Compelling revisionist history of Chinese foreign relations. Waley-Cohen (History/New York Univ.; Exile in Mid-Qing China, 1991) is mainly concerned here with dispelling certain myths about Chinese attitudes and actions toward the rest of the world. China has been viewed as rabidly isolationist, virulently hostile to and ignorant of the world outside its borders, and irrationally resistant to change and innovation. All of these views, argues Waley-Cohen, are wrong, and stem from the peculiar perceptions of 19th century Western colonizers whose imprecations China quite naturally resisted. The author provides much historical evidence to back up her claims. As early as 200 b.c., China had established networks of trade throughout all of Asia, and later was to extend these ties to Europe and the New World. Foreign ideas and innovations were not as a rule shunned but welcomed. Buddhism, imported from India, became highly influential; foreign inventions, such as the sextant (hence the title of the book) and other astronomical instruments introduced in the 17th century, were enthusiastically adopted. What emerges from the author’s historical account is hardly the image of a benighted backward nation. But perception is often everything. China has indeed at times been hostile to foreign influences, yet the author shows this has often been for good reasons. Jesuit missionaries in the 16th century eventually met with official and popular resistance, yet Jesuit insistence on the exclusivity of Christianity ran counter to China’s traditionally tolerant and eclectic attitude toward religions. China did indeed attempt to restrict trade with the West in the 18th and 19th centuries, not out of ignorance, however, but from understanding all too well the imperial designs of the West. In modern times, China under communism has often been extremely hostile to the West, especially to the US, yet the US for its part reviled China, until very recently, as a criminal and outlaw regime. A provocative, original, and accessible study that may cause readers to reexamine long-held assumptions about China.
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-393-04693-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1999
Bernstein and Woodward, the two Washington Post journalists who broke the Big Story, tell how they did it by old fashioned seat-of-the-pants reporting — in other words, lots of intuition and a thick stack of phone numbers. They've saved a few scoops for the occasion, the biggest being the name of their early inside source, the "sacrificial lamb" H**h Sl**n. But Washingtonians who talked will be most surprised by the admission that their rumored contacts in the FBI and elsewhere never existed; many who were telephoned for "confirmation" were revealing more than they realized. The real drama, and there's plenty of it, lies in the private-eye tactics employed by Bernstein and Woodward (they refer to themselves in the third person, strictly on a last name basis). The centerpiece of their own covert operation was an unnamed high government source they call Deep Throat, with whom Woodward arranged secret meetings by positioning the potted palm on his balcony and through codes scribbled in his morning newspaper. Woodward's wee hours meetings with Deep Throat in an underground parking garage are sheer cinema: we can just see Robert Redford (it has to be Robert Redford) watching warily for muggers and stubbing out endless cigarettes while Deep Throat spills the inside dope about the plumbers. Then too, they amass enough seamy detail to fascinate even the most avid Watergate wallower — what a drunken and abusive Mitchell threatened to do to Post publisher Katherine Graham's tit, and more on the Segretti connection — including the activities of a USC campus political group known as the Ratfuckers whose former members served as a recruiting pool for the Nixon White House. As the scandal goes public and out of their hands Bernstein and Woodward seem as stunned as the rest of us at where their search for the "head ratfucker" has led. You have to agree with what their City Editor Barry Sussman realized way back in the beginning — "We've never had a story like this. Just never."
Pub Date: June 18, 1974
ISBN: 0671894412
Page Count: 372
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1974
Harari delivers yet another tour de force.
A highly instructive exploration of “current affairs and…the immediate future of human societies.”
Having produced an international bestseller about human origins (Sapiens, 2015, etc.) and avoided the sophomore jinx writing about our destiny (Homo Deus, 2017), Harari (History/Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem) proves that he has not lost his touch, casting a brilliantly insightful eye on today’s myriad crises, from Trump to terrorism, Brexit to big data. As the author emphasizes, “humans think in stories rather than in facts, numbers, or equations, and the simpler the story, the better. Every person, group, and nation has its own tales and myths.” Three grand stories once predicted the future. World War II eliminated the fascist story but stimulated communism for a few decades until its collapse. The liberal story—think democracy, free markets, and globalism—reigned supreme for a decade until the 20th-century nasties—dictators, populists, and nationalists—came back in style. They promote jingoism over international cooperation, vilify the opposition, demonize immigrants and rival nations, and then win elections. “A bit like the Soviet elites in the 1980s,” writes Harari, “liberals don’t understand how history deviates from its preordained course, and they lack an alternative prism through which to interpret reality.” The author certainly understands, and in 21 painfully astute essays, he delivers his take on where our increasingly “post-truth” world is headed. Human ingenuity, which enables us to control the outside world, may soon re-engineer our insides, extend life, and guide our thoughts. Science-fiction movies get the future wrong, if only because they have happy endings. Most readers will find Harari’s narrative deliciously reasonable, including his explanation of the stories (not actually true but rational) of those who elect dictators, populists, and nationalists. His remedies for wildly disruptive technology (biotech, infotech) and its consequences (climate change, mass unemployment) ring true, provided nations act with more good sense than they have shown throughout history.
Harari delivers yet another tour de force.Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-51217-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2018
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