Shows / Asian Review of Books
Asian Review of Books
The Asian Review of Books is the only dedicated pan-Asian book review publication. Widely quoted, referenced, republished by leading publications in Asian and beyond and with an archive of more than two thousand book reviews, the ARB also features long-format essays by leading Asian writers and thinkers, excerpts from newly-published books and reviews of arts and culture. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/asian-review
Episodes
- Asian Review of Books
Blood Dawn: World War II and the Making of Modern Asia with Hans van de Ven (Basic Books, 2026)
In March 1942, Japanese troops landed on Java's north coast and were welcomed by many of the Indonesians they had come to conquer. It’s an indication of just…
- Asian Review of Books
Sea of Treasures: A Cultural History of Ancient Indian Ocean Trade
After Caesar's assassination, the triumvirs drew up a kill list; one such target, a man named Lucius Plotius Plancus, fled to a villa near Naples and tried…
- Asian Review of Books
Shanghai: The Story of China's Most Dynamic City with Michael Dillon (Yale UP, 2026)
The Bund's grand facades and the leafy streets of the former French Concession are usually read as monuments to Western enterprise in China. But those…
- Asian Review of Books
The Steppe and Its Empires: The Russian Empire and Its Eurasian Counterparts
Winston Churchill famously called Russia "a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma." But what if the riddle is partly of our own making—the product of…
- Asian Review of Books
Alone in Japan: A Journey to the Future with Tom Feiling (Allen Lane, 2025)
Japan has been aging for decades. The country’s birth rate first fell below the replacement rate in 1974, long before phrases like the “demographic transition”…
- Asian Review of Books
Mehran Gul, "The New Geography of Innovation: The Global Contest for Breakthrough Technologies" (Simon and Schuster, 2026)
Increasingly, it seems like the corporate names that dominate headlines are much more diverse than they used to be. Samsung, TSMC, and SK Hynix. Alibaba and…
- Asian Review of Books
Andrew Seth Meyer, "To Rule All Under Heaven: A History of Classical China, from Confucius to the First Emperor" (Oxford UP, 2026)
The Warring States Period is one of the most important times in China’s history. It marked the end of one dynasty–the Zhou–and the beginning of a new imperial…
- Asian Review of Books
Charlie Walker, "On Thin Ice: An Explorer's Memoir of Siberia, Surveillance and Survival" (Duckworth, 2026)
In February 2022, British explorer Charlie Walker flew to Siberia's Sakha Republic to walk a thousand miles up frozen rivers to the Arctic Ocean, through…
- Asian Review of Books
Jieun Baek, "Privileged But Powerless: How North Korean Elite Grievances Reveal the Regime’s Greatest Weakness" (Yale UP, 2026)
What do the people closest to power really think about the system they serve? That’s perhaps one of the most important questions one could ask about North…
- Asian Review of Books
Yuri Pines, "China's Aristocratic Age: Politics and Power in the Springs-and-Autumns Period" (Princeton UP, 2026)
The Springs-and-Autumns period is a strange period in Chinese history. Coming after the decline of the Zhou, and before the famous Warring States Period, this…
- Asian Review of Books
Sandip Roy, "Chapal Rani, the Last Queen of Bengal" (Seagull Books, 2026)
Chapal Rani was one of India’s most famous performers of jatra, Bengal’s popular theater. Traditionally, all the roles, including female roles, were played by…
- Asian Review of Books
Paul French, "The Last Emperor of China: Twilight of the Forbidden City" (St. Martin's Press, 2026)
The life of Puyi, the last emperor of China, often feels like a spectacle—in no small part due to the 1987 Oscar-winning film The Last Emperor. Yet the true…
- Asian Review of Books
Tom Lin, "Babylon, South Dakota" (Little, Brown and Co, 2026)
Today, we’re welcoming novelist Tom Lin back to the show, whose new novel Babylon, South Dakota (Little, Brown and Company: 2026) moves his fascination with…
- Asian Review of Books
Joe Ngai and Nick Leung, "The Next China Is Still China: An Insider's Playbook for Winning in the New Era" (Scribner, 2026)
What’s going on in the Chinese economy? China reported GDP growth of just 4.3% last quarter. Consumption is sluggish, exports are booming, electronics…
