An excellent resource for those who live and work at a place where Chinese and Western viewpoints coincide.
A fresh view of China's emergence as a global economic force from two writers with extensive personal background in the East and West, who take a careful historical approach to claims as to how the interaction among Chinese and Western cultures will bring a new dynamic approach to world trade.
Like many who have studied China’s growing influence in the West, these authors assert that the nation’s economic growth will change the world dramatically. This ambitious survey shows how distinct definitions of self, nation and empire have emerged and changed in the East and West throughout the centuries, drawing upon an extensive body of scholarship. Although Tai P. Ng holds a doctorate in geophysics, neither author specializes in academic China studies. However, each has an extensive background in both parts of the world. This may be why their refreshing approach eschews headline-grabbing predictions about inevitable conflict between China and Western nations, while also avoiding claims that either culture holds superior values. Neither China nor the West is portrayed as exotic or dangerous. Instead, this is a fascinating account of how past similarities and differences between the East and West provide the groundwork for a new culture that will reshape our lives in the future. The authors reveal that business and world trade are hardly new to the Chinese tradition even while contemporary interaction with the West brings a new dynamic to conventional trade. Academic readers may find this survey lacking in theoretical context and overly broad in summarizing significant historical events. But the authors’ careful research and personal experiences lend authority to their claims, providing an excellent introduction to China’s past and present that breaks down many common preconceptions. The sometimes pedantic tone could put off a novice reader, but the careful explication of central values in the East and West will reward those who want to understand why basic Western assumptions about the world differ from those in China and how global economics may evolve in the future. Moreover, a non-judgmental approach to both cultures makes this an important contribution to the body of literature about China written for the layperson.
An excellent resource for those who live and work at a place where Chinese and Western viewpoints coincide.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-595-41846-6
Page Count: 376
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
PERSPECTIVES
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
