United States
American Anarchy: The Epic Struggle Between Immigrant Radicals and the US Government at the Dawn of the Twentieth Century
Michael Willrich. New York: Basic Books, 2023. $35.00. 480 pp.
In the early twentieth century, some Americans, particularly working-class immigrants, were inspired by anarchists such as Emma Goldman, who envisioned a world ‘without states, laws or private property’. Efforts by the US government to crush anarchism encouraged the emergence of a civil-liberties movement as the anarchists’ defenders pressed for free speech and due process, says Willrich.
The Burden-sharing Dilemma: Coercive Diplomacy in US Alliance Politics
Brian D. Blankenship. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2023. $47.95. 210 pp.
In this study of how the United States encourages allies to take responsibility for their own defence, Blankenship finds that the US ‘tailors the burden-sharing pressure’ it applies based on the relative importance of two priorities: conserving its own resources, and preserving its influence over allied states.
The Declassification Engine: What History Reveals About America’s Top Secrets
Matthew Connelly. New York: Vintage, 2024. $22.00. 560 pp.
Connelly argues that a ‘proud tradition’ of transparent government in the United States was overturned following the Second World War by the emergence of an overly secretive and unchecked classification system, which he says has allowed the government to conceal its incompetence, greed and criminality even as it has failed to protect truly vital information.
Energizing Neoliberalism: The 1970s Energy Crisis and the Making of Modern America
Caleb Wellum. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2023. $59.95. 264 pp.
According to Wellum, a turn towards neoliberalism in the United States was encouraged by narratives that emerged to explain and interpret the energy crisis of the 1970s. He explores how fears of future energy crises and confidence in free markets and US global leadership helped to consolidate a ‘neoliberal capitalist order’.
Hand-off: The Foreign Policy George W. Bush Passed to Barack Obama
Stephen J. Hadley et al., eds. Washington DC and Lanham, MD: Brookings Institution Press and Rowman & Littlefield, 2023. £30.00/$39.99. 774 pp.
The editors of this volume analyse the newly declassified Transition Memoranda that described the Bush administration’s foreign and national-security policies that were turned over to the Obama administration. The experts who prepared these documents provide self-critical postscripts to each document, offering assessments of the Bush administration’s policies in a range of areas.
In the Shadow of Fear: America and the World in 1950
Nick Bunker. New York: Basic Books, 2023. $35.00. 496 pp.
After his electoral victory in 1948, Harry Truman’s hopes of continuing Franklin D. Roosevelt’s liberal reforms were dashed by international crises and the fear that accompanied them, writes Bunker. In this history, he describes 1950s America as a polarised nation gripped by McCarthyism at home and a fear of international communism abroad.
Insurrection: What the January 6 Assault on the Capitol Reveals About America and Democracy
John Rennie Short. London: Reaktion Books, 2024. £12.95. 248 pp.
Short attempts to explain the events of 6 January 2021 in Washington DC by examining long-term structural trends within the United States in tandem with short-term factors, such as the coronavirus pandemic. The author discusses what he sees as a crisis of democracy, increased levels of violence and inequality, and the rise of conspiratorial discourse in US politics.
Post-truth American Politics: False Stories and Current Crises
David Ricci. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023. £22.99. 175 pp.
Ricci asserts that while we need stories to help us make sense of the world, political stories are increasingly falsifying reality by simplifying complex issues. Given that some of these simplifications can have negative consequences, scholars should offer counter-narratives to encourage better outcomes, he argues.
Purpose and Power: US Grand Strategy from the Revolutionary Era to the Present
Donald Stoker. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024. £35.00. 586 pp.
In this study of American grand strategy since the founding of the republic, Stoker critiques notions of American isolationism, arguing that the United States has consistently sought to project its diplomatic, military and economic power not just at home, but also abroad. At times, such efforts have lacked ‘clear political aims or a concrete vision’, he says.
Righting the American Dream: How the Media Mainstreamed Reagan’s Evangelical Vision
Diane Winston. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2023. $35.00. 256 pp.
Winston argues that the mainstream media ‘enthusiastically’ broadcast president Ronald Reagan’s shift towards evangelicalism in 1983, dramatically increasing his support among white evangelicals and contributing to his re-election. This partnership moved US politics further to the right, she writes.
