Category: Book Review
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The Veranda of Mecca: Faith, Peace, and the Remaking of Aceh after the Tsunami
A forthcoming book by Kamaruzzaman Bustamam Ahmad exploring how faith, memory, and peacebuilding remade Aceh after the 2004 tsunami and the 2005 Helsinki Peace Agreement. Coming soon on Amazon worldwide.
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The Kremlin School of Negotiation: Silence, Psychological Pressure, and the Politics of Power
Igor Ryzov’s The Kremlin School of Negotiation is not merely a business manual on hard bargaining. It is a strategic anatomy of silence, pressure, emotional control, and power at the negotiation table. This essay reads Ryzov’s book through the lenses of Soviet diplomacy, psychological leverage, business strategy, and ethical risk. From Andrei Gromyko’s “Mr. Nyet”…
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Five Books to Understand the Geopolitical System: Power, Empire, Diplomacy, Pandemic, and the Return of History
This essay examines five important books that help readers understand the geopolitical system through history, power, diplomacy, disease, empire, and trade routes. From Henry Every’s piracy and the rise of global capitalism to Vladimir Putin’s strategic worldview, from Ukraine’s diplomatic struggle to the Covid-19 pandemic and the Silk Roads, these books reveal that geopolitics is…
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Power, Knowledge, and the Making of the Human Subject: Reading Foucault from the Beginning
This article explores Michel Foucault’s radical rethinking of power, moving beyond the idea of centralized authority toward a dispersed network of control embedded in everyday life. By examining the inseparable relationship between power and knowledge, it reveals how modern subjectivity is not natural but constructed through institutional practices, normalization, and surveillance. Drawing from Power: Essential…
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Henry Corbin and Suhrawardi: Reclaiming Light, Vision, and the Reality of Being
This article explores a radical rethinking of reality through the philosophies of Henry Corbin and Suhrawardi. Moving beyond modern representation, it presents being as light—dynamic, graded, and self-disclosing. The world is no longer a collection of objects, but a field of presence that must be seen rather than analyzed. By recovering imagination as an organ…
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The Imaginal World of Iran: Henry Corbin and the Esoteric Heart of Shi’ism
This article explores the forgotten metaphysical dimension of Islam through the philosophy of Henry Corbin and the spiritual tradition of Shi’ite Iran. Moving beyond political and legal interpretations, it uncovers a world structured by light, sacred time, and the hidden presence of the Imam. Central to this vision is the imaginal world—an ontological realm where…
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Tajalli and the Ontological Structure of Manifestation: Toward a Luminous Metaphysics
This essay examines the ontological significance of tajalli in the thought of Henry Corbin and Ibn ʿArabi. It reconstructs Being as graded manifestation and explores the metaphysical implications of luminous hierarchy, imaginal mediation, and divine self-disclosure within Islamic philosophy.
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From Clearing to Imaginal Depth: Rethinking Ontology After the End of Metaphysics
This article explores the philosophical encounter between Martin Heidegger and Henry Corbin, focusing on ontology after the end of metaphysics. While Heidegger grounded Being in finitude and ecstatic temporality, Corbin articulated the imaginal world and angelic mediation as differentiated modes of manifestation. The central question remains: can vertical articulation preserve the ontological difference without regressing…
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The Cosmic Mind and Civilizational Survival: Cosmology, Power, and Strategic Culture in the Indonesian Archipelago
This article explores how cosmology functions as the deep foundation of power, territorial consciousness, and civilizational survival. Drawing from The Cosmic Mind, it examines Indonesian cosmology as a living knowledge system shaping strategic culture, sovereignty, and collective identity. Beyond material definitions of national defense, this work argues that civilizations are sustained by shared metaphysical imagination…