THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS: The latest issue features geopolitical analyses of the Iran conflict by Fintan O’Toole and Pankaj Mishra, alongside cultural explorations of literature and art. Key contributions include discussions on the economic dualities of Shenzhen, China, and critiques of historical narratives regarding the Allied firebombing of Japan. 

A Bitter Education

In its quiescence to the West’s war on Iran, India is squandering a precious legacy.

Shenzhen Express

In Shenzhen, the successes and failures of China’s remarkable new economy are on full display.

Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future by Dan Wang

House of Huawei: The Secret History of China’s Most Powerful Company by Eva Dou

Who Built France?

A new history explores France’s empire from the perspective of the indigenous and enslaved people who participated, willingly or not, in its creation.

By Flesh and Toil: How Sex, Race, and Labor Shaped the Early French Empire by Mélanie Lamotte

A Man-Made Disaster

There has never been a moral and historical reckoning with the horrors inflicted by the Allied firebombing of Japan during World War II.

Black Snow: Curtis LeMay, the Firebombing of Tokyo, and the Road to the Atomic Bomb by James M. Scott

The Bomber Mafia: A Dream, a Temptation, and the Longest Night of the Second World War by Malcolm Gladwell