For All the Tea in China: How England Stole the World's Favorite Drink and Changed History Review

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For All the Tea in China: How England Stole the World's Favorite Drink and Changed History ReviewSarah Rose has rescued the aptly named Robert Fortune from the footnotes of Victorian obscurity and written an engrossing story explaining one of the great heists of history: how the British stole tea plants from China and successfully transplanted them in India. It's a spy story for gardeners in which daring-do and botany coexist on every page.
Robert Fortune was the son of a Scottish farm worker. Lacking the means to get a formal education, Fortune learned his skills from practical apprenticeship and obtained a post at the Royal Horticultural Society garden at Chiswick. His skill at cultivating rare blooms from the Orient in hothouses earned him a ticket to China at the end of the First Opium War. His mandate was to collect rare plants and study the botany of China. He almost died there. As he lay gravely ill, the Chinese junk he was on was attacked by pirates. Fortune roused, rushed up on deck and organized a successful defense. The incident illustrates his courage and resource when confronted by adversity.
On his return to London in 1847, he wrote a book about his experiences in China that became a bestseller. When the British East India Company looked around for a man capable of penetrating into the interior of China and obtaining plant specimens and seeds for purposed tea plantations in India, Fortune was the man they turned to.
This is a fascinating book on many fronts. As a story of corporate espionage, it touches on issues of trade and economics that are controversial today. The technology used to bring viable seeds and plants to India is astounding when one considers that sailing ships were the transportation means of that era. A spotlight is put on the opium trade, an issue that still resonates. Sarah Rose writes with a lively, clear style that makes this a hard book to put down. I recommend this book to historians, tea drinkers, economists, gardeners and corporate policy makers. Brew up a cup and enjoy!For All the Tea in China: How England Stole the World's Favorite Drink and Changed History Overview

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Tiger Trap: America's Secret Spy War with China Review

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Tiger Trap: America's Secret Spy War with China ReviewDavid Wise writes with direct, swiftly moving prose and adds new information to the record; however, the analysis of Chinese intelligence activities is flawed and readers will not be able to place Chinese intelligence activity into context after studying this book.
Wise contributes new information in a couple of areas. He adds more detail about Gwo-Bao Min (Tiger Trap) than was previously available and weaves together the disparate threads connecting Chinese espionage allegations on West Coast. Wise fills in some of the gaps left in previous treatments. Wise also pulls together a good deal of information on the recent espionage cases in the last five years, which would only be available to a lay reader after several hours of research.
Unfortunately, Wise chooses not to take a step and look at the information he so assiduously collected. Instead, he relies on retired FBI agents, who repeat old platitudes about Chinese intelligence methods----platitudes that may never have been true to begin with. This might be tolerable if Wise himself had not collected a lot of data contradicting his opening chapter. Most Western observers believe Chinese intelligence methods are wildly different than Western or Russian models. They think, among other points, China relies on amateur collectors rather than professional intelligence officers, does not pay for secret information, and does not develop formal intelligence relationships.
Yet Wise charts the tale of the Chinese intelligence officer at the heart of recent espionage cases, involving Chi Mak, Kuo Tai-shen, James Fondren, and Gregg Bergersen. Chinese intelligence recruited these sources and paid them in exchange for US defense secrets. Why did they spy? Greed. Venality. One might be tempted to forgive Wise's reliance on out-dated analysis if these were new developments. However, Wise also provides a short summary of the Larry Wu-Tai Chin case, who spied from the 1940s to 1985. The Chin case looks and feels like one of the many cases run across the NATO-Warsaw Pact divide.
No coverage of Chinese intelligence today would be complete without a section on cyber (hacking), but there is little in Wise's treatment to commend. The cyber chapter is a summary of news clippings and official commentary. For better analyses of Chinese cyber activity, academic and policy journals, like Survival (IISS) and International Affairs, offer accessible (jargon-free) and thoughtful treatments that put Chinese cyber in perspective.
Ultimately, Tiger Trap is a good read with some new information about Chinese espionage cases; however, it is unsatisfying for anyone looking for anything that goes beyond the headlines. If there were more choices for reading about Chinese intelligence, this book would probably only rate 2/5 stars. There are, unfortunately, few alternatives to Wise's book and he should be recognized for mostly sticking to facts in the espionage cases. This redeeming feature makes Tiger Trap a useful reference guide and the clean writing makes it an easy read.Tiger Trap: America's Secret Spy War with China Overview

