Asia Books

A very informative description of Chinese contributions, mostly in the area of science. Well written and well illustrated. Purchased for my 9 year old grand-daughter, who I hope someday will become an engineer (preferably electrical).

A fantastic book that shows the contributions which the Chinese over centuries have given to the world. Highly recommended! Its illustrations are culturally relevant and sensitive! Rennie Mau President, MPEC Multicultural Publishing and Education Council

I read sections from Made in China to my kids as a bedtime story - they like to listen to this as much as fictional stories. Great illustrations too.

I read this book twice. This in itself should be sufficient recommendation!

But I'll give you some of the reasons why I like it so much.
It is rich in historical detail and sociological examination, as well as the author's personal experiences. I was thoroughly entertained, informed and sometimes surprised. There were some unexpected revelations - such as the raucus behavior of passengers on the train to Osaka and the ubiquitous noise pollution with apparent little effect on the serenity of the Japanese people.

The author proved open to all aspects of life in Japan, and presents his story with vivid detail and an eye for beauty. He must have possessed an enormous amount of energy. He describes his business career (with admirable modesty) and Japan's economy, business philosophy and practices with an insider's knowledge. He found time to explore Japan's countryside, and immerse himself in the pursuit of understanding Japan's culture. This included the study of the Japanese language, art and religion. I was struck by the author's keen and objective observations about Japanese life. And he didn't limit occasional criticisms to the Japanese, but had some strong opinions about the Dutch and Americans as well.

But this is not the whole story. His and his wife's personal lives are lovingly described. The tale is well paced and contains many fascinating details of their experiences with friends and family, and many other people they encountered. I highly recommend this book - it provides insight far beyond the standard western ideas about Japan.

Nora Hines, Prescott, Arizona, USA

Magatama Doodle is an intriguing memoir by a young Dutchman who settles into the banking business in Japan following its surrender after WW II. The reader enters an exotic yet emerging modern world, reflecting the author's growing love of the country tempered by the developing knowledge of cultural contradictions including the stifling of individuality. Brinckmann's vivid descriptions reflect his extensive knowledge of history and a remarkable memory for details conveyed with wry and whimsical humor. A sense of time and place is brilliantly presented through the author's creative and poetic skills no doubt enhanced through his intimate knowledge of the country after acquiring a beautiful and artistic Japanese wife. This reader was enchanted and enlightened and eagerly awaits another volume.

There is hardly any book available by a Westerner looking back over more than half a century's contact with Japan - , culturally, economically and socially. Well, Hans Brinckmann's The Magatama Doodle fills the gap. The author starts with entering Japanese life in the service of a Dutch bank in 1950. By means of anecdotes and observations he tells us how his experiences became an 'affair' with Japanese culture. He explains the backgrounds of its sometimes strange customs and how he dealt with them. Not only by means of anecdotes and examples but also by going back into history he brings Japanese life into relief. At the same time we follow his career from bank employee to banking executive, and from bachelor to being married to a Japanese young lady of `good family'. As such he was able to meet Japanese leaders and gaining an insight into the manifold reasons for their decisions and actions.
The title refers to a habit he noticed early on among some Japanese men in authority: that of doodling imaginary comma-like figures on some handy surface, whenever they avoided expressing an opinion or making a decision. The doodles reminded him of magatama, ancient comma-shaped precious stones found in prehistoric tombs. They seemed to him an appropriate symbol for one of the book's underlying themes: that a deeply conservative ethos lies at the root of both Japan's distinctive and much-admired culture and the undeniable rigidity of its political, educational and managerial structures.
The author stresses he is not suggesting a simple key to understanding the `Japanese mind', let alone presuming to offer prescriptions for change. As he sees it, Western attempts to make Japan `more like us' are doomed to fail. Japan must build on its own considerable strengths and rely on the fresh energies of a new generation of leaders to meet the challenges of a globalized society.
I should consider this book essential reading for everyone interested in understanding the often-mystifying ethics, politics and economics of this country that has left its mark on world history in more than one way.
Michael Rogge.

