God's Dust: A Modern Asian Journey

Rating:
Summary: A Perceptive Survey of Asia in Transition
Review: Ian Buruma's lively writing style, familiar to readers of the New York Review of Books and the Far Eastern Economic Review, comes to the fore in this wonderful look at a variety of Asian countries. He manages to isolate scenes and trends that characterize the tension between the traditional and the modern in several Asian nations (or indeed nations in formation). The non-Asian writer on Asia is at times less forgiving, and at others brings a fresh view, but always provides insights that few other books or writers seem to produce. God's Dust lets the seasoned Asia dweller feel that she is developing her own unique perspective on life in Asia, and at the same time gives those who have never experienced Asia's intricacies and contradictions an opportunity to experience more than a travelogue or a soon-to-be-proven-wrong business trends bestseller would deliver.

Rating:
Summary: A Perceptive Survey of Asia in Transition
Review: Ian Buruma's lively writing style, familiar to readers of the New York Review of Books and the Far Eastern Economic Review, comes to the fore in this wonderful look at a variety of Asian countries. He manages to isolate scenes and trends that characterize the tension between the traditional and the modern in several Asian nations (or indeed nations in formation). The non-Asian writer on Asia is at times less forgiving, and at others brings a fresh view, but always provides insights that few other books or writers seem to produce. God's Dust lets the seasoned Asia dweller feel that she is developing her own unique perspective on life in Asia, and at the same time gives those who have never experienced Asia's intricacies and contradictions an opportunity to experience more than a travelogue or a soon-to-be-proven-wrong business trends bestseller would deliver.