Asian Review of Books

Jan 29 2025 224 ep. 44 mins 242
Asian Review of Books Podcast artwork

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.

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Jorge Flores, "Empire of Contingency: How Portugal Entered the Indo-Persian World" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2024)

Jan 29 2025 56 mins  
Portuguese India was tiny—a handful of trading posts and enclaves, centered on the colony of Goa. The Estado da Índia faced the Mughal Empire and the Deccan Sultanates, large Muslim and Persian-based societies that ruled the subcontinent. How did Portuguese India survive? Well, by spying. Jorge Flores in his book Empire of Contingency: How Portugal Entered the Indo-Persian World

Avinash Paliwal, "India's Near East: A New History" (Oxford UP, 2024)

Jan 23 2025 49 mins  
After student protests toppled Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina last year, New Delhi and Dhaka have been at odds. Indian politicians complain about Hindus being mistreated in the Muslim-majority country; Bangladesh’s interim government fears that Hasina may launch a bid to return to power from India. It’s the latest development in what’s become an extremely complicated

Glenn Diaz, "Yñiga: A Novel" (Ateneo de Manila UP, 2022)

Jan 16 2025 40 mins  
Yniga, the main character of Glenn Diaz’s novel of the same name, returns to her unnamed fishing town after her urban neighborhood burns down in a fire–what many suspect is retaliation for the capture of a wanted army general near her house. What follows is a story about activist politics, state retaliation and returning home. Yñiga (Ateneo de Manila University Press: 2022) wa

Peter Hessler, "Other Rivers: A Chinese Education" (Penguin, 2024)

Jan 09 2025 52 mins  
In 2019, journalist and writer Peter Hessler traveled with his family to China. He’d gotten a gig as a teacher of writing—nonfiction writing in particular—in what he’d hoped would be a sequel to his 2001 book River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze. But plans changed—radically. At the very end of 2019, the COVID-19 virus emerges in Wuhan, leading to chaos as officials franti

Victor D. Cha, "The Black Box: Demystifying the Study of Korean Unification and North Korea" (Columbia UP, 2024)

Jan 02 2025 45 mins  
North Korea is, to this day, still one of the world’s most mysterious countries. What little we know about daily life in the country comes from defectors or foreigners who’ve spent time there–some of whom have been on this show. But both camps present narrow, if not slanted, views of what life is like in the country. Korea expert Victor Cha, along with several other researche

Juan José Rivas Moreno, "The Capital Market of Manila and the Pacific Trade, 1668-1838" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024)

Dec 26 2024 55 mins  
Many authors have written about the Manila Galleons, the massive ships that took goods back and forth between Acapulco and Manila, ferrying silver one way, and Chinese-made goods the other. But how did the Galleons actually work? Who paid for them? How did buyers and sellers negotiate with each other? Who set the rules? Why on earth did the shippers decide to send just one galleon

Paul French, "Her Lotus Year: China, the Roaring Twenties, and the Making of Wallis Simpson" (St. Martin's Press, 2024)

Dec 19 2024 48 mins  
When defenders of the British royal family scrounged around for dirt on Wallis Simpson, the divorced U.S.-born fiancee of King Edward VIII, they often highlighted her year spent in China—often sharing scurrilous, and poorly-sourced–if not entirely unfounded–details of her time there. China historian Paul French tries to set the record straight with Her Lotus Year: China, the

Herald van der Linde, "Majapahit: Intrigue, Betrayal and War in Indonesia's Greatest Empire" (Monsoon Books, 2024)

Dec 12 2024 47 mins  
Majapahit was Indonesia, and Southeast Asia’s, largest empire. Centered on the island of Java, Majapahit commanded loyalty from vassals across the archipelago: on Sumatra, Borneo, Sulawesi, and even the Malay Peninsula, including a tiny village called Tumasik–known today as Singapore. The empire lasted for around 230 years, from its founding in 1292 to its fall to the Sultanate

Caroline Alexander, "Skies of Thunder: The Deadly World War II Mission Over the Roof of the World" (Viking, 2024)

Dec 05 2024 47 mins  
During the Second World War, FDR promised thousands of tons of US material to Chiang Kai Shek in order to keep China in the war and keep Japan distracted. But how would the US get it there? The only land route had been cut off by the Japanese invasion, leaving only one other option: air. For the next three years, US planes flew “The Hump”: an air route from Assam to Chongqing,

Vikas Swarup, "The Girl with the Seven Lives" (Simon & Schuster India, 2024)

Nov 28 2024 33 mins  
Vikas Swarup’s new novel, The Girl With the Seven Lives (Simon & Schuster India: 2024), opens with its main character Devi locked in a room, forced to retell her life’s story. Or, rather, her life’s stories–starting in the slums of Delhi, Devi reinvents herself time-and-time-again, with a new name and a new backstory, as she tries to carve a niche for herself in Indian soci