In 1662 the great sea-lord dynasty of the Cheng family expelled the Dutch from Taiwan, beginning a curious and little-known episode in cross-cultural diplomacy. China's new Manchu-Chinese Ch'ing dynasty and the greatest mercantile-colonial power of the seventeenth century negotiated with each other concerning conditions of trade and terms of military cooperation against their common enemy, the Cheng family. Conflicts between the two negotiating powers are seen as a great deal more than clashes between the Chinese tribute system of diplomacy and the Western "international system." The author's study suggests new perspectives on Chinese diplomatic tradition which may lead to a re-examination of foreign relations across cultural barriers.

A fierce and witty portrait of an unraveling nation.

Salt and Pepper is a collection of literary columns that defy convention—acerbic, tender, and unrelenting in their gaze. Written between the margins of news and national spectacle, these pieces are not topical commentary but something far more enduring: political satire that reads like poetry, reportage that mutates into parable, lament, and fable. In these dispatches from a fractured republic, written over the past decade, journalist Sankarshan Thakur captures the surreal absurdities and deep disquiet of an India caught between thunderous assertion and muffled dissent. Governments speak in acronyms, mobs chant in hashtags, silence acquires a sound—and memory becomes an act of resistance. These are chronicles of a society slipping into curated amnesia, of belonging turned conditional, and of patriotism twisted into performance.