Asia and Pacific
Whyte and Wright agree that political stability is a tightrope act, vulnerable to misstep if and when the state ceases to deliver.
Packard discusses State Department infighting over China, Japan, and Vietnam; exposes the small-mindedness of academic controversies; and dismembers the once flourishing literature on "the Japan threat."
Cumings takes a broad view of his subject, covering not just the Korean War itself but also its origins in civil strife before and during the U.S. occupation, the political and cultural drivers of U.S. policy, the politics of forgetting in the subsequent half century, the painful recovery of repressed truths in recent years, and the war's legacies in both Koreas and in the United States.
This book is set up as a debate between the two authors over whether nuclearization has created a barrier to escalation during crises between the two nations or whether it has instead created a shield for Pakistani adventurism and a risk of Indian overreaction.
Although Hayton doubts the Vietnamese regime can keep control of an increasingly complex society, he does not claim to know when or how change will happen.
Loh, a former legislator and the leader of a Hong Kong think tank, breaks new ground in charting the history of Chinese Communist Party in Hong Kong.
