Monday

Wang Gungwu: Junzi, Scholar-Gentleman: In Conversation with Asad-Ul Iqbal Latif
Wang Gungwu, Asad-Ul Iqbal Latif (interviewer)
Singapore: ISEAS Publishing, 2010
ISBN: 9789814311526

This book of interviews with Professor Wang Gungwu, published to felicitate him on his 80th birthday in 2010, seeks to convey to a general audience something of the life, times and thoughts of a leading historian, Southeast Asianist, Sinologist and public intellectual. The interviews flesh out Professor Wang's views on being Chinese in Malaya; his experience of living and working in Malaysia, Singapore and Australia; the Vietnam War; Hong Kong and its return to China; the rise of China; Taiwan's, Japan's and India's place in the emerging scheme of things; and the United States in an age of terrorism and war. The book includes an interview with his wife, Mrs Margaret Wang, on their life together for half a century. Two interviews by scholars on Professor Wang's work are also included, as are his curriculum vitae and a select bibliography of his works.

What comes across in this book is how Professor Wang was buffeted by feral times and hostile worlds but responded to them as a left-liberal humanist who refused to cut ideological corners. this book records his response to tumultuous times on hindsight, but with a keen sense of having lived through the times of which he speaks.

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