The subtitle of this book is THE REVOLT AGAINST THE WEST AND THE REMAKING OF ASIA--which encapsulates what this book is about. Also reading: Amitav Ghosh, SEA OF POPPIES, a novel of India and China.
This book is a broadside against the Western--what might be called Kipling-esque--version of world history since the beginning of European expansion. Indian journalist and intellectual Pankaj Mishra introduces three thinkers who laid the groundwork for the reassertion of Asian independence following the collapse of European domination after World War II: the itinerant Persian-born agitator Jamal al-Din al-Afghani; the Chinese reformer Liang Qichao; and Rabindranath Tagore, poet and Nobel laureate, revered as the embodiment of traditional Eastern wisdom.
As an optional second read, we will be discussing Amitav Ghosh's SEA OF POPPIES (2008), the first book of the Ibis trilogy. Ghosh is also Indian, very popular throughout Europe and North America. This novel describes, from a modern Indian perspective, the beginnings of the Opium Wars which forced China to allow the (British-controlled) opium trade. Of the Ibis trilogy, one contemporary has written that it is Ghosh's "most vehement indictment of the source of imperialism and colonialism."
Limited copies of these books are available at the library (2nd floor). To borrow copies from partner libraries, holds can be placed online through epl.org or by phone at 847-448-8630.
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