive read. A nice reference to have on the shelf. It was tantalizing to read about the intricacies. I really need to take the next step and learn more!
Quite enjoyable. Really amazed at how faithful the Netflix series was. Shows how that format is much better than movies for adaptations of stories like this. If you are thinking about a rewatch and haven't read it yet, you should try the book. It is just as addictive! The audio performance is decent. As for the few changes the show made, I am pretty much onboard with all of them to be honest. However, one thing I think that came out stronger in the book was Beth and Benny's relationship.
A tour of all ASEAN countries (except Brunei) highlighting influence from and attitudes towards China. Strangio's thesis is that China is not trying to remake the region in its own image, it just provides a non-judgemental financial backstop to regimes in the region. By tying “liberal values” to FDI, the West is just pushing SEA nations into China's arms. This ties directly into the Free and Open Indo-Pacific concept. Strangio argues viewing US-China competition as an ideological showdown is “Great State Autism” and mirror-imaging. It is wrong and will get the US in trouble. He counsels the best approach is to BROADEN choices of SEA nations, rather than narrowing them.
Strangio has done some excellent work here. The book is jam-packed with regional information (I took about 3500 words worth of notes) and written in an entertaining way. A really ambitious project. Obviously he cannot go that deep on each country as the book has to cover a very wide area, but his overviews give you a sense of each country's stance, with some concrete examples torn from the headlines. He ends right at the beginning of the COVID pandemic. The only problem is that by the nature of the book being so timely, it might lose value as the situation in the region changes. So buy it and read it now! I would really love to read a follow up in 5 years or so.
Some more of my thoughts while I read this book.
Southeast Asia really is a hub that Asia rotates around — a Mackinderlike Heartland. Geographically it is where China meets the open sea, and politically since NE Asian relations are terrible ASEAN conferences are the only place where all sides can come together to talk. SEA has a huge population with lots of potential, lots of investment dollars are pouring in, but also a wary region balancing superpowers. This is why I find the region fascinating to study these days. Also, the Japan's position is interesting. Despite being eclipsed by China, with a shrinking economy and losing relevance in the world, Japan could play an important role again on the world stage through its actions in SEA, especially as the US recedes. Japan is the biggest investor, and has good relations built up since Fukuda Doctrine times making it a viable hedge against China, especially since it engages without asking for much democracy. Strangio points this out without going too much into J-SEA relations, but it is certainly there.
Japan in Asia opens with the provocative line “Asia is becoming one.” Author Tanaka Akihiko writes that it might be “possible to say that a common culture—what might be called an ‘East Asian way of life'—may be emerging, especially among the East Asian urban middle class.” Tanaka teases this proposition, and although he is not ready to commit, he spends much of this considerable chronological history presenting suggestive evidence for an emerging regionalization of East Asia, and Japan's hand in it. Against a background of political, financial, and nuclear crises, as well as historical and territorial disputes, Tanaka draws attention to two factors driving Asia towards unity: globalization and democratization.
Read the rest on Books on Asia →
Pankaj Mishra delivers a sweeping account of the intellectual history of anti-colonial thought in the early years of Western colonialism. He builds this narrative through mini-biographies of two lesser-known intellectuals: Jamāl al-Dīn al-Afghānī and Liang Qichao. These early thinkers diagnosed the challenge of Western imperialism faced by Asia. The evolution of their thought is influenced by historical milestones such as the Indian Rebellion of 1857, a failed uprising to gain independence from the West, and the 1905 Battle of Tsushima, where an Asian nation defeated a Western military power for the first time. Japan's victory was a turning point for optimism in the oppressed Asian psyche, celebrated by anti-colonialists like Gandhi, Ataturk, and Tagore. Here was an Asian country beating the West at its own game.
Read the rest of the review → https://chadkohalyk.com/2020/12/21/from-the-ruins-of-empire/
After listening to Japan on the Record's interview with the author I picked up this book to learn more about Japan's strategic thinking within Asia. This book is specifically about geoeconomic strategy, and pretty academic, but I appreciated its breadth as it covered quite a bit of economic history that I only knew pieces of. There are lots of interesting threads here to follow up on if you are working on issues involving post-war Japan.
Katada's key argument is that Japan's geoeconomic strategy, while trending towards regionalism, has a mix of approaches across different areas, some more successful than others. Katada offers analysis of three areas: Trade has seen the biggest move from bilateralism, as demonstrated by Japan's leadership on TPP+11, with a focus on building an environment where Japanese businesses can thrive. In finance, the Asian financial crisis spurred Japan to promote formal rules and standards, it made some headway in Asian bonds, but was not able to internationalize the yen. Foreign aid remains bilateral, but has evolved into a more values-based policy, building institutions where private firms would be able to implement projects (which they resist due to perceived risk).
One insight I appreciated has been the disembedding of Japanese businesses from government policy. This has all sorts of implications for Japanese policymakers, as she details in the book. Japan's geoeconomic strategy is not the developed in the unified way it was in the post-war period. That said, the newest threat of BRI might see the Japanese government reinvent its usefulness in developing regional geoeconomic strategy. There is opportunity for Japan.
Imagine sitting at an outside cafe on a brisk autumn Sunday morning, steam rising from three coffee cups as you look across the cold, green, metal table at your Uncle A and your other Uncle O. They both super smart, well read, and are going through a sort of mid-life crisis, questioning everything. Also, the only way they can communicate is in references, stringing together literary quotations like a pair of (Philadephia-based) conspiracy theorists. Furthermore, they have been meeting here every Sunday for weeks and still haven't come up with any solution. But there have been lots of conclusions.
Excerpt from: Articulate Noise — Review of Better Living Through Criticism
