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Asian Review of Books

New Books Network

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

arts books

All Episodes

41:24

Rishi Rajpopat, "Panini's Perfect Rule: A Modern...

Asian Review of Books ·

2026/04/09

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 words and grammar. Generations of commentators have tried to figure out exactly how to best interpret the work and explain its various contradictions and overlapping instructions.Then, in 2022, Rishi Rajpopat, a PhD student at Cambridge, said he’d figured out how to unravel Panini’s work to create a cohesive set of rules–and potentially wiped

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50:38

Avner Greif et al., "Two Paths to Prosperity: Culture...

Asian Review of Books ·

2026/04/02

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 Revolution, and not China? And what does that journey tell us about politics and culture?In Two Paths to Prosperity: Culture and Institutions in Europe and China, 1000–2000 (Princeton UP, 2025), Guido Tabellini, alongside his co-authors, argues that the answer comes from how European and Chinese organized cooperation—through corporations in

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70:54

Nicholas Evan Sarantakes, "The Battle of Manila:...

Asian Review of Books ·

2026/03/26

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 fallen.” In truth, the battle would take another month, as U.S. forces fought their way through block after block. By the end of the battle, which featured some of the most intense urban fighting faced by the U.S. army, Manila was in ruins, the old walled city of Intramuros was flattened, and 100,000 Filipino civilians were dead. Nicholas

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38:07

Mahesh Rao, "Half Light" (Penguin Random House India,...

Asian Review of Books ·

2026/03/19

On Sep. 6, 2018, India’s Supreme Court ruled that Section 377, a law that criminalized consensual homosexual activity, was unconstitutional, reversing an earlier decision from 2013. Both news headlines and LGBT activists hailed the decision as a major step forward for same-sex rights in India.But in Mahesh Rao’s new novel Half Light (Penguin Random House India, 2025), the court’s deliberations sit in the background behind the budding relationship between Pavan, a hotel worker in Darjeeling, and

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58:26

Olivier Hein, "Borneo: The History of an Enigma"...

Asian Review of Books ·

2026/03/12

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 set to be home to Nusantara, Indonesia’s new planned political capital set to, maybe, open in 2028. And the Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak—different from the rest of Peninsular Malaysia—are griping for more rights and authority to control its own wealth.Author Olivier Hein tackles the long history of Borneo in his latest book titled,

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43:42

Rian Thum, "Islamic China: An Asian History" (Harvard...

Asian Review of Books ·

2026/03/05

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 Chinese, or not really Muslim.Rian Thum, in his book Islamic China: An Asian History (Harvard UP, 2025), strives to make Chinese Muslims “ordinary”, placing them in both Chinese and global history by following pilgrims, merchants, and others across the Ming, Qing, and Republican eras. Rian is Senior Lecturer in History at the University of

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46:06

Warwick Ball, "Ancient Civilizations of Afghanistan:...

Asian Review of Books ·

2026/02/26

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 territory. Yet for most of human history, Afghanistan wasn’t on the margins of civilizations, but a cultural hub in its own right.In his new book, Ancient Civilizations of Afghanistan: From the Earliest Times to the Mongol Conquest (Reaktion Books, 2025), archaeologist Warwick Ball argues that this land was a center where the worlds of Iran,

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51:00

Joanna Lillis, "Silk Mirage: Through the Looking...

Asian Review of Books ·

2026/02/19

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 the Central Asian country for decades, which led to corruption, environmental damage, and political repression. Karimov was replaced with Shavkat Mirziyoyev, who instituted a tentative program of reforms.These years are the subject of Joanna Lillis’s book, Silk Mirage: Through the Looking Glass in Uzbekistan (Bloomsbury, 2025). Lillis tells

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44:43

Yi-Ling Liu, "The Wall Dancers: Searching for Freedom...

Asian Review of Books ·

2026/02/12

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 Clinton famously quipped in 2000, Beijing trying to control the internet would be like “trying to nail jello to the wall.”Things don’t look quite so certain now. China’s internet is now more controlled than it was a decade ago, with platforms, content creators, and tech companies now firmly guided by rules and signals from Beijing. Yi-Ling

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48:10

Eric Chopra, "Ghosted" (Speaking Tiger, 2026)

Asian Review of Books ·

2026/02/05

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 buried. Saints, Sultans, poets, and lovers—all linger in the city’s imagination, their stories shaping how we remember what once was.In Ghosted, historian and storyteller Eric Chopra journeys through the capital’s most beguiling sites—Jamali-Kamali, Firoz Shah Kotla, Khooni Darwaza, the Mutiny Memorial, and Malcha Mahal—to unearth a Delhi

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41:38

Yossef Rapoport, "Becoming Arab: The Formation of...

Asian Review of Books ·

2026/01/29

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 Arab? How did this identity spread? Was it due to migration, or conquest?Historian Yossef Rapoport, in his book Becoming Arab: The Formation of Arab Identity in the Medieval Middle East (Princeton UP, 2025), makes a different argument: That the region’s medieval peasants adopted the Arab identity in response to shifting political power,

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39:44

Namit Arora and Romila Thapar, "Speaking of History:...

Asian Review of Books ·

2026/01/22

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 the new book Speaking of History: Conversations about India’s Past and Present (India Allen Lane, 2025), Namit Arora and Romila Thapar discuss some of the challenges facing historians in India today, what it means to be an academic historian, and how ideas around gender, caste and religion may be getting distorted in India’s public

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50:44

Imran Mulla, "The Indian Caliphate, Exiled Ottomans...

Asian Review of Books ·

2026/01/15

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 world. Abdülmecid II—who had been elected to the position by the Republic of Turkey just two years before—decamped for Europe.What followed was a bold plan by Indian Muslims and the Nizam of Hyderabad, one of the world’s richest men at the time, to potentially revive the caliphate, as told in Imran Mulla’s book The Indian Caliphate, Exiled

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45:51

Sean Mathews, "The New Byzantines: The Rise of Greece...

Asian Review of Books ·

2026/01/08

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 looks eastward to the rest of the Mediterranean: to Turkey, Egypt, Israel and Palestine. In his book The New Byzantines: The Rise of Greece and Return of the Near East (Hurst: 2025), Sean Mathews argues that it’s best to think about Greece as belonging to the “Near East”—and doubly so with today’s more complicated geopolitics.Sean Mathews is a

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47:03

Suraj Milind Yengde, "Caste: A Global Story" (Hurst,...

Asian Review of Books ·

2025/12/25

Caste has been a huge topic of conversation in modern India. Yet debates and activism around caste discrimination have spread beyond South Asia. Caste activists looked to African-American literature and leaders to connect their fight with the battle against racism in the U.S. And as Indians moved around the world–to America, to elsewhere in Asia, and to the Middle East–they way they thought about caste changed.Suraj Milind Yengde tackles this global angle in his latest book: Caste: A Global

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47:22

Joseph Torigian, "The Party’s Interests Come First:...

Asian Review of Books ·

2025/12/18

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 early member of the Chinese Communist Party, tookpart in the Second World War, became an early leader of the PRC, was purged, survived the CulturalRevolution, was rehabilitated, and helped jumpstart China’s opening up as a leader in GuangdongProvince.He also happened to be the father of Xi Jinping, China’s current president. Joseph Torigian

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44:56

Andrew Bernstein, "Fuji: A Mountain In The Making"...

Asian Review of Books ·

2025/12/11

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. And that’s actually what Hokusai’s famous woodprint is about: Mt. Fuji, volcano and Japan’s tallest mountain.Andrew Bernstein tells the story of Mt. Fuji–from its geographic origins as a violent volcano through to its present day status as Japan’s national symbol and a world heritage site—in his latest book Fuji: A Mountain In The

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47:52

Steve Tibble, "Assassins and Templars: A Battle in...

Asian Review of Books ·

2025/12/04

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 starring the former as its heroes, and the latter as its villains.Steve Tibble takes on both these groups in his new book Assassins and Templars: A Battle in Myth and Blood (Yale UP, 2025). Steve takes us to the time of Crusades: a more crowded and dangerous Eastern Mediterranean, where varied groups–not just the Crusaders–jostled for power and

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45:10

Fahad Ahmad Bishara, "Monsoon Voyagers: An Indian...

Asian Review of Books ·

2025/11/27

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 India and, eventually, back to the Gulf. Dhows had sailed this route for centuries—and would continue to sail it for a few more decades still.Fahad Ahmad Bishara talks about this specific 1924 journey in his book Monsoon Voyagers: An Indian Ocean History (U California Press, 2025). As the Crooked travels the waters of the Indian Ocean, Fahad

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53:11

Ludovic Orlando, "Horses: A 4,000-Year Genetic...

Asian Review of Books ·

2025/11/20

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 horse. There were plenty of theories as to who domesticated horses first–but Ludovic’s team came up with their answer: They emerged on the western Eurasian steppe around 4200 years ago.But that revelation was only the beginning of Ludovic’s work, as he dug into the genetic origins of different kinds of horses, like the Arabian horse, as well

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