Criticism
A Dispatch from Our Correspondent
Howard W. French, interviewed by Pooka Paik and Lyndon Thompson
“The US must learn to discover the sense of purpose that comes from achieving things of virtue, things that have an objective social need.”
April 10, 2021
The New York Review’s April 29, 2021 issue includes Howard W. French’s review of three recent books about the decline of American global power, “Can America Remain Preeminent?” In it, French discusses the challenges facing the Biden administration after actions that “harmed America’s moral standing and weakened its global influence” during the Trump years.
French, who lives in New York City, was for many years a foreign correspondent for The New York Times, reporting from across three continents. He is the author of five books, and this fall, Liveright will publish his Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World, 1471 to the Second World War. We discussed this and other matters in a conversation conducted by e-mail, which has been edited and condensed here.
— Pooka Paik and Lyndon Thompson
An equestrian pendant from the Dogon or Bozo peoples (Mali), copper alloy, 3 1/2 × 3 1/4 × 1/2 inches, nineteenth century. Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Treasures of the Sahel
As a senior in college in 1979, I set off with a brother seven years my junior, first by rickety train and then by bush taxi, heading north from the coast and deep into the West African interior. Our point of departure was Abidjan, the gleaming modern financial capital of Ivory Coast. We had no fixed destination but a clear goal: to voyage as far north along the Niger River as our funds and my school holiday would permit. Distant Timbuktu, the most fabled town on the river and one of the sturdiest metaphors for remoteness, was a long shot, but even if we couldn’t make it there, we had other objectives that seemed attainable.
Howard W. French. NY Book of Reviews
A propaganda photo showing Mao with people from African, Arab, and South American countries, 1959
Mao’s Shadow
On a blistering Saturday last summer, I made my way to Shanghai’s western waterfront, where an extravagant new cultural corridor has been rising in recent years. My first stop was the cavernous Long Museum West Bund, which was opened in 2014 by Liu Yiqian, one of China’s most ambitious billionaire art collectors. Featured on the ground floor of the hulking concrete structure was a lively exhibition of mixed-media work by the African-American artist Mark Bradford, titled “Los Angeles.” But my attention was drawn to another show, in the museum’s underground galleries, whose poster featured an unfamiliar, smiling image of the young Mao Zedong and bore an intriguingly vague, almost meaningless title: “Thinking of the Seven Decades History at My Space.”
Howard W. French. NY Book of Reviews
Image from NPR
‘The Scientist and the Spy’ Review: Agent Running in the Field
An unusual FBI investigation illustrates the government’s evolving response to China’s stealing American industrial secrets.
Howard W. French. NY Book of Reviews
Book cover
‘Us vs. Them’ Review: The Haves and Have-Nots
Spurred by the backlash against globalization, a foreign-affairs commentator offers a dark prognosis for the world and the future. Howard W. French reviews “Us vs. Them” by Ian Bremmer.
Howard W. French. WSJ
Memorials for Eric Garner and Michael Brown, Brooklyn, New York, 2014 © Spencer Platt/Getty Images
The Crime of Being Black
As a college student in the late 1970s, I set off for a spring break with two friends, driving from the snow-bound hills of western Massachusetts to the balmy coast of southern Florida.
Howard W. French. TSL
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Xu Dongdong/ WSJ via Getty Images
Review: West Pacific Showdown
Spurred by three decades of economic growth, Beijing is beefing up its navy in the South China Sea. Should the U.S. be more concerned?
Howard W. French reviews ‘Crashback’ by Michael Fabey. WSJ
If Trump wants to get a sense of America’s troubles with the Middle Kingdom, there are few better places to start than John Pomfret’s ‘The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom.’
By Howard W. French. WSJ
A generation made up of solitary princes and princesses who bore all of the “wishes that their parents missed out on in the Mao years.” Howard W. French reviews “Wish Lanterns: Young Lives in New China” by Alec Ash.
By Howard W. French. WSJ
China and Global Nuclear Order: From Estrangement to Active Engagement by Nicola Horsburgh
China’s Military Power: Assessing Current and Future Capabilities by Roger Cliff
China’s Coming War with Asia by Jonathan Holslag
London Review of Books
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The hard work and enterprise of China’s people—not Communist Party policies—have lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty.
By Howard W. French. WSJ
The twin pillars of Mao’s campaign were uprooting supposed reactionaries and the promotion of sycophancy.
By Howard W. French. WSJ