{"id":18,"date":"2011-04-12T07:35:37","date_gmt":"2011-04-12T07:35:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/?p=18"},"modified":"2011-04-12T07:35:37","modified_gmt":"2011-04-12T07:35:37","slug":"two-books-on-asia-monsoon-by-robert-kaplan-when-asia-was-the-world-by-stewart-gordon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/2011\/04\/two-books-on-asia-monsoon-by-robert-kaplan-when-asia-was-the-world-by-stewart-gordon\/","title":{"rendered":"Two books on Asia: Monsoon by Robert Kaplan; When Asia was the World by Stewart Gordon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome to my reading review! Asia is a pivotal continent \u00e2\u20ac\u201c home to some of the world\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s largest nations and some of its most dynamic. Recently I picked up two books on the region, Robert Kaplan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Monsoon<\/strong> and Stewart Gordon\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s When Asia Was The World<\/strong>, and my take on them is below.<\/p>\n

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Please note I am not an expert in the topics covered by these books; rather, my perspective is that of an interested lay reader. <\/em><\/p>\n

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Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power, by Robert D. Kaplan (2010)<\/strong> \u00e2\u20ac\u201c This book is about the history and contemporary geopolitics of the Indian Ocean, from East Africa to the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, as seen through the lens of the author\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s travels. If you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve done any reading on these topics, none of the concepts the book discusses will be radically new: these range from the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153string of pearls\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (Chinese naval facilities around India, in the likes of Burma, Sri Lanka and Pakistan); to China\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s reliance upon oil shipments through the Straits of Malacca; to the nature of Islam in Indonesia; to the historical trade and cultural links between the countries in the region. However, the book could well add some interesting colour. If, however, you haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t<\/em> read about these topics and you were looking for a decent introduction, you could probably do a lot worse than starting with Monsoon.<\/p>\n

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You can buy Monsoon from Amazon here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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When Asia Was The World: Travelling Merchants, Scholars, Warriors and Monks Who Created the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Riches of the East\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, by Stewart Gordon (2008) \u00e2\u20ac\u201c<\/strong> This book is a collection of ten vignettes, mostly about individuals (the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153merchants, scholars, warriors and monks\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of the title): Jews and Muslims, Chinese and Portuguese and more, from the founder of the Mughal Empire to the traveller ibn Battuta, across almost 1,000 years. One vignette discusses what the contents of a shipwreck in the Java Sea tell us about the trade networks of the time, and the final vignette discusses the region as a whole. I found some of the people chronicled to be much more interesting than others, but on the whole, I liked the book as a source of insight as to how the world worked, who went where and why, how kings treated honoured guests and how ordinary people made their living in those days. This one is going on my reference shelf.<\/p>\n

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You can buy When Asia was the World from Amazon here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Welcome to my reading review! Asia is a pivotal continent \u00e2\u20ac\u201c home to some of the world\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s largest nations and some of its most dynamic. Recently I picked up two books on the region, Robert Kaplan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Monsoon and Stewart Gordon\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,5,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","category-history","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}