- Asian Review of Books
Eamonn Gearon, "The Arab Bureau: The Story of Britain's Most Ingenious Intelligence Unit" (Hurst, 2026)
Many of us have watched the classic 1962 movie Lawrence of Arabia, the somewhat fictionalized work based on the life of T. E. Lawrence during the Arab Revolt…
- Asian Review of Books
Matthew Campbell, "The Man Who Stole the Gods: A True Story of War, Obsession, and a Global Art Conspiracy" (Penguin, 2026)
On June 10, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York returned two pieces of artwork to Cambodia: an Angkor statue and a sandstone lintel. It’s the latest…
- Asian Review of Books
Gregory Smits, "The Ryukyu Islands: A New History from the Stone Age to the Present" (U Chicago Press, 2025)
Most people only know one of the Ryukyu Islands: the island of Okinawa, home to sandy beaches and one of the U.S.’s most important bases in Asia. There are…
- Asian Review of Books
Olivier Hein, "Mother of the World: The Remarkable History of Turkmenistan" (Hurst, 2026)
Turkmenistan rarely makes international headlines–and when it did, it was often stories that highlighted things like the strange cult of personality that…
- Asian Review of Books
Xiaobing Li, "China’s Mahan: Admiral Liu Huaqing and the Rise of the Modern Chinese Navy (Naval Institute Press, 2026)
In 2012, China debuted its first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, a refurbished Soviet-era ship from Ukraine. The debut of the Liaoning was largely thanks to a…
- Asian Review of Books
Charlotte Brooks, "The Moys of New York and Shanghai: One Family’s Extraordinary Journey Through War and Revolution" (U California Press, 2026)
The story of the Moy family—U.S.-born Chinese-American siblings who grow up in the first half of the 20th century—is one that spans the Pacific, covering New…
- Asian Review of Books
Robert Templer, "The Shah's Party: And the Iranian Revolution That Followed (Hurst, 2026)
In 1971, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi threw a party to celebrate the 2,500-year anniversary of the Persian Empire. It was planned to be a massive party, with…
- Asian Review of Books
Homa Katouzian, "Iran and the Revolution: A History" (Yale UP, 2026)
Iran is, once again, in global headlines, following U.S. strikes on the country earlier this year. Operation Epic Fury, as the Department of Defense called it…
- Asian Review of Books
Shefalee Vasudev, "Stories We Wear: Status, Spectacle and the Politics of Appearance" (Westland Non-Fiction, 2025)
Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, is known for his outfits. Since rising to become India’s head of government in 2014, photographers and journalists have…
- Asian Review of Books
Evelyn Iritani, "Safe Passage: The Untold Story of Diplomatic Intrigue, Betrayal, and the Exchange of American and Japanese Civilians by Sea During World War II" (FSG, 2026)
In October 1943, the Gripsholm—a Swedish ocean liner—and the Teia Maru—a Japanese troop ship—sat in Mormugao, a port in Portuguese India. There, the two ships…
- Asian Review of Books
Fyodor Tertitskiy, "Pyongyang on the Brink: Sixteen Crises That Shaped North Korea" (Hurst, 2026)
North Korea has survived wars, sanctions, and isolation—to the point where it now seems that the continuation of the Kim dynasty, and a starkly divided Korea…
- Asian Review of Books
Julia Stephens, "Worldly Afterlives: Tracing Family Trails Between India and Empire" (Princeton UP, 2025)
The British Empire covered much of the world during the 19th century–and each time someone moved through it, they left a paper trail in their wake. Julia…
- Asian Review of Books
Paul Blustein, "King Dollar: The Past and Future of the World's Dominant Currency" (Yale UP, 2025)
The U.S. dollar is the world’s most important currency. Trade is priced in dollars, the world’s central banks keep U.S. dollars in reserve, some…
- Asian Review of Books
Craig Perry, "Slavery and the Jews of Medieval Egypt: A History" (Princeton UP, 2026)
Slavery was a key part of pre-modern Islamic society, spanning from soldiers to concubines. And one of the most revealing repositories of evidence we have for…
- Asian Review of Books
Jinwoo Park, "Oxford Soju Club" (Dundurn Press, 2025)
Doha, a North Korean spymaster, is found stabbed in an alley in Oxford. Doha tells his mentee–another North Korean spy named Yohan—to go to the Oxford Soju…