State of Silence: The Espionage Act and the Rise of America’s Secrecy Regime
Sam Lebovic. New York: Basic Books, 2023. $32.50. 464 pp.
Originally passed in 1917, the US Espionage Act was initially used to silence critics of the First World War, but became a means of concealing the US government’s own secrets, according to Lebovic. He criticises the ‘absurdly cautious’ and ‘staggeringly costly’ security apparatus he says has emerged to prevent Americans from learning what their government is doing.
Terminus: Westward Expansion, China, and the End of American Empire
Stuart Rollo. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2023. $55.95. 296 pp.
The United States’ foreign and strategic policy in the Asia-Pacific region has always been shaped by concerns centred on China, according to Rollo. Analysing the history of what he sees as American imperialism and the United States’ relationship with China, Rollo urges US policymakers to engineer a ‘soft landing’ for the faltering ‘American empire’.
24/7 Politics: Cable Television and the Fragmenting of America from Watergate to Fox News
Kathryn Cramer Brownell. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2023. £30.00/$35.00. 424 pp.
The rise of cable television created an ‘entirely new approach’ to TV programming, says Brownell, one that decentralised the media world and supported a form of political communication that encouraged ‘cult followings’ and loyalty to particular brands. These developments pose problems for American democracy, she argues.
War on the Ballot: How the Election Cycle Shapes Presidential Decision-making in War
Andrew Payne. New York: Columbia University Press, 2023. £30.00/$35.00. 336 pp.
How are US presidents, as commanders-in-chief, influenced by the election cycle during times of war? Payne analyses how electoral politics shaped presidential decisions during the Korean, Vietnam and Iraq wars, arguing that electoral pressures directly influenced events on the ground.
Middle East
Beyond Orientalism: Ahmad ibn Qasim al-Hajari Between Europe and North Africa
Oumelbanine Nina Zhiri. Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2023. £25.00/$29.95. 322 pp.
Zhiri uses the life and career of seventeenth-century Moroccan polymath Ahmad ibn Qasim al-Hajari, as well as his communications with European Orientalists, to argue that there was an Arabic Republic of Letters that operated in parallel to its European counterpart. The author critiques Western Orientalism for according agency only to Europeans, when many ‘Orientals’ contributed to the intellectual debates of the age.
Centers of Power in the Arab Gulf States
Kristian Coates Ulrichsen. London: C. Hurst & Co., 2023. £35.00. 336 pp.
Ulrichsen offers a comparative analysis of the military, political, economic and religious power exercised by Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in a bid to answer the question of where and from whom power is derived in the Gulf.
Colonizing Palestine: The Zionist Left and the Making of the Palestinian Nakba
Areej Sabbagh-Khoury. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2023. $75.00. 376 pp.
Sabbagh-Khoury explores the history of the Hashomer Hatzair movement, which called for a binational Jewish–Arab state before the end of the British Mandate in the Middle East while simultaneously helping to establish ‘settler colonial Jewish sovereignty’ over territory that was home to Palestinians.
Displacing Territory: Syrian and Palestinian Refugees in Jordan
Karen Culcasi. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2023. $30.00. 200 pp.
By focusing on Jordan, the state with the second-largest number of refugees per capita, Culcasi attempts to show that refugees often conceive of territory and national belonging in ways that are at odds with the Western division of the world into states. She seeks to dispel Western perceptions of refugees as ‘aberrant, burdensome, or threatening’.
Eighteen Days in October: The Yom Kippur War and How It Created the Modern Middle East
Uri Kaufman. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2023. $32.00. 400 pp.
While the Yom Kippur War in October 1973 saw Israel come close to defeat and its prime minister, Golda Meir, resign ‘in disgrace’, Kaufman argues that it was a long-term victory for Israel. It corrected Israeli misperceptions of its military superiority and undermined Arab hopes for eradicating Israel entirely, he argues.
Floundering Stability: US Foreign Policy in Egypt
Amir Magdy Kamel. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2023. $34.95. 186 pp.
The United States has long assumed that it can use its foreign-policy tools to underpin domestic and international security, but Kamel argues that this approach, which he terms the ‘Stability Policy’, failed in Egypt. He offers a framework for understanding other bilateral relationships and alternative economic policies that might achieve stability goals.
