Here are 100 books that Everything Under the Heavens fans have personally recommended if you like
Everything Under the Heavens.
Shepherd is a community of 10,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.
Shepherd is reader supported. When you buy books, we may earn an affiliate commission.
Hawkes (MD, BScN, MGA) is a novelist, YouTuber, and former analyst for the NATO Association of Canada. His writings have appeared in Heater, The Raven Chronicles, ArabLit, and many other magazines and publications. His recent espionage novel, The Haze, is set in Southeast Asia and the Middle East.
If you want to know more about the politics of Singapore, Vietnam, and the Philippines, this is the book for you. International relations expert and topnotch global thinker (according to Foreign Policy magazine) Robert D. Kaplan does an excellent job at contrasting Southeast countries against one another and explaining why some have prospered while others failed. A very intriguing read that is recommended for everyone interested in Asia, period.
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY FINANCIAL TIMES
From Robert D. Kaplan, named one of the world’s Top 100 Global Thinkers by Foreign Policy magazine, comes a penetrating look at the volatile region that will dominate the future of geopolitical conflict.
Over the last decade, the center of world power has been quietly shifting from Europe to Asia. With oil reserves of several billion barrels, an estimated nine hundred trillion cubic feet of natural gas, and several centuries’ worth of competing territorial claims, the South China Sea in particular is a simmering pot of potential conflict.…
Hawkes (MD, BScN, MGA) is a novelist, YouTuber, and former analyst for the NATO Association of Canada. His writings have appeared in Heater, The Raven Chronicles, ArabLit, and many other magazines and publications. His recent espionage novel, The Haze, is set in Southeast Asia and the Middle East.
I first heard about this book when it won the 2014 National Book Award in nonfiction. After reading it, it became clear to me this was one of the best books written about China. Evan Osnos, a staff writer at the New Yorker, has delivered a coup de force that unravels the social dynamics of Chinese society. In recent memory, no serious book has attempted to do the same. You will learn about the clash of individualism vs. plutocracy in present-day China and how that manifests on the street. You will also understand the economic ailments that afflict modern China. It is beautifully written.
Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction finalist Winner of the 2014 National Book Award in nonfiction.
As the Beijing correspondent for The New Yorker, Evan Osnos was on the ground in China for years, witness to profound political, economic, and cultural upheaval.
Age of Ambition provides a vibrant, colorful, and revelatory inner history of China during a moment of profound transformation.
From abroad, we often see China as a caricature: a nation of pragmatic plutocrats and ruthlessly dedicated students destined to rule the global economy-or an addled Goliath, riddled with corruption and on the edge of stagnation. What we don't see…
Hawkes (MD, BScN, MGA) is a novelist, YouTuber, and former analyst for the NATO Association of Canada. His writings have appeared in Heater, The Raven Chronicles, ArabLit, and many other magazines and publications. His recent espionage novel, The Haze, is set in Southeast Asia and the Middle East.
No one can deny that the story of Singapore is a modern-day miracle. From a third-world port city in the mid-20th century to the first-rate nation we know today, Singapore has adopted progress as a creed. Lee Kuan Yew, the very founder of modern Singapore, reflects on his achievements and the many challenges he’s faced along the way in this enticing book.
The story of Singapore's amazing transformation told by it's charismatic and controversial founding father, Lee Kuan Yew. Lee Kuan Yew is one of the most influential leaders in Asia. In this illuminating account, Lee writes frankly about his disapproving approach to political opponents and his often unorthodox views on human rights, democracy, and inherited intelligence, aiming always "to be correct, not politically correct." Since it's independence in 1965, tiny Singapore -- once a poor and decrepit colony -- has risen to become a rich and thriving Asian metropolis. From Third World to First is a fascinating and insightful account of…
Hawkes (MD, BScN, MGA) is a novelist, YouTuber, and former analyst for the NATO Association of Canada. His writings have appeared in Heater, The Raven Chronicles, ArabLit, and many other magazines and publications. His recent espionage novel, The Haze, is set in Southeast Asia and the Middle East.
A confession I have to make from the get-go: I met Tommy Koch in person in 2013, on a professional visit to Singapore. Koch struck me as the kind of Asian intellectual seldom seen in the West nowadays. He is competently versed in his civilization’s (Chinese) supremacy discourses and at the same time, is a global citizen of the first class. He knows where myth ends and reality strikes. We rarely see Western intellectuals of this sort any longer. The nearest we’ve ever had was Kissinger—and he’s too controversial to be a functional counterpart to Koch. In this book, Koch and his editorial partner compile a vision of America as seen by Singaporean decision-makers. This book is not only important to know how Asian nations have viewed us over recent years, but is a fundamental read for any international-relations buff interested in gauging the future ahead.
