A new science of human behavior has emerged over the past two decades. This new science has linked together the research of neuroscientists, cognitive and evolutionary anthropologists, decision theorists, social and cross cultural psychologists, cognitive scientists, ethnologists, linguists, endocrinologists, and behavioral economists into a cohesive body of research on why humans do what they do. Research in this field rests on two propositions about the human mind. The first, that the mind is embodied; the second, that it is evolved.
#Reviewing Fire on the Water & Meeting China Halfway
Our analysis is built on a foundation of sand. We offer bold proclamations and precise policy proposals designed to cajole, convince, or coerce a hostile nuclear power whose decision making process is utterly opaque to us. We theorize much, and assume more, but we still do not know why the Chinese do what they do. Most critically, we do not know how to find the knowledge we lack. This is an intellectual challenge we have not begun to meet. Understanding Zhongnanhai is a wonderful methodological puzzle—but a puzzle with nuclear stakes. Until we solve this puzzle, I doubt any number of policy prescriptions will be enough to ensure peace in the West Pacific.
#Reviewing Shanghai 1937 and Nanjing 1937
One of the more egregious omissions in Western scholarship has been the treatment of China’s great War of Resistance, waged against Japan from 1937 to 1945. Given the countless volumes written about other campaigns of World War II this omission is inexcusable; this was, after all, not only a war American soldiers and spies participated in, but the ultimate reason Americans were involved in the Second World War in the first place. Fortunately, our picture of China’s part in World War II has brightened considerably over the last decade...Books focused on individual campaigns are just now being written and published. Peter Harmsen...is at the forefront of the effort to tell the story of China’s experience in World War II from the perspective of the soldiers who fought it.