This book will answer all of your questions regarding how marriages are/were conducted in the East. Arranged marriages are very misunderstood in western society and the benefits thereof. Every person of the east and west who is confused as to why/how did/does arranged marriages work(ed) should read this book to get a better explanation. Arranged marriages were a part of western culture until King Henry V (father of current Queen Elizabeth) married in a love marriage. We have a 50% divorce rate in america and is rising, the fundamentals our ancestors gave to us should be worth the time to acknowledge. This book will help to gain a better perspective on this ancient marriage system that is still practiced in many parts of the world today with more success than that of our western culture.

Although this book is not intended to address intercultural marriage per se, it is the most helpful book I have read that explains differences between the "East" and of the "West" in marriage and societal structure. I cannot believe that the Maces wrote this book in the 1950s; it is right on the money in terms of the conflicts that I and my 20-something friends are encountering in our marriages. If you are an American woman married to a man from China, Japan, or India (the main countries covered in this book) you must read this book. All of the modern intercultural marriage books I have read are just fluff compared to this book. Fluffy books on conflict resolution won't help until you have a deep understanding of the underlying conflicts. Many second-generation immigrants to America are, naturally, confused about which cultural traditions they want to espouse and may not even be aware that they are heavily influenced by their parents' cultures. For their spouses, this can be a bewildering and frustrating experience. This book will help you understand where they are coming from. Similarly, this book may help you understand some of your own prejudices and underlying beliefs, from our wonderful, if troubled, American culture. Do yourself a favor and read this incredible, fascinating sociological treatise. I couldn't put it down. Granted, the book is may not be the entire gospel; the authors were marriage counselors, not scientists. But they have clearly done their research, and the bibliography is extensive. The authors try to be balanced, pointing out the positive and negative aspects of both the "Eastern" and the "Western" approach to marriage. They are asking huge questions: which approach to family life is "better"? Will one approach "win" in the future? If so, what do we stand to lose, on both sides? What do we stand to gain? These are very important questions about the structure of society, the opportunities available to women, the type of companionship we want to have with our life partner, and how we want to raise our children.

This book, written by a Christian couple who were marriage counselors and widely traveled in Asia, is a gem.

The Maces write "We should not begin to understand the East today until we recognize the contempt and disgust with which many Asians view what they consider to be our standards of man/woman relationships. They have a mental picture of the United States as a land of lecherous men, shameless women, sex-mad youth, and children beyond all control. Unfortunately, among those who hold this view are some who have visited the West."

Those were the good old days of the '50s, remember.

The Maces provide a wonder explanation of the Western "gamble" on personal liberty that goes hand in hand with equality between the sexes - and must, therefore, rule out arranged or polygynous marriage.

"We saw the world divided roughly into two major camps, based on two major ideological concepts of human society," wrote the Maces. "The first concept held that the way to make society work successfully is to create hierarchies - to put the majority of the people under the domination of a few leaders who would run their lives for them, tell them what to do, and see that they did what they were told. To try to run either the family or the community on any other basis than this authority-obedience, dominance-submission pattern would, it was believed, result in chaos and disorder. In one form or another, this is the concept of society that has been basic throughout human history, in East and West alike.

"The second concept, however, challenges this. It declares that the best way to make human society work successfully is to give to each individual the maximum amount of personal freedom, autonomy and self-determination that his is able to handle responsibly, and to increase his freedom progressively as he learns to accept more and more responsibility for himself. It is this daring doctrine upon which the Western world of today has staked everything."

The Maces describe this as "the gamble of operating a culture, and the family life upon which that culture is based, on the principle of the freedom of the individual."
Once the Maces had explained this principle to their Asian audiences, they say, criticism gave way to admiration. "For they perceived that at the root of the whole concept lay a belief in the sacred worth of the individual."

"They now saw the chaos and confusion in our family life not as ruin and disaster, but as the price we were having to pay for our tremendous venture in seeking to create a society of men and women free to find themselves and to be themselves."

