Contents -- Foreword -- Cast of characters -- Captive narratives: a brief and unexceptional introduction to the history of firms and states -- Part 1. The nearest faraway place -- Arabian frontiers -- American camp -- The wizards of Dhahran -- Part 2. Desire's empty quarter -- Ayyam al-Kadalak...

Before the current international economic crisis, Asian policymakers deferred to their Western counterparts. The enormous blunders since committed by the US and Europe mean deference has been replaced by disquiet. Asia's concern is that the world will soon come to grief if both the US and Europe...

Harmonious realism: undecidable responses to the China threat -- Harmonious racism: China's civilizational soft power in Africa -- Taiwan Chinese: contending approaches to defending Chineseness -- Urban Chinese: self-sinicization as a method of political stability -- Village Chinese: anomaly as...