Hermes Netherlands

Whoever has travelled through variuos countries of Asia must have noticed numerous similarities between countries thousands of kilometres apart, and how much they differ from their bigger neighbours India and China.

Inspired by Fernand Braudel, Mr. Reid used European, Chinese, and Arab sources from just before the age of colonialism to proof this point, and produced a condensed but highly readable account.

This book gives a description of a Javanese village near Banyuwangi in the 1990's, when fanatical Islam made in-roads in a much older and much more tolerant culture.

The old and new cultures are well analysed. Lots of attention is given to how people interact with family, neighbours and others in the village. However, to blame the rise of Islam mostly on the policies of president Soeharto seems a simplification to me.

So the conclusion is not really convincing, but the description is good enough to still give it four stars.

If you have spent any time in the countryside of Java or in cities like Yogyakarta, you will enjoy this book.

The history of French food until the end of Napoleontic era. Originally inspired by Greek science, food had to be balanced (quite like Chinese food) to optimise its medical use, leading to complicated dishes with many spices. European food was much more like Arab, Indian, or Southeast Asian food: the Romans even had fish sauces. Increased trade with the Arab world and the later seaborne empires led to spices becoming much cheaper. At the same time, the medical properties were questioned, which led to optimising the taste of a dish's major ingredient. You can find the development of Western philosophy reflected in the food eaten at the time.

The book includes a chapter on the development of wine from essentially plonk to "terroir", plus recipes from previous eras.

This book describes the political history of Central Asia from the start of the Caucasian diaspora about 4 millenia ago in just 300 pages. Such a book can only be very concise. Unfortunately however, what we get is a bewildering list of political leaders and their empires from Ireland to Japan. Key people like Attila and Chinggis Khan are covered in just a few pages. Little attention is given to other aspects that made Central Asia to what it was, e.g. the impact of geography, as does Peter Perdue in “China Marches West”. Also, relatively little attention is paid to the cultural exchange that took place and that was so important for the development of European and East-Asian culture.

Curiously the book ends with a two chapter rant against Modernism. The author considers Modernism the root of all modern evil in Central Asia. As a result we learn more about his dislike of Picasso than about the Persian poet Hafiz that he admires.

I find it disappointing to give this book only two stars. Mr. Beckwith is a man of great learning and of great passion for his subject. With better editing a much better book could have been produced.

This book gives an overview of the influence of India on Southeast Asia. Unfortunately, the quality of sources seems to be quite limited, and the book is often an overview of small kingdoms fighting each other and the various forms of Hinduism or Buddhism they followed. Later on in the book the author manages to give more details, making the area come to live.

It is interesting to see that Southeast Asia's great capability of incorporating foreign influences predates contacts with India (and China).

I learned about Mr. Hofstede's theories while working for a Dutch bank that had been recently "merged" (i.e. taken over) by a Belgian colleague. Many of us joined an evening course in dealing with cross cultural contacts, with the trainer cheerfully proclaiming that mergers between Dutch and Belgian companies had never worked. Recently, it turned out that this takeover would be no exception.

His course was based upon the work of Geert Hofstede, who spent many years working for IBM, researching the differences in values in people with the same job working for the same company in different countries. Mr. Hofstede related this to research by psychologist, and identified five parameters of human values that differ from culture to culture. You can find these values at Mr. Hofstede's website (http://www.geert-hofstede.com), but it is much better to read this book, where he also discusses combinations of these values and their consequences (albeit with examples that are sometimes a bit dated).

Having worked on various continents it helped me understanding what I saw happening around me. And more interestingly, when put under pressure by a foreign manager of dubious quality, I too defended myself with the typical values of my home culture.

Reading Mr. Hofstede is better than listening to expat pub chatter.