The US broke off diplomatic relations with Iran in 1980, and one result is that Americans don’t know as much about the country as they could. We know it’s there, of course, and that it’s involved in geopolitical manoevers, but we don’t have friends who travel there and report back, or neighbors who emigrated from… [Read More]
Blog
Category: Emerging Markets
ESG Investments and the Growth of GP Accountability to Their LPs
ESG reporting is evolving, driven primarily by investors in Europe. Haide Liu, head of investor relations for Ascendent Capital Partners, a private equity firm based in China, talked to Serena Tan, deputy chair of the Global Private Funds Group at Morrison & Foerster LLP about how LP demands are driving GP reporting on ESG. They… [Read More]
France: Texaco
This book isn’t set in France’s national borders but rather in the French colony of Martinique. One of the burning geopolitical questions of the last 500 years is the relationship of current and former colonies to the nation that colonized them. Colonies will never be what they were before the takeover, but what will they… [Read More]
India: A River Sutra
A River Sutra was published in 1993. The novel is a series of tales told to the main character, a retirement government official who operates a guesthouse along the Narmada River. This position allows him to meet monks, musicians, and merchants who have storied to tell about their lives and about what brought them to… [Read More]
Indonesia: Beauty is a Wound
Beauty is a Wound by Eka Kurniawan is a magical-realist centered on Indonesia in the years after Suharto’s fall in 1998. It opens with the main character emerging from her grave to check up on what’s happened to her daughters and grandchildren, and it’s not pretty. The family is dealing with a lot of drama,… [Read More]