The crowded Baqaa refugee camp north of Amman, Jordan, home to more than 100,000 residents, is the largest Palestinian refugee camp in the world.

Which is why, nearly three years after the Trump administration abruptly ended seven decades of U.S. financial assistance to Palestinians – part of a pressure campaign to coerce Palestinian leadership to accept its proposed “peace plan” – the State Department chose Baqaa for the ceremonial resumption this week of U.S. humanitarian relief.

One piece of that renewed assistance is $150 million in funds for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, UNRWA, to support its health, education, and housing for Palestinian refugees across the region.

For Palestinians like Faris Haj Hamad, a resident of the Qadura refugee camp in the West Bank, it’s a step that has an immediate impact on their lives.

When Mr. Hamad lost his job as a waiter last year, as COVID-19 battered his home, he had one last lifeline and concern: U.N. health services.

“We don’t have good clinics anymore, and we don’t have any other options,” says Mr. Hamad. “We need these American funds to get relief.”

While peace processes and grand declarations about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were once expected of American presidents, the Biden administration currently has more modest aims – to “do no harm” in a dispute in which the paths to political progress are currently closed. Instead, it is focusing on humanitarian goals.

After three years of severed ties and strained relations, the United States and the Palestinians are reuniting on an immediate, more tangible issue: improving lives.

Yet along with the injection of much-needed relief, Palestinians hope Washington’s reengagement creates a future opening to relaunch peace talks when conditions are ripe.

Although the Palestinians have not reopened their diplomatic office in Washington, closed in 2018 by the Trump administration, contacts between the new U.S. administration and Palestinian officials have been underway since January. They are the first talks between Washington and Ramallah in more than two years, and much needs to be done to restore the Palestinians’ trust.

Mohammed Salem/Reuters

A picture taken with a drone shows Palestinian houses and buildings at the Beach refugee camp in Gaza City, April 6, 2021.

In its first overture to the Palestinians, the Biden administration last week announced $235 million in financial assistance, including $75 million in development aid, $10 million to the Palestinian Authority to help combat COVID-19, and the $150 million to UNRWA.

The most urgent funds are to UNRWA, which has struggled since President Donald Trump cut nearly $300 million in annual American support for its services to 5.75 million registered Palestinian refugees in the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon.

“U.S. interests and values”

Traditionally, America was the largest donor to the agency as part of a recognized collective responsibility until a just and enduring solution to the conflict is reached.

“U.S. foreign assistance for the Palestinian people serves important U.S. interests and values,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement announcing the resumption of aid, noting the “critical relief to those in great need.”

Rather than speaking of a peace process, Secretary Blinken has, in a previous phone call with the Israeli foreign minister, expressed “the administration’s belief that Israelis and Palestinians should enjoy equal measures of freedom, security, prosperity, and democracy.”

It is a policy aimed at lessening hardships until “both sides take steps that create a better environment in which actual negotiations take place.”

And it is a message that is resonating with many beleaguered Palestinians – for now.

Fares Arouri, an economist in Ramallah, describes the resumption in U.S. aid as a welcome return to Obama-era policies and a “highly needed” boost to stabilize UNRWA services that also opens up room for dialogue between Palestinians and Americans that was closed under Mr. Trump. 

“We see the resumption of U.S. support to UNRWA as in line with the administration’s foreign policy outlook, which focuses on openness and dialogue with all parties, with little deviation from the Obama and Clinton-era policies,” he says.

And Ahmed Abu Holy, PLO commissioner for refugee affairs, while noting that the renewed U.S. aid would help UNRWA resume its “vital humanitarian role” during the pandemic, says the move “shows that the U.S. is beginning to reassert its role in the region.”

Mr. Abu Holy also cites “positive and promising” conversations with Richard Albright, the U.S. assistant secretary for the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration.

Far from a peace process

Yet the resumption of funding, State Department officials admit and observers caution, is a long way off from another U.S.-led peace process.

“I don’t think this move is enough to generate political progress towards a settlement. That would require a much heavier political lift and a major amount of political capital I am not sure the Biden administration is willing to invest,” says Khaled Elgindy, director of the Washington-based Middle East Institute’s Program on Palestine and Palestinian-Israeli Affairs.

The administration is “doing the absolute bare minimum needed to be seen as credible and to undo the most damaging aspects of the previous administration’s policies by restoring aid to UNRWA,” he says.

Nevertheless, he allows, the moves are “enough to begin the process of reestablishing bilateral ties with the Palestinians on some levels, and the Palestinian leadership have been very positive about the Biden administration.”

Courtesy of UNRWA

U.S. Ambassador to Jordan Henry T. Wooster (left) and Dr. Khalil Abu Naqeera (center), chief medical officer at the Baqaa UNRWA health center, speak during a tour of the center at an event to relaunch American aid to UNRWA at the Baqaa refugee camp north of Amman, Jordan, April 12, 2021.