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Red Sky in the Morning: The secret history of two men who got away - and one who didn't. Review

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Red Sky in the Morning: The secret history of two men who got away - and one who didn't. ReviewExcellent historical story - anyone in the military or DOD/Govt should read this.
I would recommend all service academies, all ROTC students be required to read the book.
When you read this book, you will understand some of the history of the Phillippines, history of the Southeast Asian theater, that you won't be taught in school.
I have seen the DVD "The trials of Henry Kissinger" and "The Fog Of War"/McNamara which I think are good movies of that period in time as well.
Red Sky in the Morning: The secret history of two men who got away - and one who didn't. Overview

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A Spy by Nature: A Novel (Alec Milius) Review

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A Spy by Nature: A Novel (Alec Milius) ReviewGeorge Bernard Shaw's famous observation that "The British and the Americans are two people separated by a common language" serves also to explain some important distinctions that American readers will find in the British mystery novel A SPY BY NATURE. In addition to the common language that separates the two nations, Charles Cumming's book reminds us of differences in philosophy and plot between the writing styles of many American and English authors. In the mystery field, American writers tend toward the physical and the violent. Their English counterparts seem a little more understated and less likely to resort to fisticuffs and mayhem. Although lacking almost any violence, A SPY BY NATURE nevertheless is an absorbing novel of the modern world of espionage. Its plot twists and double-dealing characters will have readers shaking their heads in wonder.
The story is semi-autobiographical as Cumming himself served for a period of time in England's MI6, a branch of their intelligence service. Indeed, the first 100 pages of the book serve as a primer for how one is recruited, interviewed and considered for service with British Intelligence. This description is detailed, tedious and sadly quite boring. However, these pages do introduce us to Alec Milius, the unsuccessful MI6 candidate whose rejection serves as the stepping-off point for the final two-thirds of the novel, which easily compensates for the tedium of the first third.
Alec Milius is certainly no James Bond. It's hard to characterize Milius as a hero in this novel. He is a pathological liar who apparently would lie even when the truth would better serve his purpose. Although deemed unqualified for MI6, he is recruited for industrial espionage. In the course of that action, the reader is introduced to many deftly portrayed characters, including the American couple who Milius must befriend in order to ultimately betray. The story is both understated and complex, and the conclusion will leave audiences with just enough unanswered questions to await Milius's return.
Reading A SPY BY NATURE requires effort by the reader, similar to a John le Carre or Graham Greene mystery. This is not meant to compare Cumming to either of these great writers. But this is not the kind of thriller in which harrowing escape and violent confrontation stimulate the reader from chapter to chapter, and the confrontation is not simply between good and evil. Instead, there are moral shades that make distinguishing between those two extremes much more difficult. Still, A SPY BY NATURE is a thoughtful and well-written mystery that many will find a refreshing change of pace from traditional spy thrillers.
--- Reviewed by Stuart ShiffmanA Spy by Nature: A Novel (Alec Milius) Overview

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Typhoon Review

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Typhoon ReviewWith each novel, Charles Cumming keeps getting better. Comparisons to Le Carre and Graham Greene are accurate- can't wait for his next book. His characters are real, warts and all. This is my favourite book by him to date, though the others are excellent. In Typhoon, you can feel the texture of China and its people. If you are looking for a good summer "read"- this is it.Typhoon Overview

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