bout de papier, Vol. 30, No. 2 (2017), pp. 38–39
Edited by Ramachandra Guha,
The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press,
400 pp, 2014, $25.63 CDN
Reviewed by David MacDuff
ASIA’S SEEMINGLY INEXORABLE rise has, to a considerable extent, been the story of its economic transformation. In Makers of Modern Asia, editor Ramachandra Guha argues that political factors were the necessary conditions for this emergence. He gathers leading historians and political analysts to offer a series of biographies of eleven of Asia’s “giant” leaders: Mohandas Gandhi (India); Chiang Kai-shek (China); Ho Chi Minh (Vietnam); Mao Zedong (China); Jawaharlal Nehru (India); Zhou Enlai (China); Sukarno (Indonesia); Deng Xioping (China); Indira Gandhi (China); Lee Kuan Yew (Singapore); and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (Pakistan). The book was the subject of a “Banyan Tree” discussion group in March 2017, a learning initiative organized under the auspices of the Asia Pacific Branch of Global Affairs Canada.
The book’s premise is that the life of an individual statesperson can be used to illuminate the history of his or her respective country. Indeed, it is very difficult to think of India without Mohandas Gandhi; China without Mao; or Vietnam without Ho Chi Minh. The approach of this volume may be considered as part of a wider trend among historians, such as Canada’s Margaret MacMillan, to give individual leaders (and not simply structural factors, such as realpolitik) their due in shaping the events of their time.
Makers of Modern Asia is an excellent survey of some of the most towering figures who shaped Asia’s politics, economics, and society in the 20″ century, and whose legacies still have an impact today. Given the vastness and diversity of Asia, even readers with experience in the region will be able to fill in some of their inevitable knowledge gaps with this book, while those new to the region can use it as a baseline.
Another strength of the volume is that some of the insights relating to individual countries also pertain to other parts of the region. For instance, in the chapter on Lee Kuan Yew, historian Michael Barr shows how the Singapore state continues to grapple with the twin goals of maintaining political control, on the one hand, while promoting innovation and creativity to spur economic growth, on the other. This is a dilemma that other countries in the region, such as China, also face, albeit in a different and much broader context.
For all its breadth, Makers of Modern Asia has three challenges. Firstly, as the editor acknowledges, there is no chapter on a Japanese leader. The fact that Japan emerged from the ashes of World War II to become a major economic force without a “giant” statesperson puts a dent in the book’s premise about the importance of leadership. Japan is also Asia’s leading developed democracy, and its absence from the book means that outright dictators (e.g. Mao) or illiberal autocrats (e.g. Sukarno) are disproportionately covered.
A second challenge across the chapters is that there are no common criteria on how to judge the statespeople: the evaluation is left to the individual writer. This loose approach leads to some jarring juxtapositions. For example, in the chapter on Indira Gandhi, historian Srinath Raghavan refuses to make a “morality play” about his subject’s suspension of democratic freedoms during the Emergency from 1975 to 1977. Instead, he offers a rather soft conclusion, commending Indira Gandhi as a crisis manager while criticizing her lack of self-reflection. In the next chapter, however, on Lee Kuan Yew, Michael Barr condemns his subject for disrespecting human rights and values. Yet Gandhi’s economic legacy was mainly one of failed socialist experiments in the 1960s and 1970s while Lee’s pragmatism resulted in a truly advanced economy. Indeed, Lee’s efficient management inspired other Asian leaders, such as China’s economic reformist Deng Xioping.
A third challenge of the book is how the chapters fit together — or do not. Regrettably, there is no conclusion that might serve this function. Many of the individual chapters offer a perspective on the respective leader’s conception not only of his or her own country but of Asia as a whole. For example, Sukarno’s hosting of the Asian-African conference in Bandung, Indonesia in 1955 was a landmark event in rallying countries emerging from European domination. Yet, while it is clear what these statespeople were against — colonialism, racism, and poverty — their precise agenda for Asia was less clear. Non-alignment did not necessarily constitute unity.
As much as the leaders were often charismatic giants, the dominant ideologies of their time helped to shape them. Many were mired in a form of socialist ideology that they had acquired from studies and travel in Europe. It is difficult to see a link to today’s Asia-wide projects of economic integration along market-oriented and technocratic principles. In this sense, while the individual chapters do a good job of providing accounts of national development, they do not quite crystallize for the book to become more than the sum of its parts.
David MacDuff is a career Foreign Service Officer. He was previously posted in Singapore from 2010-14.
Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 30, No. 2 (2017), pp. 38–39. Read the rest of this issue →
