Book excerpt: "This highly original book shifts our attention away from the preoccupations of the U.S. to India and from conventional social science and area studies perspectives to civilizational sensibilities. In a series of searching essays by well-informed Indian scholars, China's rise appears in a fresh light. Rather than seeking to bend China's experience only to the impatient expectations of secular liberalism, this important book reminds us of the imagined affinities that a civilizational understanding of self and other creates in India for China and the empathetic patience it engenders. Our understanding of China is greatly enriched by new insights that this broader vision yields." - Peter J. Katzenstein, Walter S. Carpenter, Jr. Professor of International Studies, Cornell University