- Asian Review of Books
Rishi Rajpopat, "Panini's Perfect Rule: A Modern Solution to an Ancient Problem in Sanskrit Grammar" (Harvard UP, 2025)
Panini’s Ashtadyayi is one of the most famous works in Sanskrit, a so-called “linguistic machine” that, through its 4,000 words, allows someone to generate…
- Asian Review of Books
Avner Greif et al., "Two Paths to Prosperity: Culture and Institutions in Europe and China, 1000–2000" (Princeton UP, 2025)
It’s one of the biggest questions in economic history: How did a richer, more advanced China fall behind Europe? Why was Europe the home of the Industrial…
- Asian Review of Books
Nicholas Evan Sarantakes, "The Battle of Manila: Poisoned Victory in the Pacific War" (Oxford UP, 2025)
On Feb. 6, 1945, just three days after the U.S. army started to fight the Japanese in the city of Manila, General Douglas MacArthur declared that “Manila had…
- Asian Review of Books
Mahesh Rao, "Half Light" (Penguin Random House India, 2025)
On Sep. 6, 2018, India’s Supreme Court ruled that Section 377, a law that criminalized consensual homosexual activity, was unconstitutional, reversing an…
- Asian Review of Books
Olivier Hein, "Borneo: The History of an Enigma" (Hurst, 2026)
Borneo—split between two countries, home to some of the world’s oldest rainforests and a vast array of animal and plant life—is back in the news. The island is…
- Asian Review of Books
Rian Thum, "Islamic China: An Asian History" (Harvard UP, 2025)
Can someone be Chinese and Muslim? For some academics, this has been a surprisingly fraught question, with some asserting that Chinese Muslims are not really…
- Asian Review of Books
Warwick Ball, "Ancient Civilizations of Afghanistan: From the Earliest Times to the Mongol Conquest" (Reaktion, 2025)
Today, Afghanistan–if it ever reaches global headlines–is portrayed as an unstable land, known more for the wars great powers fight (and often lose) on its…
- Asian Review of Books
Joanna Lillis, "Silk Mirage: Through the Looking Glass in Uzbekistan" (Bloomsbury, 2025)
In September 2016, Islam Karimov–the first president of a post-Soviet Uzbekistan–died, at age 78. His death ended an oppressive dictatorship that had governed…
- Asian Review of Books
Yi-Ling Liu, "The Wall Dancers: Searching for Freedom and Connection on the Chinese Internet" (Knopf, 2026)
Not too long ago, in the 2000s and 2010s, many felt that the internet–even one behind the Great Firewall–would bring about a more open China. As President Bill…
- Asian Review of Books
Eric Chopra, "Ghosted" (Speaking Tiger, 2026)
Delhi is haunted—by its ghosts, its ruins, and its unending capacity for rebirth. In the shadow of medieval mosques and Mughal tombs, the past refuses to stay…
- Asian Review of Books
Yossef Rapoport, "Becoming Arab: The Formation of Arab Identity in the Medieval Middle East" (Princeton UP, 2025)
Today, much of the Middle East is “Arab”—an identity that now extends across North Africa and up through the Near East to Syria. Yet how did this region become…
- Asian Review of Books
Namit Arora and Romila Thapar, "Speaking of History: Conversations about India’s Past and Present" (India Allen Lane, 2025)
What does it mean to be a historian? How do you try to explain the past when sources are lacking? And how do we talk about history when it’s so politicized? In…
- Asian Review of Books
Imran Mulla, "The Indian Caliphate, Exiled Ottomans and the Billionaire Prince" (Hurst, 2025)
In 1924, the Republic of Turkey voted to abolish the Ottoman caliphate, ending a 400-year-long claim by the Ottomans that they were the leaders of the Islamic…
- Asian Review of Books
Sean Mathews, "The New Byzantines: The Rise of Greece and Return of the Near East" (Hurst, 2025)
Where does Greece belong? Many look at the ancient Greek ruins of Athens, and see the cradle of Western civilization. But much of Greece’s history actually…
- Asian Review of Books
Kerry Brown, "The Great Reversal: Britain, China and the 400-Year Contest for Power" (Yale UP, 2024)
In the sixteenth century, Queen Elizabeth I tried to send several letters to her Chinese counterpart, the Wan Li Emperor. The letters tried to ask the Ming…
- Asian Review of Books
Suraj Milind Yengde, "Caste: A Global Story" (Hurst, 2025)
Caste has been a huge topic of conversation in modern India. Yet debates and activism around caste discrimination have spread beyond South Asia. Caste…