Yet while the leadership and beleaguered Palestinians welcome the return of aid, perceptions of the U.S. and of American policy among Palestinians are slow to shift, if at all. Many say the U.S. retains a one-sided approach favoring Israel that they believe was laid bare by the Trump administration.

In a March 14-19 poll by the Ramallah-based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, a majority of Palestinians surveyed, 50.7%, said they did not expect U.S. policy on the Mideast conflict to be “more balanced” under Mr. Biden than it was under Mr. Trump, compared with 42.3% who said they did.

And in the same poll, by 47.8% to 43.6%, a plurality said they would not return to a U.S.-led peace process with Israel.

Much-needed relief

On Monday, U.S. Ambassador to Jordan Henry T. Wooster visited the beleaguered UNRWA health center at the Baqaa refugee camp in Jordan. There to launch the renewed U.S. aid, he appeared in a show of solidarity with UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini. 

In a testament to the centrality of U.S. assistance for UNRWA operations, a plaque bearing Ambassador Wooster’s name hangs at the health center commemorating a 2016 expansion, one of the last major U.S.-funded projects in the camp before Mr. Trump cut aid.  

Today, the challenges confronting clinic administrators are significant. While creative bookkeeping kept this and 142 other health centers open after the U.S. withdrew funding in 2018, the budget cuts and then the pandemic placed an added burden on the clinic’s staff of 42.

Neonatal mortality and chronic diseases are on the rise among camp residents, staff say. Medical staff and Mr. Lazzarini admit they cannot afford staff members getting sick. Last week a physician at the Baqaa health center died of complications from COVID-19.

“We are front-line workers, and we should have more staff to lessen our hours and contact with patients, but there simply hasn’t been the funds,” says Dr. Khalil Abu Naqeera, the health center director. 

“For the American government to show this amount of care and visit us, it obviously presents a more positive image of the U.S. than previous years. We are happy with the American funding. But we hope it lasts,” he says.

“To have a country like the United States backing you, it gives us a sense of relief, a morale boost,” says Osama Hajj-Ali, who heads the center’s COVID-19 vaccination campaign.

“At the end of the day, it makes you feel that a strong state has your back.”

Yet many Palestinians also express wariness of what they worry is a politicization of humanitarian aid and a lack of political support.

“What is to stop the next president from suddenly cutting off our aid and pressuring us all over again?” asks Mohammed Ali, a Baqaa camp resident. “Why should our lives be a political issue?”  

“When the U.S. bailed out on UNRWA, it cut services,” says Hussein Elayyan, a local official at the Jalazone refugee camp north of Ramallah. “We will not dance and celebrate their decision to give us money again.

“If America supports UNRWA, we will not say no,” he says. “But this is humanitarian aid. ... It is not political.”

Has Donald Trump’s time come and gone? After failing to win reelection in 2020 and getting booted from Twitter after the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, he seems a shadow of his former self. Even his “Trump”-emblazoned Boeing 757 sits idle and reportedly in disrepair at an airport in upstate New York.

In lieu of tweets, former President Trump or his team now issues near-nightly emails with political endorsements, attacks, and pronouncements, peppered with his signature exclamation points and capitalizations. They are Twitter-ready, and often, in fact, tweeted and retweeted by reporters and advisers. 

Yet somehow, old-fashioned emails lack the punch of those 280-character missives that used to land on millions of phones multiple times a day. On TV, the medium that made him a star with “The Apprentice,” his presence has returned to the modest levels of May 2015, right before he launched his 2016 presidential campaign, according to the Stanford Cable TV News Analyzer. 

To state the obvious, Mr. Trump is no longer president, and therefore has to be more strategic in making news. Merely appearing on Fox or Newsmax doesn’t guarantee buzz. 

But make no mistake. Mr. Trump remains de facto leader of the Republican Party, and – unprecedented in modern times for a one-term president – may run for the White House again. He has raised tens of millions of dollars for his leadership political action committee and is helping other Republicans fill their coffers. 

At last weekend’s Republican National Committee donor summit in Palm Beach, Florida, Mr. Trump did make headlines – by stirring controversy, to the chagrin of some attendees. In a speech to donors at his Mar-a-Lago estate, he veered off script, attacking Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and expressing “disappointment” in former Vice President Mike Pence for proceeding with the counting of electoral votes in Congress on Jan. 6. 

Mr. Trump may seem to be shooting himself in the foot by fanning discord within his own party. To be sure, some mainstream Republican leaders (and ex-leaders) aren’t happy with him. See former House Speaker John Boehner’s new book, “On the House,” which blames Mr. Trump, among others, for GOP dysfunction. 

But there’s a larger dynamic at play: Mr. Trump still owns the Republican grassroots, and the grassroots own the party. Three months after the siege of the Capitol, in which five people died including a police officer, half of Republicans believe it was largely a nonviolent protest or fomented by left-wing activists, a Reuters/Ipsos poll finds. And 6 in 10 Republicans endorse Mr. Trump’s false claim that the 2020 election was stolen.

