This year, as Foreign policy expanded our book section, we’ve published everything from essays on the latest titles examining US-China relations to analyzes of sociology books to meditations on newly released fairy tale collections and novels.
Read on for some of our favorite reviews of 2022.
1. Who went wrong with China?
by Bob Davis on April 24th
This year, as Foreign policy expanded our book section, we’ve published everything from essays on the latest titles examining US-China relations to analyzes of sociology books to meditations on newly released fairy tale collections and novels.
Read on for some of our favorite reviews of 2022.
1. Who went wrong with China?
by Bob Davis on April 24th
“[D]Does the disillusionment with the upheaval in US-China relations,” asks journalist Bob Davis, “mean that the strategy of cooperation—to wrap China more closely with the United States in a web of economic and political ties—is fundamentally flawed?” Two new books –Misunderstanding China political scientist Aaron Friedberg and United States vs. China: The Quest for Global Economic Leadership economist C. Fred Bergsten—offer very different answers to this question. In his deeply thoughtful review, Davis examines the nuances of both arguments and the advice they hold for shaping the future of US-China relations.
2. Party animals
Jan-Werner Müller, Jan. 7
There is no shortage of books and essays that diagnose the decline of democracy around the world. But what we lack are potential solutions. Two recent books, writes political philosopher Jan-Werner Müller, help fill this gap.
the first, Thirteen Cracks: Repairing American Democracy After Trump historian Allan J. Lichtman, identifies ways to repair, strengthen, and create new institutions to protect democracy in the United States. According to Müller, it reads “like an exercise in Trump detoxification” – sometimes to a fault. meanwhile, Political cleavages and social inequalities: a study of fifty democracies, 1948-2020— a book edited by economist Thomas Piketty, along with social scientists Amory Gethin and Clara Martínez-Toledano — looks beyond the United States to examine the state of democracy around the world, as well as the forces that have come together to support it (or not ).
Both titles, Müller writes, leave the reader with the sense that “there is no easy and quick fix” – but both still offer insight into the kind of work that goes into creating and restoring a functioning democracy.
3. Where the West and China find common ground
Maria Tatar, May 14
According to folklorist Maria Tatar, fairy tales “have a quotient of strangeness so high that they can seem like one-off, unique inventions originating from a certain time and place.” Indeed, many classic anthologies were compiled in the 19th century as European scholars sought to reinforce national identities. But a new translation of Chinese fairy tales, The Dragon’s Daughter and Other Tales by Lin Lanit just might change the English-speaking world’s understanding of the genre—and of the deep-rooted cultural connections between East and West.
The stories she collected under the pseudonym Lin Lan – a network of collaborators dubbed the “Grimm Brothers” from China – feature plots that are strikingly similar to Western tales such as “Cinderella” and “Beauty and the Beast”. Reading them, Tatar writes, it becomes clear that European and Chinese culture and their oral traditions may be more intertwined than many have long believed.
4. The debate over African stolen art is frozen in time
by Nosmot Gbadamosi, May 15
Visitors view the Benin Bronzes exhibition at the British Museum in London on February 13, 2020.David Cliff/LightRocket via Getty Images
Fifty years ago, African governments began calling on Western institutions to return their looted African art. Although the debate on museum decolonization has increased, not much has changed today – most African objects have yet to be returned, and as a newly translated book by art historian Bénédicte Savoy reveals, Western institutions continue to use the same tactics they have used for decades. to avoid the demands of African countries.
Africa’s Struggle for Its Art: A History of Postcolonial Defeat, writes FP’s Nosmot Gbadamosi, offers “a stunning display of lies and disinformation by European institutions in the anti-restitution debate.” In focusing on the work of African scholars, Savoy “discovers a discourse of return that is frozen in time”—a discourse that, according to Gbadamosi, only explains the need to reject the tactics of Western institutions today to retain their collections and ensure that the world’s museums are repatriated . their stolen artifacts.
5. Only absolute bureaucracy can save us
by Blake Smith Nov 13
It is not uncommon to hear scathing or indignant remarks about bureaucracy. What if bureaucracy is more essential to public safety than we give it credit for—and if it works better if it is neutral but also absolute?
This is the argument made by sociologist Paul du Gay and his co-author Thomas Lopdrup-Hjorth in their book, For Public Service: State, Office and Ethics. The problem for Gay and Lopdrup-Hjorth is that the “bureaucratic ethos” faces threats from across the political spectrum. Historian Blake Smith writes in his review that by “reiterating the importance of a neutral state, a competent bureaucracy, and the ethos of the bureaucrat, du Gay and his colleagues remind us of what we are in danger of losing”—an institution truly dedicated to public good.