The Maces note "The evidence is overwhelming that the patriarchal family cannot ultimately survive in the new kind of industrial society that is coming into being in the modern world."
The Maces report with a definite bias toward democracy - both within the culture and the family upon which the culture is built. But they are not judgmental in their descriptions of the horrors and blessings of traditional Asian family life.

Their chapters:
1. The Reign of the Patriarch
2. Change of Model in the West
3. What Is a Woman Worth?
4. Sex in the Orient
5. Romance Is too Dangerous
6. Who Picks Your Partner?
7. Getting Married, Eastern Style
8. Child Wives of India
9. Who Keeps Concubines?
10. Married Life and Married Love
11. The Widow's Fiery Sacrifice
12. Above All, Give Us Children!
13. The Future of Marriage
Appendix: Marriage in Communist China.

I read this book years ago, and the Maces' views have stuck with me. It's written for everyone, without social sciences jargon.

Obviously, we haven't yet found our footing regarding our Western "gamble," but it is likely to be more of a gamble to turn our back on family democracy.

This is a good book to have alongside Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale"; Sarah Hrdy's "The Woman That Never Evolved" and "Mother Nature, A History of Mothers, Infants and Natural Selection"; Arlene Skolnick's "Embattled Paradise, The American Family in an Age of Uncertainty"; and Stephanie Coontz's "The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap."

Lee Ao did it again! Another great yet enthralling work by Lee Ao, the best Chinese critique writer. Lee Ao does it in a serious cum humorous way, from poems to elite phrases. There isn't a boring page. If possible, get the Chinese version (for those Chinese literate). A highly recommended piece of work.

Based on the history of reform movement of 1898 in China, the great thinker, historian, and writer of China, Ao Li( who lives in Taiwan) created this fiction. In the story, through the conversations and actions of the elits of Chinese intellecturalists, the author discussed the true thought and spirit of budhhism and Chinese thought of loyalty, patriatism, etc.; and expressed his idealist's thought. This is more a philosophy book and history than a novel. Six months ago when I finished reading this book in Chinese, I said it ought to have an English translation for people who don't read in Chinese. I am glad there is an English translation now.

I've read the original of this book about ten times, and the more I read this book, the more thoughts and after-thoughts occur in my mind. As a Chinese born in Taiwan, This book really inspired me. Not only its depth of historical records and eloqunce of critique are unprecedented in the history of Chinese literature, but the passions, the intellectual's hope for salvation and revolutionaries' struggle to improve China expressed between the lines are set on a trageic stage in a way that is both dramatic and calm, violent and peaceful. You can see the flow of time and the continuation and history when reading this book. And that feeling, is what makes Chinese people and Chinese civilization distinctive. Li Ao is one of the most talented, humorous, arrogant, witty, insightful, and controversial liberal intellctual in the modern China. He has been imprisoned for treason(the accusation was totally groundless). He has been supressed by the maintream media in Taiwan because of his humiliating disclosure of government official's scandals.But he has won the heart of the contemporary readers through his stylish, if not flirting and combative, writings(over 15 million ords and still mounting). The Martyr'sShrine is by far his greatest achievement. He was even nominated to compete for the Nobel Prize for literature. In my opinion he absolutely deserves the prize. To understand this book requires a solid background knowledge in Chinese history and culture. I don't know if the ordinary Western readers are up to the task. However, if you really want to understand China and its struggle of modernization in the 19-20 century, this book is a good start.

"Although two decades have passed since US combat soldiers left Indochina, Americans are still telling lies about Vietnam." So begins Robert Buzzanco's invaluable book on the military opposition to the Vietnam war. As Buzzanco points out in his introductory chapter, it is not necessarily true that the military is more hawkish and militarist than its civilian leaders. In fact they were often more open to compromise and negotiation in the early days of the cold war than many American diplomats, and actually suggested non-involvement in the opening days of the Korean war. Some of the officers Buzzanco discusses, such as General Ridgway and Shoup rejected intervention in Vietnam altogether. Most often however a large number of officers realized that plans were flawed and that victory was unlikely, but by playing bureaucratic politics they could foist the blame on the civilians and on their service rivals in the army.

