Hankow, Shanghai and Chinese Society in the 18th century
Hankou, also spelled Hankow, is one of the three Imperial towns (the other two are Wuchang and Hanyang) that merged to become modern-day Wuhan City,…
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Names chosen for military operations – Part 1
The name given to a military operation is taken very seriously. The US military strike on Iran on 28 Feb 26 is named Operation Epic…
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Years That Changed China
1587, A Year of No Significance: The Ming Dynasty in Decline (1982) by Ray Huang is a winner of the American Book Award for History.…
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Old Buildings New Life
I can’t praise this new series on heritage buildings enough. Here are 2 books on Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, respectively, published in 2025. Each building…
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Tunku
Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra prefers the spelling ‘Tunku’ to ‘Tengku.’ He explained so in his own words on p. 11 of this magnificent pictorial tribute…
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US Supreme Court
The US Supreme Court used to be the strongest of the three limbs of the US government. It can declare an executive order of the…
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Israel and Nasser—Part 1
The Six-Day War is the popular name for the 1967 Arab–Israeli war (5–10 June 1967). For all of Nasser’s popularity with the Egyptians and Arabs…
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Red Dawn over China (2026)
This is a recent book by Frank Dikötter, a Dutch historian who became famous for his exhaustive and exhausting The People’s Trilogy. A reviewer has…
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Without Fear or Favour
I used to read this column by Tan Chee Khoon in the Star when I was small. It is wonderful to find the articles compiled…
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Asia Today
Asia Today: Two Outlooks, Beatty Memorial Lectures (1969) is a compilation of three lectures that Han Su Yin gave in 1968 at McGill University. The…
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