Book Review

Western imperialism came to Asia in various forms, mercantile, missionary and military. As that era recedes into history it is becoming easier both to the see the interlinkages and conflicts between these three... Read More...

When I was a Chinese language student, I sat in an old classroom where the "ping....ting" noises from the rickety radiator made listening class vexing because I couldn’t tell the machine's emiss... Read More...

Just as the wings have started to come off of China’s extraordinary decades-long expansion, James Fallows, the veteran national affairs correspondent for the US-based magazine Atlantic, has produced a bo... Read More...

For anybody who has ever been in a Bangkok girlie bar, what the smiling and giggling women in their spangles and bare skin have given up to get there remains hidden and out of sight. But these women, many of th... Read More...

Reading the Chinese novelist Yu Hua’s nonfiction book “China in Ten Words” is like being in a scene from the movie “Fight Club.” The pace is so frenetic and edgy that you spend muc... Read More...

Having recently met the Indonesian food writer Petty P Elliot, my curiosity about Indonesian cuisine and culture has been reawakened and enlightened through her fascinating book, ‘Papaya Flower, Manadones... Read More...

1976 was not an auspicious year for China. That “cursed year” of the dragon saw the deaths of Zhou Enlai, Mao Zedong and anywhere between 242,000 and 650,000 people killed in a 23-second quake that ... Read More...

I always approach the Wandering Palate ‘Wine Book of the Year’ with trepidation, partly because wine books can be rather dull for the average reader or even wine consumer, notwithstanding the fact t... Read More...