What we’re about
We meet at the Draught house English pub and imbibe some beer and food while discussing history.
Titles range from more rigorous and scholarly works to lighter, more journalistic writing. Genres tend to include foreign policy, history, culture, science, politics, and area studies (e.g. The Middle East, Europe, South Asia, etc.) See our "Past Reads" page for titles.
Note to avoid scams: We will never contact you asking for money to read or review your book. If you have received an email claiming to be from us, please be aware that this is a scam. Please report it to your email provider.
Upcoming events
6
1962 The War That Wasn't: The account of the clash between India and China
Draught House Pub & Brewery, 4112 Medical Pkwy, Austin, TX, USJoin us over food and drinks to discuss the book, “1962 The War That Wasn't: The definitive account of the clash between India and China”
Description of the book:
On 20 October 1962, high in the Himalayas on the banks of the fast-flowing Nam Ka Chu, over 400 Indian soldiers were massacred and the valley was overrun by soldiers of China’s People’s Liberation Army. Over the course of the next month, nearly 4,000 soldiers were killed on both sides and the Indian Army experienced its worst defeat ever. The conflict (war was never formally declared) ended because China announced a unilateral ceasefire on 21 November and halted its hitherto unhindered advance across NEFA and Ladakh. To add to India’s lasting shame, neither Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru nor the Indian Army was even aware that the ‘war’ had ended until they heard the announcement on the radio—despite the Indian embassy having been given the information two days earlier.This conflict continues to be one of our least understood episodes. Many books have been written on the events of the time, usually by those who were involved in some way, anxious to provide justification for their actions. These accounts have only succeeded in muddying the picture further. What is clear is that 1962 was an unmitigated disaster. The terrain on which most of the battles were fought (or not fought) was remote and inaccessible; the troops were sorely underequipped, lacking even warm clothing; and the men and officers who tried to make a stand were repeatedly let down by their political and military superiors. Time and again, in Nam Ka Chu, Bum-la, Tawang, Se-la, Thembang, Bomdila—all in the Kameng Frontier Division of NEFA in the Eastern Sector—and in Ladakh and Chusul in the Western Sector, our forces were mismanaged, misdirected or left to fend for themselves. If the Chinese Army hadn’t decided to stop its victorious campaign, the damage would have been far worse.In this definitive account of the conflict, based on dozens of interviews with soldiers and numerous others who had a first-hand view of what actually happened in 1962, Shiv Kunal Verma takes us on an uncomfortable journey through one of the most disastrous episodes of independent India’s history.
Lecture with author:
Part 1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKGalPOTzEA
Part 2:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XldICn6YQ7s
Look for the sign and the red lights.20 attendees
The Boiling Moat: Urgent Steps to Defend Taiwan
Draught House Pub & Brewery, 4112 Medical Pkwy, Austin, TX, USJoin us over food and drinks to discuss the book, “The Boiling Moat: Urgent Steps to Defend Taiwan”
Description of the book:
Chinese leader Xi Jinping has openly expressed his intention to annex Taiwan to mainland China, even threatening the use of force. An invasion or blockade of Taiwan by Chinese forces would be catastrophic, with severe consequences for democracies worldwide. In The Boiling Moat, Matt Pottinger and a team of scholars and distinguished military and political leaders urgently outline practical steps for deterrence. The authors stress that preventing a war is more affordable than waging one and emphasize the importance of learning from recent failures in deterrence, such as Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The book argues that a robust military strategy is essential for countering Beijing’s aggression. Pottinger and his team map out a workable military strategy for Taiwan, the United States, Japan, Australia, and Europe to pursue collectively, urging quick adoption to avert a devastating war. The significance of Taiwan to the world economy, semiconductor supply, and Indo-Pacific security is underscored. The authors stress that preventing China’s coercive annexation of Taiwan requires democracies to demonstrate not just the means but also the will to effectively resist, conveying the message that a military attempt by Xi would likely lead to disastrous consequences, both for China and for the international community.
Lecture with author:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOk2uVC8pMQ
Look for the sign and the red lights.8 attendees
Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland
Draught House Pub & Brewery, 4112 Medical Pkwy, Austin, TX, USJoin us over food and drinks to discuss the book, “Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland”
Description of Book:
“A remarkable—and singularly chilling—glimpse of human behavior. . .This meticulously researched book...represents a major contribution to the literature of the Holocaust."—Newsweek
Christopher R. Browning’s shocking account of how a unit of average middle-aged Germans became the cold-blooded murderers of tens of thousands of Jews—now with a new afterword and additional photographs. Ordinary Men is the true story of Reserve Police Battalion 101 of the German Order Police, which was responsible for mass shootings as well as round-ups of Jewish people for deportation to Nazi death camps in Poland in 1942. Browning argues that most of the men of RPB 101 were not fanatical Nazis but, rather, ordinary middle-aged, working-class men who committed these atrocities out of a mixture of motives, including the group dynamics of conformity, deference to authority, role adaptation, and the altering of moral norms to justify their actions. Very quickly three groups emerged within the battalion: a core of eager killers, a plurality who carried out their duties reliably but without initiative, and a small minority who evaded participation in the acts of killing without diminishing the murderous efficiency of the battalion whatsoever. While this book discusses a specific Reserve Unit during WWII, the general argument Browning makes is that most people succumb to the pressures of a group setting and commit actions they would never do of their own volition. Ordinary Men is a powerful, chilling, and important work with themes and arguments that continue to resonate today.
Lecture with author:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tnt7J9Zet4o
Look for the group with lights and a sign.4 attendees
Discounted Life: The Price of Global Surrogacy in India
Draught House Pub & Brewery, 4112 Medical Pkwy, Austin, TX, USJoin us over food and drinks to discuss the book, “Discounted Life: The Price of Global Surrogacy in India”
Description of Book:
India is the top provider of surrogacy services in the world, with a multi-million dollar surrogacy industry that continues to grow exponentially, as increasing numbers of couples from developed nations look for wombs in which to grow their babies. Some scholars have exulted transnational surrogacy for the possibilities it opens for infertile couples, while others have offered bioethical cautionary tales, rebuked exploitative intended parents, or lamented the exploitation of surrogate mothers—but very little is known about the experience of and transaction between surrogate mothers and intended parents outside the lens of the many agencies that control surrogacy in India. Drawing from rich interviews with surrogate mothers and egg donors in Bangalore, as well as twenty straight and gay couples in the U.S. and Australia, Discounted Life focuses on the processes of social and market exchange in transnational surrogacy. Sharmila Rudrappa interrogates the creation and maintenance of reproductive labor markets, the function of agencies and surrogacy brokers, and how women become surrogate mothers. Is surrogacy solely a labor contract for which the surrogate mother receives wages, or do its meanings and import exceed the confines of the market? Rudrappa argues that this reproductive industry is organized to control and disempower women workers and yet her interviews reveal that, by and large, the surrogate mothers in Bangalore found the experience life affirming. Rudrappa explores this tension, and the lived realities of many surrogate mothers whose deepening bodily commodification is paradoxically experienced as a revitalizing life development. A detailed and moving study, Discounted Life delineates how local labor markets intertwine with global reproduction industries, how Bangalore’s surrogate mothers make sense of their participation in reproductive assembly lines, and the remarkable ways in which they negotiate positions of power for themselves in progressively untenable socio-economic conditions.
Winner, American Sociological Association Asia and Asian America Section Best Book on Asia/Transnational Asia
Finalist, 2015 C. Wright Mills Award from the Society for the Study of Social Problems
Lecture with author:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6oa-qwoxZs
Look for the group with lights and a sign.4 attendees
Past events
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