The 2011 Asia Society Bernard Schwartz Book Award Nominations

Five  books noted for their outstanding contributions to the understanding of contemporary Asia have been chosen as finalists for the 2011 Asia Society Bernard Schwartz Book Award.

The finalists were selected from more than 110 nominations submitted by U.S. and Asia-based publishers for books published in 2010. The books are:

• Mao’s Great Famine: A History of China’s Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958-1962 by Frank Dikötter (Walker & Company)
• No Man’s Land: Globalization, Territory, and Clandestine Groups in Southeast Asia by Justin V. Hastings (Cornell University Press)
• The Party: The Secret World of China’s Communist Rulers by Richard McGregor (HarperCollins Publishers)
• Ordering Power: Contentious Politics and Authoritarian Leviathans in Southeast Asia by Dan Slater (Cambridge University Press)
• Paths to Development in Asia: South Korea, Vietnam, China, and Indonesia by Tuong Vu (Cambridge University Press

I have to say that I’ve not read all of them. For my money (and reading so far) McGregor’s book on the Party is an important tome, especially as it shows how so many Chinese companies broke the listing regulations of foreign stock exchanges by never declaring the Party’s interest in them. Richard did a great job in digging around on the machinations of the CCP. I think Dikotter’s reputation is also excellent and the famines in China an important subject. I’d highly recommend Dikotter’s The Age of Openness: China Before Mao, one of the best short summations of modern Chinese history I think.

As to who will win, well who knows? The judging panel are a bit dreary, all formal types and no mavericks – see there photos on the web site and they look like the board of a mid-western grocery chain. Shame they couldn’t have sexed up the jury to make things more exciting. Still, it’s the Asia Society, hardly the funkiest organisation in town!