Word: asia
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...what a story it is. Thompson's subject is Charles Sobhraj, alias Charles Gurmukh, alias Charles Gurmukh, alias Alian Passaint, alias Lobo, alias Alain Gauthier. Conceived in Vietnam and raised in France, the young Charles is shuttled back and forth from his native Asia to the French countryside. As a youngster, he learns the tools of his trade quickly, throwing the blame for his own plots on others and magically convincing those around him to do what he asks. By the age of 24, Sobhraj is a man disowned by both father and nation, befriended only by a lone Frenchman...
...brave. Others would say that he is just plain crazy. Anybody who attempts to summarize 30 years of modern Asian history in a single volume is probably a little of both. A Turning Wheel is Shaplen's magnum opus, an enormous work on his years as a correspondent in Asia. Like any sweeeping work, it has its ups and downs. If Shaplen's book is flawed by the sheer breadth of his topic, it is held together by the author's personal approach. But A Turning Wheel is also a strangely unfulfilling work, copious in its detail, but marred...
...times, Shaplen sacrifices style for comprehensiveness, and A Turning Wheel degenerates into an encyclopedic rendition of facts and events. A tendency toward run-on sentences packed with references and acronyms may deter the novice. But if Shaplen has only written the encyclopedia of modern Asia, it is a reference work that is desperately needed. As one might expect, the author is at his best in relatively uncharted territory; the chapters on Burma, Malaysia and Indonesia are not only fascinating, but promise to fill gaps in most people's knowledge...
...expert on the Vietnam war or the student who has never heard of Kuala Lumpur. A Turning Wheel is required reading. Shaplen's ability to preach without being pretentious and to find the personal thread among the sweep of revolution is extraordinary. If his vision of Asia's future is hesitant, then he has learned more than most writers and journalists
After describing Europe and Asia in his best-selling The Great Railway Bazaar, Theroux has moved his one man railway show into the western hemisphere. This time he chose the jaunt between Boston and Southern Argentina, once again via the tracks. In what would seem like a replay with just a change in geography, this book lacks the characters, scandals, tall tales and disasters that usually make this genre successful...