Not as smooth or consistently engaging as his first two books, but worthwhile reading for armchair travelers and Sinophiles.
The roving journalist and travel writer takes on China.
In his previous two books—Getting Stoned with Savages: A Trip Through the Islands of Fiji and Vanuatu (2006) and The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific (2004)—Troost chronicled his time on the tiny, isolated islands of the South Pacific. Here, the author considers a decidedly different environment, a “massive and rapidly changing…vast and complex country.” That description proves to be an understatement, as he encounters one bewildering thing after another, from the “hermetically sealed Super Deluxe Executive Suite” at the Grand Hyatt Shanghai, the world’s highest hotel, to rampant prostitution and unspeakably foul restroom conditions. “It is remarkable,” he writes, “how quickly a country like China can reduce a foreigner—this foreigner, in any case—to a state of childlike powerlessness.” As Troost travels through Beijing, Shanghai, Qingdao, Guangzhou and a half dozen other teeming cities, he notices the pervasive remnants of the Cultural Revolution, as well as the driving force behind the new “Chinese Model” for organizing society: “unfettered capitalism combined with authoritarian rule.” With the rapid growth of the Chinese economy, the author notes, comes a widening gap between the rich and the poor—the government is currently sitting on a $1.4 trillion reserve—in addition to increasing levels of air and water pollution, which Troost duly notes in each impossibly smog-choked city. The author finds relief in the relative order of Hong Kong, the utter barrenness of the Taklamakan Desert, the quiet calm of Lhasa (Tibet) and the staggering beauty of Tiger Leaping Gorge, but he is underwhelmed by the fabled Shangri-la. Interspersing sections of cultural history—and plenty of tasty and not-so-tasty culinary tidbits—throughout his travelogue, Troost offers a serviceable primer on life in China. But uncharacteristically awkward prose too often creeps into the narrative, and the author relies heavily on bland generalizations (“It’s a complicated country, China, full of complicated people”) in lieu of thoughtful commentary.
Not as smooth or consistently engaging as his first two books, but worthwhile reading for armchair travelers and Sinophiles.Pub Date: July 8, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-7679-2200-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Broadway
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2008
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
For Howard Zinn, long-time civil rights and anti-war activist, history and ideology have a lot in common. Since he thinks that everything is in someone's interest, the historian—Zinn posits—has to figure out whose interests he or she is defining/defending/reconstructing (hence one of his previous books, The Politics of History). Zinn has no doubts about where he stands in this "people's history": "it is a history disrespectful of governments and respectful of people's movements of resistance." So what we get here, instead of the usual survey of wars, presidents, and institutions, is a survey of the usual rebellions, strikes, and protest movements. Zinn starts out by depicting the arrival of Columbus in North America from the standpoint of the Indians (which amounts to their standpoint as constructed from the observations of the Europeans); and, after easily establishing the cultural disharmony that ensued, he goes on to the importation of slaves into the colonies. Add the laborers and indentured servants that followed, plus women and later immigrants, and you have Zinn's amorphous constituency. To hear Zinn tell it, all anyone did in America at any time was to oppress or be oppressed; and so he obscures as much as his hated mainstream historical foes do—only in Zinn's case there is that absurd presumption that virtually everything that came to pass was the work of ruling-class planning: this amounts to one great indictment for conspiracy. Despite surface similarities, this is not a social history, since we get no sense of the fabric of life. Instead of negating the one-sided histories he detests, Zinn has merely reversed the image; the distortion remains.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1979
ISBN: 0061965588
Page Count: 772
Publisher: Harper & Row
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1979
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The value of this book is the context it provides, in a style aimed at a concerned citizenry rather than fellow academics,...
A provocative analysis of the parallels between Donald Trump’s ascent and the fall of other democracies.
Following the last presidential election, Levitsky (Transforming Labor-Based Parties in Latin America, 2003, etc.) and Ziblatt (Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy, 2017, etc.), both professors of government at Harvard, wrote an op-ed column titled, “Is Donald Trump a Threat to Democracy?” The answer here is a resounding yes, though, as in that column, the authors underscore their belief that the crisis extends well beyond the power won by an outsider whom they consider a demagogue and a liar. “Donald Trump may have accelerated the process, but he didn’t cause it,” they write of the politics-as-warfare mentality. “The weakening of our democratic norms is rooted in extreme partisan polarization—one that extends beyond policy differences into an existential conflict over race and culture.” The authors fault the Republican establishment for failing to stand up to Trump, even if that meant electing his opponent, and they seem almost wistfully nostalgic for the days when power brokers in smoke-filled rooms kept candidacies restricted to a club whose members knew how to play by the rules. Those supporting the candidacy of Bernie Sanders might take as much issue with their prescriptions as Trump followers will. However, the comparisons they draw to how democratic populism paved the way toward tyranny in Peru, Venezuela, Chile, and elsewhere are chilling. Among the warning signs they highlight are the Republican Senate’s refusal to consider Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee as well as Trump’s demonization of political opponents, minorities, and the media. As disturbing as they find the dismantling of Democratic safeguards, Levitsky and Ziblatt suggest that “a broad opposition coalition would have important benefits,” though such a coalition would strike some as a move to the center, a return to politics as usual, and even a pragmatic betrayal of principles.
The value of this book is the context it provides, in a style aimed at a concerned citizenry rather than fellow academics, rather than in the consensus it is not likely to build.Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5247-6293-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