From Black Gold to Frozen Gas: How Qatar Became an Energy Superpower
Michael D. Tusiani and Anne-Marie Johnson. New York: Columbia University Press, 2023. £28.00/$32.00. 454 pp.
According to the authors, Qatar has been able to establish a distinctive global identity for itself through its energy sector, which has funded its global ambitions. They detail the development of the country’s hydrocarbon resources alongside rivalries within the ruling Al Thani family and among competing oil companies.
Hizb-ut-Tahrir: The Untold History of the Liberation Party
Reza Pankhurst. London: C. Hurst & Co., 2023. £17.99. 338 pp.
Although the pan-Islamic political party Hizb-ut-Tahrir holds global conferences with tens of thousands of attendees, Pankhurst argues that the organisation remains widely unknown. Seeking to change that, the author highlights key moments of influence in the organisation’s history, such as coup attempts in Jordan and meetings with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
Iran at War: Interactions with the Modern World and the Struggle with Imperial Russia
Maziar Behrooz. London: I.B. Tauris, 2023. £21.99. 214 pp.
Behrooz’s history of Iran’s Qajar dynasty focuses on its first two shahs, Aqa Muhammad Shah and Fath Ali Shah. During this early Qajar period, Iran faced two wars with Russia and increased British encroachment into the country’s affairs. The author argues that the shahs were able to achieve some successes despite facing ‘overwhelming technological, economic and military firepower’.
Islam and Capitalism in the Making of Modern Bahrain
Rajeswary Ampalavanar Brown. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2023. £100.00/$130.00. 576 pp.
Bahrain has transformed from a regional trading port and oil producer in the 1930s to the Gulf’s financial hub and an important global-financial player, writes Brown. The author explores the country’s political, legal, economic, religious and social structures, arguing that it has skilfully reconciled the demands of Islam with the requirements of modern financial capitalism.
Israel and the Cyber Threat: How the Startup Nation Became a Global Cyber Power
Charles D. Freilich, Matthew S. Cohen and Gabi Siboni. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2023. £29.99/$45.00. 424 pp.
Israel’s need to defend itself from cyber attacks has caused it to become one of the top cyber powers in the world, according to the authors. They detail the country’s cyber strategy and infrastructure, and the methods it has used to counter attacks and carry out its own operations.
The Kings of Algiers: How Two Jewish Families Shaped the Mediterranean World During the Napoleonic Wars and Beyond
Julie Kalman. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2023. £28.00/$32.00. 280 pp.
Based in Algiers during the Napoleonic Wars, the Bacri and Busnach families traded in various goods, brokered diplomatic relations with the Ottomans and lent warring nations capital. Kalman highlights their centrality for countries vying for influence in the region, as well as the threats of assassination and imprisonment they faced as their power grew.
The Last Treaty: Lausanne and the End of the First World War in the Middle East
Michelle Tusan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023. £30.00. 324 pp.
Tusan contrasts the decisive Allied victory over Germany in the First World War with the ‘unrelenting’ war with the Ottoman Empire in the east, which did not end until the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923. She argues that European-led efforts to maintain an imperial order favouring Western interests on the Middle Eastern Front had profound consequences for the post-war world.
The Loneliest Revolution: A Memoir of Solidarity and Struggle in Iran
Ali Mirsepassi. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2023. £14.99. 290 pp.
In October 1978, Mirsepassi was stabbed for speaking out against Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. In this volume he draws on his experiences as an activist in presenting a study of the years preceding the 1979 revolution in Iran that focuses on developments in the country’s provinces.
Precarious Lives: Waiting and Hope in Iran
Shahram Khosravi. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2023. $24.95. 288 pp.
A sense of precariousness in early-2000s Iranian society led to feelings of both hope and hopelessness, says Khosravi, as citizens, especially the country’s youth, became trapped by these paradoxical emotions in a state of ‘petrifying social and spatial immobility’. The author draws on a range of sources to paint a picture of what he sees as the contradictions and complexities of contemporary Iranian life.
Righteous Politics: Power and Resilience in Iran
Mehran Kamrava. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023. £26.99. 396 pp.
Spanning all aspects of the Iranian state, from the constitution to the powers of the Supreme Leader and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Kamrava analyses the formal and informal institutions through which the Iranian state operates to assess its resilience in the wake of recent waves of protest.
The Sacred Republic: Power and Institutions in Iran
Mehran Kamrava, ed. London: C. Hurst & Co., 2023. £45.00. 322 pp.
