The Napoleonic War and WW2 taught the Russians that they need neutral countries between Germany and Moscow to act as buffer states to survive a…
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Month: January 2026
The World Beyond Life in Early China
Life and Afterlife in Ancient China by Jessica Rawson, 2023. I read this book in 2023. Rawson, a former professor at Oxford University, in this…
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Books on The Malayan Emergency
The Malayan Emergency: Revolution and Counterinsurgency at the End of Empire By Karl Hack, 2022 is touted as the definitive history. While it is indeed…
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Religions in China—Part 2
Phenomenal growth in Protestantism, Post-Mao Since 1978, Protestantism has been the fastest-growing religion in China. Before 1949, its growth was not impressive by any standards.…
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Religions in China
The state of religions in China post-Mao is a rather opaque area. Two recent books shed some much-needed light. The Souls of China: The Return…
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Revisiting 1965 Through New Records
The Albatross File Inside Separation edited by Susan Sim, 2025. Late last year, in Dec 2025, a trove of secret documents on the negotiations between…
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