Book Review
For Those Who Know Each Other, Ten Thousand Miles Is Not a Long Distance — Review of the Book In Touch with Latin America
Wang Lei • 102 •
Since the establishment of diplomatic relations between the People’s Republic of China and Cuba in 1960, China and Latin America have had a history of friendly exchanges for 60 years. However, mutual understanding between China and Latin America is not deep enough. Especially, the ordinary people in China except the experts and scholars in related fields know little about Latin American countries. The book In Touch with Latin America (written by Jiang Shixue and published by the China Social Sciences Press in September of 2019) introduces Latin America with 100 essays in the fields of politics, economy, diplomacy, society, culture and history in an easy-to-understand way. It is of significance to deepen mutual understanding and cognition between China and Latin America and further promote the relations between China and Latin American countries.
The Building of National Identity from the Perspective of Singapore’s History — Review of the Book Studies on Singapore’s National Identity (1965-2000)
Wu Qiang • 109 •
The book Studies on Singapore’s National Identity (1965-2000) (written by Li Zhidong and published by the China Renmin University Press in 2014) depicts a clear road to the building of Singapore’s national identity from the internal side of the country, including the government, the social elites and ordinary people. The road is not only similar to those in other countries, but also features obvious Singaporean characteristics. The book also makes solid analysis from an academic history perspective with a strong problem consciousness, reviews the establishment and changes of Singapore's national identity from the angle of historicism, summarizes the development phases and characteristics of Singapore’s national identity, and specifically studies the changes in the building of Singapore’s national identity after its economic take-off, as well as what efforts Singapore has made for the sake of its national identity while in solving the various social problems caused by the “modernization syndrome”, so that readers can have a very clear outline of the development history of Singapore’s national identity.
