New Book – “Subcontinent Adrift: Strategic Futures of South Asia” by Feroz Hassan Khan

As India and Pakistan commemorated 75 years on independence in August 2022, the new book Subcontinent Adrift: Strategic Futures of South Asia by Feroz Hassan Khan, is a timely, much-needed publication, which Professor Sharad Joshi at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey commends as “an important volume on the India-Pakistan rivalry [that] provides a rich and timely perspective...

Book Excerpt from “Resourcing the National Security Enterprise” (Chapter 11)

In chapter 11, “Resourcing Homeland Security,” Mark Troutman examines the Department of Homeland Security. Because of its relative youth and extensive mandates, DHS’s process for creating and resourcing strategy is both the least developed and possibly the most consequential. Troutman argues that the DHS’s mission is likely to grow because of the increase in “gray-zone” threats to the homeland but...

Mo Yan Speaks—On politics, literature, translators, and more

Most English readers became familiar with Mo Yan after he was awarded the 2012 Nobel Prize for Literature—with this prize, however, came assumptions, based on a poorly translated remark, that the writer was silent against the status quo and thus complicit with it. His latest book Mo Yan Speaks shows, however, that, far from being silent, Mo Yan has spoken...

Book Excerpt from “Resourcing the National Security Enterprise” (Chapter 10)

In chapter 10, “Programming Department of Defense Strategic Priorities,” John Ferrari discusses time as a critical factor in the resourcing calculus. He talks both about the time needed to become an expert of the system and in terms of the time an idea or strategy has the greatest chance of actually being adopted and resourced. “There are no shortcuts,” Ferrari...

Book Excerpt: “The Legend of Prince Golden Calf in China and Korea” by Wilt Idema

“This book—the first on the historical development of the legend of the golden calf—is yet another contribution to the extraordinary list of important works that Professor Idema has analyzed and translated into English for a global readership.” Anne McLaren of the University of Melbourne wrote this of Wilt Idema’s The Legend of Prince Golden Calf in China and Korea. Below,...

Book Excerpt: “The Existentialist Vision of Haruki Murakami” by Michael Ackland

Haruki Murakami has often been accused of being a feckless, merely popular writer, but in this study Michael Ackland demonstrates that this is not the case, arguing that Murakami has not only assimilated the existentialist heritage but innovatively changed and revitalized it, thereby placing exciting personal possibilities within the reach of his worldwide readership. The bulk of this monograph focuses...

Book Excerpt from “Resourcing the National Security Enterprise” (Chapter 9)

In chapter 9, “Resourcing Military Readiness,” Laura Junor Pulzone gives an in-depth look at military readiness, showing the complex factors that influence this readiness and the ways the Department of Defense assesses it. Maintaining ready forces, Junor Pulzone writes, proves challenging both because the complexity of the mechanisms undergirding ready military capability and because choices made in this context are...

Book Excerpt: “Decadence in Modern Chinese Literature and Culture” by Hongjian Wang

European Decadence, a controversial artistic movement that flourished mainly in late-nineteenth-century France and Britain, has inspired several generations of Chinese writers and literary scholars since it was introduced to China in the early 1920s. Translated into Chinese as tuifei, which has strong hedonistic and pessimistic connotations, the concept of Decadence has proven instrumental in multiple waves of cultural rebellion, but has also...

Book Excerpt: “American Ideas of Equality” by Carl L. Bankston III

A fundamental American value, equality is a complex idea that has had different meanings in different eras. Most studies, however, have taken equality as having a single, clear meaning—little considered is how the definition fo equality has been shaped by history. Below, Carl L. Bankston III discusses debates about the definition of equality: The American nation began with debates over...

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