Book Excerpt: “Taking China to the World” by Theodore Huters

The following is an excerpt from Taking China to the World: The Cultural Production of Modernity by Theodore Huters: In The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels characterized communism as a specter haunting late-nineteenth-century Europe, one whose leaders tried desperately to exorcise. For the past century of Chinese history, following the the pivotal cultural reform movement named after the...

Book Excerpt from “Resourcing the National Security Enterprise” (Chapter 4)

In chapter 4, “The Role of Congress in Resourcing National Security,” of Resourcing the National Security Enterprise: Connecting the Ends and Means of US National Security, Jason Galui examines how the United States develops policy choices from the perspective of the National Security Council. He explains that US leaders need to present options to the president that have a higher...

Book Excerpt: “Terrence McNally and Fifty Years of American Gay Drama”

For the past fifty years, Terrence McNally has been one of America’s major dramatists and the most prolific playwright about gay life in New York City. Terrence McNally and Fifty Years of American Gay Drama is the first book-length study to the broad, distinguished history of gay theatre in America during his career. In this book, McNally’s work is seen...

Book Excerpt: “Sensing the Sinophone” by Astrid Møller-Olsen

Since the 1990s, extensive urbanization in East Asian has created a situation where more people identify themselves as citizens of the city they live in rather than their ancestral village or nation. At the same time, however, this new urban identity has been under attack from the constant threat of urban restructuring. Such rapidly changing cityscapes form environments of urban...

Book Excerpt from “Resourcing the National Security Enterprise” (Chapter 3)

In chapter 3, “The Role of Congress in Resourcing National Security,” of Resourcing the National Security Enterprise: Connecting the Ends and Means of US National Security, Heidi Demarest examines the role of Congress in resourcing American national security from historic and bureaucratic perspectives. She explains that despite its constitutional role to “provide for the common defense,” Congress faces substantial impediments...

Book Review of “Mo Yan Speaks: Lectures and Speeches by the Nobel Laureate from China”

The following is from a review of Mo Yan Speaks: Lectures and Speeches by the Nobel Laureate from China, the latest from the Nobel laureate (translated by Shiyan Xu) in the Los Angeles Review of Books: His public lectures combine anecdotes from his rural childhood with musings on literary style and namedropping of famous writers (who, with the notable exception...

Book Excerpt: Yü Ying-Shih’s Time at Harvard

A leading authority in the field of Chinese Studies, Professor Yü Ying-shih (Princeton University) received the John W. Kluge Prize for Achievement in the Study of Humanity in 2006 and the inaugural Tang Prize in Sinology in 2014. In addition to his monumental scholarly contributions over six decades to the fields of Chinese history, thought, politics, and culture during which...

Book Excerpt from “Resourcing the National Security Enterprise” (Chapter 2)

In chapter 2 of Resourcing the National Security Enterprise: Connecting the Ends and Means of US National Security, Mark Troutman “reviews the sources of US economic power, describes how the nation has chosen to harness its economic capacity, assesses current vulnerabilities, and makes recommendations for adjustments required to maintain its current place of global preeminence.” Troutman notes: Strategists and policy...

Book Review: Black Women Slaves Who Nourished A Nation

The following is from a book review of Black Women Slaves Who Nourished A Nation: Artistic Renderings of Wet Nurses in Brazil by Kimberly Cleveland in the journal Hispanic American Historical Review: A timely contribution…certainly be of great interest to historians and other scholars studying slavery, abolition, postabolition, and African diaspora…a well-written, carefully edited book that delves into crucial matters...

Book Excerpt: The Existentialist Vision of Haruki Murakami

Haruki Murakami has been accused of being little more than a popular writer. The Existentialist Vision of Haruki Murakami disproves this notion, showing the philosophical underpinnings of the Japanese writer’s fiction. In this excerpt, Professor Michael Ackland discusses how Murakami’s typical protagonists find themselves at a “developmental crossroad.” The novelist’s typical protagonist finds himself at a developmental crossroad. Essentially directionless,...

%d bloggers like this: