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Published on December 30, 2007

By Sunday Book Review
The Nation

With Asia’s giant elephants awakening to define a new world order, there’s been a plethora of books on the region that made quite an impact in 2007. Here we provide a selection of the best reads on Asia. They encompass issues that range from politics and history to fiction and biography. As the list shows, there is something for every taste. Enjoy.


ON THAILAND

The King of Thailand in World Focus
Edited by Dennis Gray
Published by FCCT
A tribute by the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand to His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej on the occasion of his 80th birthday. There are more than 80 new articles and 240 photographs out of a total of 375. They come from 56 media organisations in 24 countries and form the clearest and most comprehensive foreign journalistic portrait of “this remarkable man and monarch”.

 

Thailand: The Politics of Despotic Paternalism
By Thak Chaloemtiarana
Published by Silkworm Books
This well-researched treatise on the Sarit Thanarat era of despotic paternalism depicts Sarit as the cruellest figure of military oppression in Thailand’s recent political history.

 

Bangkok Blondes
By the Bangkok Women Writers Group
Published by Bangkok Book House
A group of creative women writers in Bangkok explore the reality of Bangkok as a modern cosmopolitan city.

 

Thailand: the Worldly Kingdom   
By Maurizio Peleggi
Published by Reaktion Books
Maurizio Peleggi charts the origins and identity of the Thai nation, mapping the geographical, linguistic and ethnic diversity of the territory that at the turn of the 20th century came to form modern Thailand.

 

ON INDIA

India’s Unending Journey
By Sir Mark Tully
Published by Rider
Tully’s latest book is an exploration of the struggle between India’s secular and religious forces, with flashbacks to his younger days as a pupil at elite public school Marlborough through his time as a theology student at Cambridge and Lincoln and then his encounter with India. It should be read against Edward Luce’s “In Spite of the Gods”.

 

Planet India
By Mira Kamdar
Published by Scribner
Mira Kamdar examines India’s astonishing transformation from a developing country into a global powerhouse. She takes us inside the Subcontinent, reporting on the people, companies, and policies defining the new India and revealing how it will profoundly affect our future.

 

In Spite of the Gods: the Strange Rise of Modern India
By Edward Luce
Published by Abacus
An exploration of how India is emerging into a new world order as a pluralist, democratic model of development. Examined is the way its widely predicted future as a global player is being overshadowed by its social and economic paradoxes.   

 
        
The Elephanta Suite
By Paul Theroux
Published by Houghton Mifflin
The three novellas under this title depict the disillusions of a group of disoriented American travellers yearning for the solemn pieties and virtuous peasants of the India they read about in novels.

 

The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty
By William Dalrymple
Published by Knopf
William Dalrymple describes India’s final emperor, Bahadur Shah II, descendant of Genghis Khan and Tamerlane, drawing on documents in Indian national archives in Delhi and elsewhere.

 

ON CHINA
 
The Writing on the Wall – China and the West in the 21st Century
By Will Hutton
Published by Little Brown
The economics editor of The Guardian dissects the economic policies of the US and China, warning of dire eventualities should Western superpowers fail to shape China into a workable model of democracy.

 
        
China Shakes the World: A Titan’s Rise and Troubled Future
By James Kynge
Published by Mariner Books
James Kynge, former Beijing bureau chief of the Financial Times, uncovers the sources of the giant country’s epochal growth, as well as its limitations, while examining the socio-economic transformations of China’s low “industrial Revolution–era” labour costs.
            

Charm Offensive: How China’s Soft Power is Transforming the World
By Joshua Kurlantzick
Published by Yale University Press
The author explores the way China is quietly and methodically extending its international reach and influence.  
        
 

The Great Wall: From Beginning to End
By Michael Yamashita (Photographer), William Lindesay
Published by Sterling
This lavishly illustrated tribute to Earth’s largest single cultural relic provides a comprehensive history of the Great Wall with rare facts and figures.

 
 
ON ASIA
         
Asian Godfathers: Money and Power in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia
By Joe Studwell
Published by Atlantic Monthly Press
The author reveals how eight mysterious and ruthless tycoons came to be placed among the twenty-five wealthiest people on the planet in the 1990s and how they continue to command multibillion-dollar personal fortunes.
     

To the End of Hell: One Woman’s Struggle to Survive Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge
By Denise Affonco
Published by Reportage Press  
Denise Affonco, a French citizen, recounts how her comfortable life was torn apart when the Khmer Rouge seized power in Cambodia in April 1975.

 

Perfect Hostage
By Justin Wintle
Published by Hutchinson
Justin Wintle takes a critical look at the life behind the iconic figure of Burma’s freedom struggle, Aung San Suu Kyi, while at the same time giving a low-down on Burmese history since its independence. The lady at times emerges as tarnished by her support for international sanctions levied against her homeland.

 

Tales from the Pacific Rim
By Harold Stephens
Published by Wolfenden
A collection of short stories reveals the social habits and traditions of the people of the Pacific Rim, from Tahiti to Southeast Asia.   
    
 
 
Shadow of the Silk Road
By Colin Thurbron
Published by Chatto & Windus
The author follows the ancient trade routes that connected central China with the Mediterranean Coast, travelling third class in crowded train carriages and buses through former Soviet republics, Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey, braving shakedowns by border guards and constant harassment.
 
 

Bad Lands: A Tourist on the Axis of Evil
By Tony Wheeler
Published by Lonely Planet
Tony Wheeler, the original backpacker’s guide, travels through Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, finding pockets of paradise where hell was expected.
 
 
In the Ruins of Empire: The Japanese Surrender and the Battle for Post-war Asia
By Ronald A Spector
Published by Random House
From a global perspective, argues Spector, World War II did not end with the Japanese surrender. British and American soldiers went home, but chronic and wide-scale violence continued in Asia as various forces struggled for control of the remnants of Japanese, British, French, and Dutch empires.
 
          
Reefer Men: The Rise and Fall of a Billion Dollar Drug Ring
By Tony Thompson
Published by Hodder & Stroughton
The true story of the young American and Australian sea captains who shipped tons of Thai marijuana to Western markets. The tale describes how their plan for a last shipment before retiring with their fortunes goes wrong when their ship is seized and they’re landed with 15 years in jail.

    
Asian Aphrodisiacs
By Jerry Hopkins
Published by Periplus Press
A veteran author travels far and wide in search of the perfect sexual pick-me-up, trying bizarre concoctions of herbs, animal parts and even insects that apparently work better than Viagra.
    

These books are available at Asia Books, Kinokuniya Books, B2S and major online booksellers.