The result was that over and over again officers raised the same unalterable points. You cannot bomb the North into submission, and you cannot defeat the NLF in the South with the corrupt and incompetent Southern regime we possess. Of course, much of this was the army, the navy and the air forces criticizing the other services plans. But as it turned out they were right and Buzzanco shows that the army was not stabbed in the back. A review of America's long involvement should help demonstrate this. In 1947, General George Marshall said that the French "have no prospect" of success in Vietnam. Five years later the Joint Chief of Staff were unanimously opposed to committing any American troops into Vietnam. General Matthew Ridgeway's opposition to assisting the French after Dien Bien Phu was crucial to the Geneva Accords.

Flash forward ten years and Johnson's decision to expand the war. 1964 is a year filled with concerns over the collapse of the South Vietnamese authority, concerns about NLF strength, and strategic dithering. It is important to point out that Westmoreland, along with other officers like Wheeler, Johnson, and MacDonald opposed an all-out air war because they believed the Southern regime was too fragile to survive VC counterattacks. Pacification was dying and in only about 20% of the villages were the residents willing to provide RVN officials with information about the Viet Cong. In 1965 the war escalates. The army Chief of Staff suggests US military involvement will last at least five years, and could go as long as 20. "In I Corps, where the Marines were deployed, `the communist guerrillas enjoyed essentially uncontested dominance over most of the rural population,' they [the Corps] admitted." Conservative critics have blamed LBJ for not supporting an all-out air war. But at the time army leaders were divided about the effectiveness of such a strategy. Westmoreland thought that an air war would be ineffective as long as the situation of the South was on the verge of collapse. Westmoreland and Taylor were surprised at how often the White House took the initiative in demanding the offensive.

1966 and 1967: the officers quarrel about attrition, the air war and reinforcement, each pointing out the flaws in the other's arguments and nobody really very optimistic about a solution. "Admiral Sharp...pointed out that the United States had already caused heavy damage to most of the important military targets in the DRVN by August 1965, yet no American commander was suggesting that such measures had significantly altered the military situation in Vietnam." In response to the full-scale American invasion, the Vietcong and the PAVN were stepping up their recruitment and matching the Americans. Meanwhile Maxwell Taylor pointed out that the ARVN was shirking its duties, when the whole point of intervention was supposedly to stiffen their spine. Various officers called for more reinforcements and more troops. Even though they could make no promise that this would have any real effect, it could give them an alibi after an American defeat. In January 1967 the MACV found that it had underestimated VC and PAVN major unit attacks by a factor of four. Despite much blather about having their hands tied, the air force and the army culpably failed to protect their bases from guerrilla attacks.

Finally, 1968. Supporters of the war have argued that the Tet offensive was in fact a glorious American victory. But an obtuse and biased media convinced the American public the opposite. In fact, as Clark Clifford pointed, at the time many senior military leaders were on the verge of panic. As low morale, drug abuse, and fragging ravaged the American army, Westmoreland partially admitted the obvious: the Communist goal was not to expel the Americans, but to undermine what southern faith remained the RVN's government and army. The average ARVN battalion strength was at 50%, and it had lost one-quarter of its pre-Tet strength. Even hard-line senators such as Stennis and Jackson were beginning to waver, while pacification and counter-insurgency had been ravaged. Vann, Lansdale and others pointed out ARVN Corruption, intense popular opposition to American destructiveness and the culture of euphemism and denial at military headquarters. The one flaw in this book is that more is not said about the post-1968 war, though the government has made sure that primary documents are much less available. Based on 62 sets of private papers and oral histories and firmly well documented, this is a book that will be read for years to come.

Buzzanco's carefully researched and seamlessly written examination of military dissent in pre-Tet Vietnam rocks the boat tactfully--but thoroughly. Buzzanco conclusively lays to rest a great many myths about civil-military relations in the Vietnam era, and about the nature of the military conflict itself. This is not a book about guerilla tactics, comaraderie, or the horrors of war. Buzzanco tacitly accepts the profound emotional impact of Vietnam. His focus is on the high politics of waging a costly and highly unpopular "proxy" war. Many senior officers in Vietnam, including Matthew Ridgeway, John Paul Vann, and others, were tenaciously and vociferously critical of the war. Others were "true believers." Still others cynically hedged their bets in an effort to promote service and personal ambitions.