The United States of America is the largest investor in Singapore. And in 2019, it channelled more resources into the city state than what it put into both China and Japan. That year, the value of US direct investments in Singapore was US$288 billion, or about 4.8 per cent of US direct investments abroad. This sum exceeded the combined value of those in China (US$116.2 billion) and Japan (US$131.8 billion), based on data from the Office of the United States Trade Representative and the US Bureau of Economic Analysis.
This illustrates the economic significance of the US to Singapore. Beyond…
I used to be Chief Economist at the UK bank SG Warburg and then at UBS, starting out in 1987 and finally cutting the cord in 2016 as Senior Economic Advisor. I visited China twice or three times a year from about 1994 and then the pandemic intervened. After the financial crisis, I decided that China would be the world’s next big thing. So I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out what’s going on there and for the last few years, I've been an associate at the China Centre at Oxford University and SOAS in London. Red Flags was a book I simply had to write. Maybe there’ll be another. We shall see.
Liz Economy’s grasp of international relations is compelling and insightful as she sets out to explain how China sees itself in the world, especially in the light of the pandemic. Looking to recover its past glory and status, China under Xi Jinping has seized both on what he sees as the West’s economic and political failings, and China’s own accomplishments and size to advance new agendas. At home, a leftward lurch resembles a throwback to the Mao era. In the world, China wants to reshape global institutions to reflect better its interests and to get others, for example in The Belt and Road, to support China’s narratives.
How Xi intends to do this, whether he is likely to succeed and how the United States and the international community should respond and prepare for the challenge ahead will hold your attention to the last page.
An economic and military superpower with 20 percent of the world's population, China has the wherewithal to transform the international system. Xi Jinping's bold calls for China to "lead in the reform of the global governance system" suggest that he has just such an ambition. But how does he plan to realize it? And what does it mean for the rest of the world?
In this compelling book, Elizabeth Economy reveals China's ambitious new strategy to reclaim the country's past glory and reshape the geostrategic landscape in dramatic new ways. Xi's vision is one of Chinese centrality on the global…
I became interested in China-Africa relations fifteen years ago when I realised that the rise of the former was going to have major and long-lasting effects on the politics and economics of the continent. In a sense, the rising role of China in Africa foretold its rise to global power and influence. Since then I have been fascinated by the ways in which China has restructured, or been involved in the restructuring, of African economies and politics and the ways in which that country’s global strategies and roles have continued to evolve and their impacts. I have written several books on the impacts of emerging powers in Africa.
The ascent to power of Xi Jinxing in China in 2013 heralded a new era in China’s overseas engagements and in its domestic politics and economic policy; what Elizabeth Economy has called the “third revolution.” This fascinating book by Large brings the story of China’s engagements in Africa up to date. It is packed with fascinating details and analysis and shows how China’s interests on the continent are shifting from being primarily economic to being more geopolitical. It is a detailed and nuanced analysis of the changed nature of relations.
China has gone from being a marginal to a leading power in Africa in just over two decades. Its striking ascendancy in the continent is commonly thought to have been primarily driven by economic interests, especially resources like oil. This book argues instead that politics defines the 'new era' of China-Africa relations, and examines the importance of politics across a range of areas, from foreign policy to debt, development and the Xi Jinping incarnation of the China model.
Going beyond superficial depictions of China's engagement as predatory or benign, this book explores how Africa is - and isn't - integral…
As a writer and waterman, I have traversed the waters of the Chesapeake
Bay, setting crab pots and communing with fellow watermen who share a
deep love for the estuary. I honor their livelihoods by responsibly
harvesting blue crabs and oysters. My field notes have taken me beyond
the Chesapeake, onto Hilton Head shrimping boats, onto the oyster beds
in Bull's Bay in South Carolina, and into the contested South China Sea
aboard Vietnamese fishing trawlers.
I recently finished reading this insightful book, which has helped me better understand the blue economy, how the US and China can both realize the potential of the ocean, and the geopolitical ramifications.
The competition between these two superpowers is deeply entrenched in ocean matters. Indeed, our planet is predominantly ocean, with more than two-thirds of its surface covered by the sea that serves as vital hubs for economic development, transportation, and resource extraction, as evident in the current race for seabed critical minerals and of course, seafood to feed the world population now approaching 9 billion. This book is an excellent textbook on the blue economy.