The volume focuses on the institutions through which the Islamic Republic of Iran exercises power: the judiciary, the presidency, parliament, elections, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the foreign-policy establishment. The contributors contend that there has been a lack of attention paid to the resilience of these institutions and the ways in which they change.
Seeking Stability Amidst Disorder: The Foreign Policies of Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar, 2010–20
Tobias Borck. London: C. Hurst & Co., 2023. £45.00. 384 pp.
Beginning with the Arab uprisings of the early 2010s, Borck identifies what he sees as differences in the foreign policies of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, despite all three identifying regional stability as a key policy goal. The countries possessed differing understandings of the sources of instability, which produced what were at times contradictory responses, says the author.
The Suspended Disaster: Governing by Crisis in Bouteflika’s Algeria
Thomas Serres. New York: Columbia University Press, 2023. £30.00/$35.00. 432 pp.
Serres argues that the government of former president Abdelaziz Bouteflika in Algeria was characterised by an ‘obsession’ with security and managing the prospect of unrest, violence and economic collapse. This ‘governance by catastrophization’ laid the groundwork for the uprising that would eventually unseat Bouteflika, says the author.
Syria Divided: Patterns of Violence in a Complex Civil War
Ora Szekely. New York: Columbia University Press, 2023. £30.00/$35.00. 296 pp.
The Syrian civil war has produced numerous domestic and foreign interpretations of its meaning. Szekely attempts to explain how these interpretations have shaped the conflict, and how the competition to control the war’s narrative has introduced a performative element to the war.
Syrian Gulag: Inside Assad’s Prison System
Jaber Baker and Ugur Ümit Üngör. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2023. £25.00. 416 pp.
Around 300,000 people have been detained in Syrian prisons since the civil war started, with some being arrested simply for liking Facebook posts. Based on interviews and leaked documents, the authors expose what they argue is the worst prison network in the Middle East, if not the world.
The UAE After the Arab Spring: Strategy for Survival
Khalifa Al-Suwaidi. London: I.B. Tauris, 2023. £85.00. 224 pp.
Al-Suwaidi examines how the United Arab Emirates (UAE), like other Gulf monarchies, avoided the Arab uprisings. It suggests that the UAE evolved from a ‘quietist state’ to one with a strong national identity that encourages its citizens to support the growth and prosperity of the state.
Asia-Pacific
Asia-Pacific Small States: Political Economies of Resilience
Stephen Noakes and Alexander C. Tan, eds. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2023. $98.00. 245 pp.
The authors of this volume attempt to explain how the small states in the Asia-Pacific region have dealt with the disruptive effects of the coronavirus pandemic and the escalation of regional tensions between the United States and China. The authors seek to highlight how smaller countries can be important in geopolitical competitions of this kind.
Birth of the Geopolitical Age: Global Frontiers and the Making of Modern China
Shellen Xiao Wu. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2023. $32.00. 328 pp.
Noting that China is the only country that emerged from the twentieth century with its ‘imperial territorial expanse largely intact’, Wu explores how interpretations of empire and frontier development from around the world have influenced the development of the Chinese state from the 1850s, as well as power dynamics in East Asia more broadly.
Contemporary China: 1949 to the Present
Gilles Guiheux. Andrew Brown, trans. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2023. £25.00. 432 pp.
Guiheux attempts to dispel the idea that the Chinese Communist Party is a novel institution, instead arguing that its political heritage lies with the reformers and revolutionaries who participated in the upheavals of the early twentieth century. He also seeks to show commonalities between China’s development and that of other countries.
Countering China: US Responses to the Belt and Road Initiative
Edward Ashbee. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2023. $95.00. 187 pp.
The Belt and Road Initiative, China’s massive investment and infrastructure-development programme, had the support of 144 countries as of March 2022. Ashbee explores how the United States has responded to the programme since its inception in 2013 through to 2022.
The Currency of Truth: Newsmaking and the Late-socialist Imaginaries of China’s Digital Era
Emily H.C. Chua. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2023. $24.95. 186 pp.
Charting the intersection points and relationships between newsmakers, advertising executives and Chinese Communist Party officials, Chua argues that news in China is less about mass communication and more a currency to be traded for personal gain. The author attempts to apply this insight to an understanding of Western news in the ‘post-truth’ age.
