Hawkes (MD, BScN, MGA) is a novelist, YouTuber, and former analyst for the NATO Association of Canada. His writings have appeared in Heater, The Raven Chronicles, ArabLit, and many other magazines and publications. His recent espionage novel, The Haze, is set in Southeast Asia and the Middle East.
Set against the backdrop of a CIA operation in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, The Haze follows CIA agent Hector Kane as he finds his career and marriage at stake when he receives a phone call from a Saudi prince who claims that Hector’s wife is a Chinese spy.
If you want to know more about the politics of Singapore, Vietnam, and the Philippines, this is the book for you. International relations expert and topnotch global thinker (according to Foreign Policy magazine) Robert D. Kaplan does an excellent job at contrasting Southeast countries against one another and explaining why some have prospered while others failed. A very intriguing read that is recommended for everyone interested in Asia, period.
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY FINANCIAL TIMES
From Robert D. Kaplan, named one of the world’s Top 100 Global Thinkers by Foreign Policy magazine, comes a penetrating look at the volatile region that will dominate the future of geopolitical conflict.
Over the last decade, the center of world power has been quietly shifting from Europe to Asia. With oil reserves of several billion barrels, an estimated nine hundred trillion cubic feet of natural gas, and several centuries’ worth of competing territorial claims, the South China Sea in particular is a simmering pot of potential conflict.…
Have you ever wondered what makes China “China”: why it is so confident about history, present, and foreseeable future? This book, written by competent NYT correspondent Howard W. French, sheds some light on the way Chinese leadership sees things from their own point of view. You will learn about the history of China, and how this relates to its flagrant ambitions for world domination. An invaluable unicorn in today’s book-publishing anti-intellectual crisis.
An incisive investigation of China's ideological development as it becomes an ever more aggressive player in regional and global diplomacy.
For many years after Deng Xiaoping initiated the economic reforms that began in 1978 and led to its overtaking the USA as the world's economic powerhouse, China maintained an attitude of false modesty about its ambitions. That diffidence has now been set aside. China has asserted its place among the global heavyweights, revealing its plans for pan-Asian geopolitical dominance by building up its navy, fabricating new islands to support its territorial claims…
I first heard about this book when it won the 2014 National Book Award in nonfiction. After reading it, it became clear to me this was one of the best books written about China. Evan Osnos, a staff writer at the New Yorker, has delivered a coup de force that unravels the social dynamics of Chinese society. In recent memory, no serious book has attempted to do the same. You will learn about the clash of individualism vs. plutocracy in present-day China and how that manifests on the street. You will also understand the economic ailments that afflict modern China. It is beautifully written.
Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction finalist Winner of the 2014 National Book Award in nonfiction.
As the Beijing correspondent for The New Yorker, Evan Osnos was on the ground in China for years, witness to profound political, economic, and cultural upheaval.
Age of Ambition provides a vibrant, colorful, and revelatory inner history of China during a moment of profound transformation.
From abroad, we often see China as a caricature: a nation of pragmatic plutocrats and ruthlessly dedicated students destined to rule the global economy-or an addled Goliath, riddled with corruption and on the edge of stagnation. What we don't see…
No one can deny that the story of Singapore is a modern-day miracle. From a third-world port city in the mid-20th century to the first-rate nation we know today, Singapore has adopted progress as a creed. Lee Kuan Yew, the very founder of modern Singapore, reflects on his achievements and the many challenges he’s faced along the way in this enticing book.
The story of Singapore's amazing transformation told by it's charismatic and controversial founding father, Lee Kuan Yew. Lee Kuan Yew is one of the most influential leaders in Asia. In this illuminating account, Lee writes frankly about his disapproving approach to political opponents and his often unorthodox views on human rights, democracy, and inherited intelligence, aiming always "to be correct, not politically correct." Since it's independence in 1965, tiny Singapore -- once a poor and decrepit colony -- has risen to become a rich and thriving Asian metropolis. From Third World to First is a fascinating and insightful account of…
A confession I have to make from the get-go: I met Tommy Koch in person in 2013, on a professional visit to Singapore. Koch struck me as the kind of Asian intellectual seldom seen in the West nowadays. He is competently versed in his civilization’s (Chinese) supremacy discourses and at the same time, is a global citizen of the first class. He knows where myth ends and reality strikes. We rarely see Western intellectuals of this sort any longer. The nearest we’ve ever had was Kissinger—and he’s too controversial to be a functional counterpart to Koch. In this book, Koch and his editorial partner compile a vision of America as seen by Singaporean decision-makers. This book is not only important to know how Asian nations have viewed us over recent years, but is a fundamental read for any international-relations buff interested in gauging the future ahead.
The United States of America is the largest investor in Singapore. And in 2019, it channelled more resources into the city state than what it put into both China and Japan. That year, the value of US direct investments in Singapore was US$288 billion, or about 4.8 per cent of US direct investments abroad. This sum exceeded the combined value of those in China (US$116.2 billion) and Japan (US$131.8 billion), based on data from the Office of the United States Trade Representative and the US Bureau of Economic Analysis.
This illustrates the economic significance of the US to Singapore. Beyond…
I’m a professional historian and life-long lover of early American history. My fascination with the American Revolution began during the bicentennial in 1976, when my family traveled across the country for celebrations in Williamsburg and Philadelphia. That history, though, seemed disconnected to the place I grew up—Arkansas—so when I went to graduate school in history, I researched in French and Spanish archives to learn about their eighteenth-century interactions with Arkansas’s Native nations, the Osages and Quapaws. Now I teach early American history and Native American history at UNC-Chapel Hill and have written several books on how Native American, European, and African people interacted across North America.
A magisterial history of Indigenous North America that places the power of Native nations at its center, telling their story from the rise of ancient cities more than a thousand years ago to fights for sovereignty that continue today
Long before the colonization of North America, Indigenous Americans built diverse civilizations and adapted to a changing world in ways that reverberated globally. And, as award-winning historian Kathleen DuVal vividly recounts, when Europeans did arrive, no civilization came to a halt because of a few wandering explorers, even when the strangers came well armed.
A millennium ago, North American cities rivaled urban centers around the world in size. Then, following a period of climate change and instability, numerous smaller nations emerged, moving away from rather than toward urbanization. From this urban past, egalitarian government structures, diplomacy, and complex economies spread…
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