The United States and China are each actively pursuing development of a Blue Economy to promote greater marine, maritime, and naval capabilities through more innovative, sustainable and environmentally friendly means. This book examines China's approach to developing a Blue Economy, compares China's efforts to developments in the United States, analyses prospects for cooperation, and competition, and outlines strategic implications arising from China's linkage of the Blue Economy development concept to its Maritime Silk Road initiative. An understanding of the Blue Economy as it is being pursued in China and the Indo-Pacific region is extremely relevant for academics, industry professionals, and…
As a writer and waterman, I have traversed the waters of the Chesapeake
Bay, setting crab pots and communing with fellow watermen who share a
deep love for the estuary. I honor their livelihoods by responsibly
harvesting blue crabs and oysters. My field notes have taken me beyond
the Chesapeake, onto Hilton Head shrimping boats, onto the oyster beds
in Bull's Bay in South Carolina, and into the contested South China Sea
aboard Vietnamese fishing trawlers.
Bill Hayton’s book helped guide me into this theme of the significant value and importance of the South China Sea. He offered a comprehensive historical narrative of the region from ancient times to the early 2010s while scrupulously outlining the territorial disputes and power struggles it has fostered.
His use of academic sources and journalistic articles was most readable. As a journalist, I welcomed his non-wonkish writing style and digressions on key actors in the unfolding dramas playing out in real-time on the ocean. I also met the author at several South China Sea conferences, and his open style and manner reflected in person were also present in his narrative.
Why the world can't afford to be indifferent to the simmering conflict in the South China Sea
"The greatest risk today in U.S.-Chinese relations is the South China Sea, through which passes 40% of world trade. . . . Hayton explains how this all came about and points to the growing risks of miscalculation and escalation."-Daniel Yergin, Wall Street Journal
China's rise has upset the global balance of power, and the first place to feel the strain is Beijing's back yard: the South China Sea. For decades tensions have smoldered in the region, but today the threat of a direct…
Three people changed my life: my grandfather, a self-taught naturalist, the cardiac surgeon I worked for to put myself through college, and a nuclear engineer I worked for at Los Alamos National Labs. Summering on an island in northern Ontario I was immersed in a world with minimal human impact. As an exploration geologist, I traveled the world and saw first-hand the impact humankind is having on our world. My books focus on man’s threats and dangers to our world—be they environmental, medical or the threat of weapons of mass destruction.
Nevercombines it all. This fast-paced, hold-your-breath thriller features a young intelligence operative, a spy, a spymaster from China, and a US President falling in the polls as a new election nears.
This story is frighteningly realistic as the protagonists struggle to prevent the next world war. Chemical weapons are stockpiled and prepared for use. Readers are thrust into a true-to-life scenario here the world teeters on the brink of destruction.
The new must-read epic from master storyteller Ken Follett: more than a thriller, it’s an action-packed, globe-spanning drama set in the present day.
“A compelling story, and only too realistic.” —Lawrence H. Summers, former U.S. Treasury Secretary
“Every catastrophe begins with a little problem that doesn’t get fixed.” So says Pauline Green, president of the United States, in Follett’s nerve-racking drama of international tension.
A shrinking oasis in the Sahara Desert; a stolen US Army drone; an uninhabited Japanese island; and one country’s secret stash of deadly chemical poisons: all these play roles in a relentlessly…
As Professor of History and Global Asian Studies and Director of the Engaged Humanities Institute at the University of Illinois at Chicago, I'm interested in intersections at the margins between cultural systems. I first became drawn to Chinese history after visiting the country in 1982 and returned to teach English there before undertaking graduate studies. My work on eighteenth-century China focuses on ethnography and cartography as tools of empire building during its period of growth and expansion. My current project, Bridging Worlds: Reflections on a Journey, chronicles a quest for personal integration when obtaining an education has too often become predicated on the ability to cut oneself off from aspects of one’s own inner knowing and lived experience.
Set in the heyday of Qing glory—or some might say at the beginning of its decline—Philip Kuhn traces a panic that swept through rural China in which commoners feared for the safety of their children’s lives at the hands of imagined bands of “soulstealers.” Alternately tracing allegations of incidents and the imperial response, which the reader gradually comes to understand is fueled by its own brand of paranoia, the author describes the intricate workings of bureaucratic procedure and justice in Qing China in which the emperor sometimes felt foiled by his own ‘deep state.’
Midway through the reign of the Ch'ien-lung emperor, Hungli, in the most prosperous period of China's last imperial dynasty, mass hysteria broke out among the common people. It was feared that sorcerers were roaming the land, clipping off the ends of men's queues (the braids worn by royal decree), and chanting magical incantations over them in order to steal the souls of their owners. In a fascinating chronicle of this epidemic of fear and the official prosecution of soulstealers that ensued, Philip Kuhn provides an intimate glimpse into the world of eighteenth-century China.
Interested in
China,
geopolitics,
and
international relations?
10,000+ authors have recommended their favorite books and what they love about them.
Browse their picks for the best books about
China,
geopolitics,
and
international relations.