Following the 1968 Tet offensive, Buzzanco reveals, most civilian and military leaders recognized the futility of the conflict and wanted to get out of Vietnam. Unable to do so, however, they participated in mutual recrimination and propagandizing. The result was a web of myth that pervades U.S. civil-military relations even after Desert Storm; which was, perhaps, reinforced by Desert Storm.

Buzzanco's brilliant scholarship is a compact, unsettling, enlightening exploration of the defining Cold War conflict, and its enduring legacies.

How many Americans know that the most revered leaders of our modern military (among them Ridgway, Eisenhower and Marshall) advised against intervening in Vietnam?

How many know that in 1949 the Joint Chiefs of Staff issued a policy paper stating that military involvement in Indochina would be "an anti-historical act likely in the long run to create more problems than it solves and cause more damage than benefit"?

How many know that in 1967 the Joint Chiefs of Staff threatened to walk out on the president if he didn't call off military involvement?

My guess is that most Americans still believe that the majority of military leaders favored intervention and "were not allowed to win."

As Buzzanco makes clear, if that belief prevails in spite of the facts, Americans will have learned nothing from the tragedy that we call the Vietnam War. And given the current political and military situation, what we have, or haven't, learned has never mattered more.

In a masterfully concise and thorough way, Buzzanco assembles the most important but previously scattered findings about America's involvement in Vietnam. He is among the rarest of authors -- a readable scholar, one who can write for the masses. And the fact that he's a scholar is important. Journalists, who usually write the readable stuff, have lost too much credibility with the American public.

Upon finishing this relatively short but remarkably full account, all I could say was, "Finally!" The research and documentation to support Buzzanco's findings have been accumulating for years. As someone with a history degree who has tried to keep up, I applaud his ability to exhume, organize and present the essential and long buried information.

For those who demand more, there are reams of source material. For those who have been looking for a clear and credible synopsis based on what we now know, this is it.

I continue to hope that the publisher and the attending media will place it where the masses can find it.

Vilhar and Anderson, a husband-wife photographer-writer team, have put together a superb book. Through mainly visual images and pithy explanations/picture captions, they have encapsulated Japanese matsuri (festivals). The Japanese have festivals for everything and Vilhar has collected a good mixture: Gion, of course (Kyoto's most famous festival), kites framed by Mt Fuji (for Children's Day), young geisha, etc. Nobody today is doing better work in Japan/on Japan than Vilhar & Anderson. The only "problem" with this book is that it was too short. I, for one, would pay more to get more.

Matsuri, World of Japanese Festivals is a masterwork of photography. Vilhar's eye and skill with the camera captures the exquisite detail that exemplifies traditional Japanese culture and sensibilities. Like a door into historic fantasy, Matsuri gives both the well-travelled and arm-chair travellers a chance to immerse themselves in a world of beauty and ritual that took Vilhar and his wife Charlotte Anderson nine years to collect for this presentation. Well worth the price, I only wish there were a companion book of text to describe the ritual festivals in greater detail.

Matsuri - Shrine festivals, which catch the spiritual essence of Japan. This book is a MUST, if you have ever visited to or are interested in Japan.The photographs are just amazing (how did Vilhar get these shots?) and the captions very informative. I am living for >10 years in Japan, and Matsuri is one of my favourite books. Order two: one for you and one for your best friend!

A very well written, concise account of an amazing life whose owner did not lose her moral purpose and convictions. Very funny in parts, full of insight and vivd descriptions of early life in Bhopal. Very engaging and hard to put down. The author focusses on interesting and revealing anecdotes.

Princess Abida Sultan was a great woman; she still lives on in the hearts of the people she touched and the people of Karachi, the city she choose as her home.
She was a educated and learned person, who studied both worldly and religious subjects.
She is an example for the Muslim women of the world, who want to follow their religion properly and do great things as well.
She did great things, beating men while doing so!
What a woman!
Salutes and Cheers for her.

