A Triad of Another Kind: The United States, China, and Japan by Ming Zhang; Ronald N.MontapertoReview by: Lucian W. PyeForeign Affairs, Vol. 78, No. 3 (May - Jun., 1999), p. 151Published by: Council on Foreign RelationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20049338 .

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Recent Books

Journalist. After years of living with

Chinese families, trusted to the point of becoming

a godmother in one and an

intimate friend of several Chinese women,

she is able to recount the joys, frustrations,

hopes, and fears of ordinary citizens in

both urban and rural China. Her book

has the rich context of a good novel. Mean

while, Dutton captures the dynamics of

Chinese social life through translations

of Chinese writings on daily life: descrip tions of life within a work unit, personal

complaints about various public policies, and ruminations about everything from

shopping to Mao's impact on Chinese

culture. In different ways, the two books

succeed in giving a human dimension to

what has too long been the vast abstraction

called the "Chinese people." Both Jakobson and Dutton avoid either romanticizing or

demonizing the Chinese. At the same

time, they underscore the unique qualities of Chinese culture that make its social

context so different from the West.

A Triad of Another Kind: The United

States, China, and Japan, by ming

ZHANG AND RONALD N.

MONTAPERTO. New York: St.

Martin's, 1999,302 pp. $49.95. The United States, China, and Japan will

decisively shape the future international

relations of East Asia?but how the three

powers will cooperate with or collude

against each other remains an open

question. Zhang and Montaperto explore the prospects for the triad by combining

rigorous theoretical analysis with a care

ful historical review of the three states,

examining each pair of relations with

respect to the most troublesome problem

affecting it to determine the prospects for stability. In their eyes, Taiwan is the

decisive obstacle in the China-U.S.

relationship, while the Mutual Defense

Treaty will shape the partnership between

Japan and the United States. Meanwhile,

the relative power of China and Japan will profoundly affect the relations between

those two major Asian powers. The authors

acknowledge that many other factors

exist outside the scope of their work

that might influence the triad as well.

Within the limited mandate they have set for themselves, however, they provide

profound and insightful analysis and a

storehouse of valuable information about

the balance of military forces.

Africa GAIL M. GERHART

Multi-Party Politics in Kenya: The Kenyatta and Moi States and the Triumph of the

System in the 1992 Election, by david

THROUP AND CHARLES HORNSBY.

Athens: Ohio University Press, 1998, 290 pp. $29.95 (paPer)

After playing little part in African politics for decades, African elections assumed a

new importance in the 1990s and revived

the venerable tradition of election studies.

This study of the 1992 Kenyan general election is a tour de force, with 100 figures and tables plus 38 pages of appendices

giving presidential and parliamentary results from every constituency. The

authors, two British political scientists, have not only done an expert job of

interpreting the election but have neatly traced the emergence of the major

opposition parties and their collapse into

ethnic blocs held together by neopatri monial, old-guard leaders?the Kenyan

FOREIGN AFFAIRS-May/June 1999 [151]

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