Facing China: The Prospect for War and Peace
Jean-Pierre Cabestan. N. Jayaram, trans. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2023. £25.00/$34.00. 248 pp.
Focusing his analysis on conflict scenarios between the United States and China around Taiwan, in the South China Sea or in the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, Cabestan discusses the likelihood of conflict between the two superpowers. He argues that any conflict would most likely take the form of either a rapid attack or a new cold war.
Future? China! How the New Superpower Is Changing the West
Frank Sieren. Singapore: World Scientific, 2023. £25.00. 300 pp.
Sieren draws on his personal perspective as a European living in China for the past 30 years to explore China’s rise. He argues that Western unipolarity is over, and that China is beginning to question what the West supposes to be universal values. China is now equipped with the power to change these values, he says.
Governing Neighbourhoods in Urban China: Changing State–Society Relations
Beibei Tang. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2023. $49.95. 175 pp.
Tang introduces the concept of ‘hybrid authoritarianism’ in relation to the ways in which she believes the Chinese state seeks to enhance its legitimacy and public support through governance mechanisms that accommodate both state and non-state actors. She considers how such mechanisms operate in various types of urban neighbourhoods.
The Island of World Peace: The Jeju Massacre and State Building in South Korea
Gwisook Gwon. Washington DC and Lanham, MD: Brookings Institution Press and Rowman & Littlefield, 2023. £65.00/$85.00. 210 pp.
The Jeju massacre, occurring between 1947 and 1954, was the deadliest recognised civilian massacre in South Korea’s modern history. Gwon explores the relationship between this event and other key historical moments, including the creation of an anti-communist South Korea in the early Cold War, the Korean War, and the economic recovery and modernisation that occurred in South Korea between the 1950s and the 1970s.
Japan’s Quiet Leadership: Reshaping the Indo-Pacific
Mireya Solis. Washington DC and Lanham, MD: Brookings Institution Press and Rowman & Littlefield, 2023. £25.00/$29.95. 260 pp.
Solis analyses Japan’s domestic economy and politics alongside the geopolitical challenges it has faced in the last three decades in an attempt to understand how it has recovered from its ‘lost decade’ to become a major geopolitical player. Japan finds strength in its social stability and proactive diplomacy, the author argues.
Khmer Nationalist: Sơn Ngọc Thành, the CIA, and the Transformation of Cambodia
Matthew Jagel. Ithaca, NY: Northern Illinois University Press, 2023. $30.95. 243 pp.
Describing Sơn Ngọc Thành as central to Cambodia’s twentieth-century history, Jagel examines his role in the rise of Cambodian nationalism, the fight for independence from France and the establishment of ties with the United States.
Korea: A New History of South and North
Victor Cha and Ramon Pacheco Pardo. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2023. $30.00. 288 pp.
The authors look at modern Korean history from the years leading to the Japanese occupation up to the present day. They seek to portray Korea as part of a wider environment influenced by China, Japan and Russia, all three of which have greatly affected Korean history.
Let There Be Light: How Electricity Made Modern Hong Kong
Mark L. Clifford. New York: Columbia University Press, 2023. £30.00/$35.00. 312 pp.
Hong Kong’s twentieth-century economic growth, ‘energetic’ civil society and urban modernity are all products of electricity, says Clifford. In this history of the former British colony’s electrification, the author explores how electricity affected both the daily life of citizens and the ‘grand politics’ of what became an ‘anti-Communist showcase of production and consumption’.
The New China Playbook: Beyond Socialism and Capitalism
Keyu Jin. New York: Viking, 2023. $30.00. 368 pp.
Born in China and educated in the United States, Jin believes that many Westerners hold an incomplete picture of China. A greater understanding of the country’s culture and history would help outsiders reconcile what appear to be contradictions in the Chinese model, he argues.
The Other Great Game: The Opening of Korea and the Birth of Modern East Asia
Sheila Miyoshi Jager. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2023. £33.95/$39.95. 624 pp.
The nineteenth-century ‘great game’ between Russia and Britain that played out in Central Asia may be well known, but Russia’s other battle – with China and Japan over Korea – is usually overlooked, says the author. She argues that this contest helped to determine the future of East Asia and the wider global order.
Recentering Pacific Asia: Regional China and World Order
Brantly Womack. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023. £25.99. 255 pp.
