Bio for Pankaj Mishra
Why China’s Riches Won’t Bring It Freedom
Modern history is the story of how liberal democracy, originating in the U.K. and America, spread around the world. This may sound like an absurd fantasy. In actuality, this Whiggish narrative of progress underpins most newspaper editorials, political commentary and speeches in the West, and frames larger views of political developments in the non-West.
Modern history is the story of how liberal democracy, originating in the U.K. and America, spread around the world. This may sound like an absurd fantasy. In actuality, this Whiggish narrative of progress underpins most newspaper editorials, political commentary and speeches in the West, and frames larger views of political developments in the non-West.
Asian Leaders’ Tough Talk Hides Failure of Leadership
May 05, 2013
|
No comments
Visiting China in 1928, when a rising
Japan had begun to prey on its neighbor, the Japanese poet Akiko
Yosano took a surprisingly broad-minded view of anti-Japanese
passion among the Chinese: “It’s surely frightful from the
imperialists’ point of view,” she wrote in her travelogue, “but
for the Chinese people it must be celebrated in the name of
humanity.”
In Asia, Thatcher’s Iron Lady Walked on Clay Feet
April 16, 2013
|
No comments
The “ideological legacy” of
Margaret Thatcher, according to the Economist, rivals “that of
Marx, Mao, Gandhi or Reagan.” She made “Britain great again,”
the Daily Telegraph asserts. Writing in the Wall Street Journal,
the historian Andrew Roberts hails Thatcher for her loyalty to
the U.S. and Israel, and claims that “Thatcherism will always
remain, and the world is better for it.”
To Erase Militarist Past, Japan Must Re-Learn It
April 14, 2013
|
No comments
It was raining heavily last week
when I visited Tokyo’s controversial Yasukuni Shrine, which
commemorates Japanese who died in the “imperial cause.” But the
tour buses still discharged scores of elderly Japanese visitors,
and I received approving looks and even a faint smile from two
Japanese women as we stood in the rain before the memorial to an
Indian jurist called Radha Binod Pal.
What Naipaul Got Right, and Wrong, About India
March 31, 2013
|
No comments
While reading a shocking report
about extrajudicial killings and torture by Indian security
forces in Kashmir, I was reminded of V.S. Naipaul’s “India: A
Million Mutinies Now,” arguably the most influential book about
modern India.
%7Cutmccn%3D(direct)%7Cutmcmd%3D(none);&utmn=628883133&utmp=%2Fview%2Fbios%2Fpankaj-mishra&utmhn=10.248.67.13&utmac=UA-11413116-12&utmhid=233082013)