A thorough account of a political dynamic that reverberates globally.
In her debut, Smith offers a searching, scholarly discussion of Sino-Japanese relations.
China’s rapid ascendency has compelled the whole world to reconsider its geopolitical strategy, but perhaps no nation has as big a stake as Japan does. However, the hope for a lasting, productive détente between the two nations has been frustrated by both long-standing historical contentions and minor missteps. Smith, a senior fellow for Japan studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, deftly unpacks the obstacles to such a sovereign partnership as well as the advantages such a partnership promises. Some of the problems seem stubbornly resistant to improvement, as they’re not easily reducible to policy; for example, the powerful resentments of some Chinese regarding Japanese aggression during World War II are stoked by the celebration of fallen soldiers at the Yasukuni Shrine but are hardly caused by it. Other disputes are more policy-driven, such as a battle involving the trade of frozen dumplings. Finally, some issues seem to involve both contemporary policy and cultural rivalry, such as the territorial imbroglios regarding islands in the East China Sea. As Smith notes, Japan seems to desire friendly resolution while remaining wary of creeping Chinese hegemony; China, on the other hand, wants superpower status but also membership in the international theater as a responsible player. In the background is the United States, courted by Japan to become involved in disputes but encouraged by China to remain neutral. What emerges from the author’s analysis is a picture of two world powers—Japan and the United States—struggling to accommodate a world transformed by the inexorable rise of a third, China. Additionally, Smith draws out larger lessons about the nature of modern diplomacy and the extent to which economic collaboration is never fully separable from politics. Her account is impressively erudite and scrupulously researched, written in a clear, mercifully jargon-free style. For those interested in the future of the region, U.S. foreign policy, or a deep examination of the power and limits of diplomacy, this book won’t disappoint.
A thorough account of a political dynamic that reverberates globally.Pub Date: April 17, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-231-16788-8
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Columbia Univ.
Review Posted Online: Aug. 6, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
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