When saw this book I didn't know much about Princess Abida Sultaan but the photograph of a young princess with a sword on the cover attracted my attention initially. Princess Abida Sultaan was the heir apparent to the Muslim princely state of Bhopal in India before the creation of Pakistan. This is one princess who walked away from a life of luxury to follow the ideals set out for the newly created state of Pakistan.
As I started to read the book I couldn't keep it down. A truly amazing life led by this independent, strong willed, woman at a time and in a culture where it was not expected of her. I read in awe of this remarkable woman's life - a devoted mother first, then a stateswoman, a sports woman, a hunter and a pilot. A woman truly at peace with her culture and yet smart and open to change. I was particularly impressed by her honesty about her life - whether it came to the failure of her short marriage or any doubt she had while leaving Bhopal for a rough start in a new country where she had no roots.
I gained a lot of respect for this woman through her memoirs but I also felt deeply saddened by the fact that all her great skills, experience and talents were never fully put to use in Pakistan and recognized. She doesn't sound bitter about this lack of use of her innate abilities and her training as the heir apparent of the princely state of Bhopal after her move to Pakistan.
This book should be required text for all classes of South Asian history and women's studies. Its about time the Western world's image of Muslim women and South Asian women in particular be elevated from silk claden exotic creatures who only served a role to please and reproduce heirs.
I do regret never having the opportunity to meet an icon of an era and a generation such as Princess Abida.

This intelligent and kind man all too often falls through the cracks of history. People forget that there was a completely different school of socialist thought that existed concurrently with the ideas of Marx. Kropotkin, like many others who believed in the ability of people to make their own economic relations, had the distinction of being persecuted by people on both sides of the political spectrum. Yet his book is remarkable for its lack of self-pity or resentment. The book is dense and full of the musings of a highly educated man of the late 19th century who indulged many other interests besides politics. His journey is remarkable, and we can only hope that he will become better known.

Prince Piotr Alekseyevich Kropotkin, 1842-1921, was a Russian geographer and anarchist. He came from a wealthy princely family and as a boy was a page to the czar. Repelled by court life, he obtained permission to serve as an army officer in Siberia, where his explorations and scientific observations established his reputation as a geographer. After returning to European Russia, he became an adherent of the Bakuninist faction of the narodniki and engaged in clandestine propaganda activities until arrested in 1874. Two years later he escaped to Western Europe, where he worked with various anarchist groups until his imprisonment in France (1883). Pardoned in 1886, partly as the result of the popular clamor for his release, he moved to England and spent the next 30 years mainly as a scholar and writer developing a coherent anarchist theory. In his most famous book, Mutual Aid (1902), he attacked T. H. Huxley and the Social Darwinists for their picture of nature and human society as essentially competitive. He insisted that cooperation and mutual aid were the norms in both the natural and social worlds. From this perspective he developed a theory of social organizationin Fields, Factories and Workshops (1898) and elsewherethat was based upon communes of producers linked with each other through common custom and free contract. Returning to Russia following the February Revolution of 1917, he attempted to engender support for a continued Russian effort in World War I and to combat the rising influence of Bolshevism. Following the Bolshevik triumph in the October Revolution (1917), he retired from active politics. Consistently nonviolent in his anarchist beliefs, Kropotkin,as both thinker and man, was admired and acclaimed by many far removed from anarchist circles.

This work by Peter Kropotkin's is, I say this without reservations, a work of genius and an amazing reflection on the life of an amazing man. Kropotkin's stories of his childhood and his relations with his servants and other lower-calss individuals (he was born a prince) are very interesting, as are his tales of exploration. His version of anarcho-socialism is very intriguing, largely because he bears no hate or grudge towards anyone and he is a very gentle man. In his book, it becomes clear (without him saying it, of course) that he did not recognize just how unique of a man he was. This book is filled with marvelous anecdotes, from cutting political commentary to fascinating stories of journeys down the Amur River to a splendid little collection of stupid Russian Spy stories. This book is fantastic.

