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AAS 2023: A Celebration
The AAS conference in Boston was excellent. It was wonderful to see many familiar faces and make new acquaintances. Thank you to those who visited our booth and came to our reception! It was also an honor to have Professor Victor H. Mair (University of Pennsylvania), editor of the Cambria Sinophone World Series, introduce the titles…
On this day, Gao Xingjian was born in 1940
Happy birthday to Nobel laureate Gao Xingjian, a painter, novelist, essayist, and more. Below, read about two essay collections Gao published with Cambria—in which he discusses aesthetics, the climate crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic—and a study of his original artistry: Called “a tour de force” and “a most valuable collection of writings and public statements,”…
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…
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”…
Book Excerpt: “Zhang Yimou: Globalization and the Subject of Culture” by Wendy Larson
ympics and is back again 14 years later to to oversee the 2022 Winter Olympics’ opening and closing ceremonies.
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…
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.…
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…
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…
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…