- Asian Review of Books
Joseph Torigian, "The Party’s Interests Come First: The Life of Xi Zhongxun, Father of Xi Jinping" (Stanford UP, 2025)
Xi Zhongxun’s career spanned the entirety of China’s modern history. Born just two years after the 1911revolution that overthrew the Qing Dynasty, Xi was an…
- Asian Review of Books
Andrew Bernstein, "Fuji: A Mountain In The Making" (Princeton UP, 2025)
The Great Wave is perhaps the most famous piece of Japanese artwork: a roaring blue wave and three boats on the ocean. And far in the background is Mt. Fuji…
- Asian Review of Books
Steve Tibble, "Assassins and Templars: A Battle in Myth and Blood" (Yale UP, 2025)
The Assassins and the Templars. Two groups that are now part of popular legend–and not just because of Assassin’s Creed, the massive video game franchise…
- Asian Review of Books
Fahad Ahmad Bishara, "Monsoon Voyagers: An Indian Ocean History" (U California Press, 2025)
In 1924, the Al-A‘waj, also known as the Crooked, set sail from Kuwait on a trading journey around the Persian Gulf, through the Strait of Hormuz, to Western…
- Asian Review of Books
Ludovic Orlando, "Horses: A 4,000-Year Genetic Journey Across the World" (Princeton UP, 2025)
In 2016, Ludovic Orlando, a genetics researcher, embarked on the Pegasus Project, an ambitious endeavor to use genetics to discover the origin of the modern…
- Asian Review of Books
Justin Marozzi, "Captives and Companions: A History of Slavery and the Slave Trade in the Islamic World" (Pegasus Books, 2025)
Slavery has been a ubiquitous practice throughout much of world history–and the Muslim world was no exception. Slave soldiers, concubines, and eunuchs can be…
- Asian Review of Books
Harini Nagendra, "Into the Leopard's Den: A Bangalore Detectives Club Mystery" (Pegasus Crime, 2025)
Into the Leopard’s Den (Pegasus / Hachette India: 2025), the latest novel in the Bangalore Detective Club series by Harini Nagendra, opens with a home invasion…
- Asian Review of Books
Stephen C. Mercado, "Japanese Spy Gear and Special Weapons: How Noborito's Scientists and Technicians Served in the Second World War and the Cold War" (Pen & Sword Military, 2025)
War, and the threat of war, spurs governments to invest in secret military technologies and weapons. Imperial Japan, ahead of the Second World War, was no…
- Asian Review of Books
Abhimanyu Kumar and Aletta André, "The House of Awadh: A Hidden Tragedy" (HarperCollins India, 2025)
Begum Wilayat Mahal, the self-proclaimed heir to the House of Awadh, has fascinated journalists and writers for decades. She claimed she was Indian royalty…
- Asian Review of Books
Moudhy Al-Rashid, "Between Two Rivers: Ancient Mesopotamia and the Birth of History" (W.W. Norton, 2025)
In 1923, archaeologist Leonard Woolley stumbled upon a room that dated back to 530BC, the time of the Babylonians. Oddly, the room was filled with artifacts…
- Asian Review of Books
Jemimah Wei, "The Original Daughter" (Doubleday/Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2025)
Genevieve Yang, the protagonist of Jemimah Wei’s debut novel The Original Daughter (Doubleday/Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2025) works a dead-end job in Singapore…
- Asian Review of Books
Erin M.B. O'Halloran, "East of Empire: Egypt, India, and the World Between the Wars" (Stanford UP, 2025)
Between the First and Second World Wars, activists across the British Empire began to think about what their homes might look like as independent nations…
- Asian Review of Books
Rosinka Chaudhuri, "India's First Radicals: Young Bengal and the British Empire" (India Viking, 2025)
In 1831, the India Gazette wrote about a group of radical young thinkers that it credited for an upheaval in social and religious politics in Calcutta. These…
- Asian Review of Books
Charles R. Butcher and Ryan D. Griffiths, "Before Colonization: Non-Western States and Systems in the Nineteenth Century" (Columbia UP, 2025)
Today’s international system is made up of states: Territorial entities with defined borders, with exclusive control within those borders, diplomatic…
- Asian Review of Books
Wu Jianren, "New Story of the Stone: An Early Chinese Science Fiction Novel" (Columbia UP, 2025)
What happens if you took one of the classic characters of Chinese literary fiction and dropped him into early 20th-century China? That’s the premise of Wu…