A wonderful book about a wonderful idea. This exhibition is really outstanding, I'm looking forward to see it. As I heard it will take place in Zurich, Switzerland in April/May 2009.

More information about the project: www.tmpp.org

A Dear Friend gave me a copy of this book.
It is the most beautiful book I have ever owned
I bought many copies to give as gifts.
It is the embodiment of Love and Kindness.

a beautiful book that captures the spirit of the dalai lama. the photographs are lovely in content and the reproduction is excellent. i highly recommend it.

The great strength of this book lies in its brevity. Two-hundred pages divided by twenty chapters makes for fast reading, covering a wide variety of subjects. Edward Dimock is a man of the world; his depth of experience allows him to write with both fondness and irreverence. Early on he confesses himself to be an old fuddy-duddy, guided by the ancient Manu (like Dante and Vergil), yet is not above numerous and much-appreciated pop references to anything from Mel Brooks to Star Trek. For those of us who know choice little of India (let alone been there) Mysteries of the East is both didactic and hilarious. Dimock's a wonderful writer, quickly establishing a humorous tone while discussing otherwise weighty matters. The rhythm he works himself into had me anticipating his editorializing, even in the midst of the more luxurious description. He's always "on", always has a little something to say about his travels and discoveries, be they an American movie star in Agra or the island of Diu where Dimock "communes with the spirits" (my realization of what he meant by this caused me to laugh out loud; I was finally hooked). Dimock is a witty observer of detail, with a well-educated sense of comparison and contrast. The similarity between Santa Claus and Ganesha is nicely drawn, while the author is careful to distinguish between Sir Richard Burton and just plain Richard Burton. The Indians and Sahibs are allowed to speak for themselves either charmingly or boisterously, quick character sketches that add flavor to the cultural mix. Dimock also knows his Vishvamitra and Herodotus and lets these old-timers have their say. But as he himself writes, "It is no news to anybody that language is more than words", and some very fine study is put into his silent characters as well, everyone from Yusuf the waiter to Nikki the German shepherd. Dimock takes an obvious delight in the menagerie that is India, from thieving monkeys to a charging water buffalo, and a most striking non-speaking role is played by Gopal the elephant, whose astuteness and venerability Dimock compares favorably to his own father. He's correct in describing the glance of the polite pachyderm as sagacious: some animals--say, cows,--look right through you, but elephants look right at you . . . appraisingly. The change of scene in Part III of the book caught me somewhat off-guard as Dimock leaves India and travels to Aden and then back to New England. I thought the whole book was supposed to be about India, but I got to thinking about the title; the East. After all, Aden is in the Middle East, and Massachusetts is on the east coast, and both are plenty mysterious to me as well. The most memorable advice Dimock provides if one is to truly see India is that one must: 1. Meet a maharaja, whether he be sober or inebriated, 2. Ride an elephant to see an outdoor drama without trampling any of the locals, 3. See a ruby-eyed idol deep in a rain-forest straight out of The Jungle Book, 4.Take in a live performance by a cobra and its handler in the street, or at least stumble upon one of the great snakes out in the bush, or (Shiva willing) in one's own bathtub.

Mr. Dimock possesses a perspective on India that, few if any, Westerners will ever have. He is probably the only Western author who has been able to notice and accept the chaos of India. Mr. Dimock aslo has the unique insight of perceiving the order that arises from this choas. In his book he presents India to us as a place of constant comedy the humor of which is best understood by someone who is fimilar with the region and it's people. India comes across as a place of extremes where even the animals have a personality and express it in their own right. The book was funny and nostalgic at the same time. The ideas would have been best expressed in an Indian language but the limiations of English as a language used to recount India is also very amusing. The book is very highly recommended especially to those who live in mortal fear and awe of the place. Thanks! B

I am passionate for non-fiction books about India so this book was on my personal reading list. I will mention this: Something about Mr. Dimock's writing reminds me of that "lost" writing style of the 19th century. This is an absolutely fabulous book that unfortunately will probably be overlooked time and time again by readers. This is a book I will buy and always keep because it is so perfect in every way!