Pacific Asia has emerged as the world’s largest and most cohesive economic region, within which China plays a key role. Despite anxieties in the United States about growing Chinese power, neither country can control the ‘multi-layered, interconnected global matrix’ in which both are ‘primary nodes’, says Womack.
Rights Refused: Grassroots Activism and State Violence in Myanmar
Elliott Prasse-Freeman. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2023. $32.00. 366 pp.
Prasse-Freeman argues that, in spite of the endorsement by Myanmar’s elites of the logic of human rights, the country’s ‘subaltern’ subjects remain ambivalent about this logic, often viewing rights as empty promises. The author explores how grassroots political activists in Myanmar have carried out political activities in the absence of a human-rights framework.
The Rise and Fall of the EAST: How Exams, Autocracy, Stability, and Technology Brought China Success, and Why They Might Lead to Its Decline
Yasheng Huang. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2023. $35.00. 440 pp.
According to Huang, Chinese society has been shaped by exams, autocracy, stability and technology (EAST) from the Sui dynasty’s introduction of the civil-service exam (Keju) to the present. In certain periods, a homogenising impulse has served to stifle creativity and produce stagnation, he says, which may be a danger faced by the current Chinese regime.
Southeast Asia’s Multipolar Future: Averting a New Cold War
Thomas Parks. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2023. £85.00. 250 pp.
In the context of rising tensions between China and the United States, countries in Southeast Asia can retain their agency and sovereignty by seeking partnerships with external powers, according to Parks. With differing degrees of anxiety or positivity surrounding US assertiveness against China, smaller powers are shifting the region toward a multipolar order.
Sovereign Funds: How the Communist Party of China Finances Its Global Ambitions
Zongyuan Zoe Liu. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2023. £37.95/$45.00. 288 pp.
Liu analyses the evolution of China’s sovereign funds, explaining how the Chinese Communist Party built these funds by leveraging foreign-exchange reserves, and detailing their use in projects such as the Belt and Road Initiative. Liu ultimately argues that state-owned financial institutions now gatekeep the Chinese economy under President Xi Jinping.
Stalemate: Autonomy and Insurgency on the China–Myanmar Border
Andrew Ong. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University, 2023. $32.95. 253 pp.
Ong details the history and activities of the United Wa State Army (UWSA), an insurgent group that operates on Myanmar’s border with China. He suggests that the ‘relational autonomy’ the group has achieved in its dealings with both Myanmar and China challenges received wisdom about sovereignty and statehood.
U.S.–Taiwan Relations: Will China’s Challenge Lead to a Crisis?
Ryan Hass, Bonnie Glaser and Richard Bush. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2023. $28.00. 208 pp.
Given the recent escalation of tensions between the United States and China regarding Taiwan, the authors seek to take a holistic view in analysing China’s national ambitions and strategies for unifying with Taiwan, as well as potential US responses. Conflict over Taiwan is still not inevitable, they argue.
Victorious in Defeat: The Life and Times of Chiang Kai-shek, China, 1887–1975
Alexander V. Pantsov. Steven I. Levine, trans. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2023. $40.00. 736 pp.
Pantsov’s new biography of Chiang Kaishek is based on Chiang’s unpublished diaries and files belonging to him and his associates that are now stored in the Russian archives. Pantsov focuses on the role Russia played throughout Chiang’s political career, as well as his relationship with officials in the United States government.
Vietnam: Navigating a Rapidly Changing Economy, Society, and Political Order
Börje Ljunggren and Dwight H. Perkins, eds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2023. £37.95/$45.00. 452 pp.
Contributors from Vietnam, North America and Europe focus on the recent history of Vietnam, noting that the one-party state has allowed for the development of a market-based economy linked to global value chains while maintaining party control. The authors sound a note of optimism for Vietnam despite a trend towards political repression.
Where FDI Goes in Decentralized Authoritarian Countries: The Politics of Taiwanese Site Selection for Investment in Mainland China
Kelan Lu. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2023. $75.00. 216 pp.
What determines where foreign direct investment (FDI) goes in authoritarian countries? Using the case of Taiwanese FDI into mainland China, Lu analyses China’s unique ‘cadre promotion system’ for attracting such investment, and looks at the impact of attracting investment inflows from adversarial states.