The Missionary and the Libertine: Love and War in East and West

From Naipaul's India to the last days of Hong Kong, and from the ghosts of Pearl Harbor to Benazir Bhutto, Buruma delivers an engaging and incisive look at the ways East and West understand-and misunderstand-each other.

At home in both worlds, Buruma traverses the realms of journalism, literary criticism, and political analysis, to examine the dialogue of fact and fantasy that affects our perception of far-away lands. Whether deconstructing the films of Satyajit Ray or the novels of Yoshimoto Banana, Buruma offers a splendid counterbalance to fashionable theories of clashing civilizations and uniquely Asian values. In twenty-five illuminating, often humorous essays, The Missionary and the Libertine shows us why Buruma's reputation for writing the most compelling commentary on the faultlines of the East-West divide is so secure.

Author: Ian Buruma
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 08/14/2001
Pages: 352
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.87lbs
Size: 8.00h x 5.19w x 0.78d
ISBN: 9780375705373

Review Citation(s):
New York Times 10/07/2001 pg. 28

About the Author
The author of five previous books, Ian Buruma lives in London.