“Usually the far-right will say, the nominee doesn’t represent me,” says a Florida Republican strategist with ties to Mr. Trump’s orbit, speaking on background. “Now it’s the RINOs who say, Trump doesn’t represent me,” he says, referring to “Republicans in Name Only” – Mr. Trump’s proxy term for the GOP establishment. 

If Mr. Trump does run for president again, he will be the odds-on favorite for the GOP nomination, given his fundraising skill and showmanship. But it’s far from certain that he’ll run again. He may find that, at this stage in his life, he’d rather play kingmaker than take on the heavy lift of another campaign – not to mention another term in the White House. There’s also the not-insignificant fact of his legal troubles in New York over his tax returns. 

Thus, all the attention to Mr. Trump’s political endorsements – and to the comings and goings at Mar-a-Lago. When he reportedly turned down a request for a sit-down with Nikki Haley, his former United Nations ambassador, it was widely seen as punishment for her blasting him over the Capitol insurrection. This week, in an apparent effort to make amends, Ms. Haley said she wouldn’t run for president in 2024 if Mr. Trump gets in.

For now, though, the name of the game is 2022. Historically, the party out of power in the White House usually gains seats in Congress, and given the tight margins, the GOP has an excellent shot at retaking one if not both houses. Redistricting alone could hand the Republicans the net gain of five seats they need to retake the House. 

In the 50-50 Senate, the GOP faces a tougher playing field, but there are some wild cards. One possibility is that New Hampshire’s popular Republican governor, Chris Sununu, runs against incumbent Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan. If he does, that’s a likely toss-up and potential GOP pickup. In that case, it would be key for Mr. Trump to lie low. New Hampshire is a blue state in presidential politics.

But nationally, a strong GOP midterm performance, with Mr. Trump playing a smart strategic game in fundraising and endorsements, could be all he needs to get revved up for another shot at the Oval Office. 

“If Republicans have a great year in 2022, he can insert himself as the head of things,” says Dante Scala, a political scientist at the University of New Hampshire. 

And maybe Mr. Trump can figure out a way to take Trump Force One out of mothballs.

Last year, as the first wave of the pandemic waned, Canadians were grieving from the toll of it all. Yet they were also relatively grateful – especially as they looked at their neighbor to the south.

The pandemic amplified all the things Canada lauds itself for when it compares itself with the United States – as a nation that is a fraction of the size of the powerhouse next door often does. Its universal health care, a functional government, a communal spirit, and a rule-abiding culture were held up as reasons that case numbers stayed reasonably low. The U.S., meanwhile, bickered about masks and whether the virus was a hoax as cases surpassed anywhere else in the world.

Now Canada finds itself amid a daunting third wave. And as the U.S. has flexed its muscle in an ambitious inoculation campaign, a counternarrative is emerging among some Canadians that finds them unsettled but also humbled. It underscores a national inclination toward comparative assessment that can often blind the country to its own shortcomings on everything from gun violence to racism to health care – and make it too hard on both the U.S. and itself.

“A year ago it was all about how America breaks the rules ... while we are a ‘play by rules crowd,’” says Michael Adams, the president of the Environics Institute, which measures Canadian attitudes. Now the narrative centers around just how much of a global leader in science, manufacturing, and distribution the U.S. is while Canada waits.

“You need a balanced view,” he says. “We – the world and Canada at the head of the list – are benefiting from American innovation and an American can-do philosophy. You can’t just look at America through all the problems they have.”

A reversal of fortune

For the first time, as the world enters year two of the pandemic, Canada has surpassed the U.S. on a per capita basis for the number of new COVID-19 cases, shaking its sense that its compliant culture or commitment to public health would protect it from the worst playing out south of the border.

Today, while many Americans start traveling and tasting a return to normalcy, many parts of Canada have entered their darkest moment. British Columbia has issued a “circuit breaker” shutdown. Quebec extended a monthslong curfew, ordering residents home by 8 p.m. in some cities like Montreal, leading to protests there.

Ontario, where 40% of Canadians live, has been hardest hit. This week it announced it was shuttering schools indefinitely. Hospitals have canceled all but emergency surgeries for the first time since March 2020 and are preparing field hospitals as record cases wallop the province.

Meanwhile, the U.S. has been far faster at providing shots to those who want them, with 38% of Americans receiving one dose versus 22% of Canadians. Canada is dependent on global supply chains for its doses, and is hoping to get more surplus from the U.S. All this feeds directly into Canadian perceptions of how they stand next to the U.S.

Carlos Osorio/Reuters

Aisles of non-essential goods are cordoned off at a Walmart store, as new measures are imposed on big-box stores due to the pandemic, in Toronto, April 8, 2021.

“Canadians define themselves against the United States, and did so perhaps with greater satisfaction and justification over the past four years, and in particular during the dramatic playing out of the pandemic over the past year,” says Randy Boyagoda, a Canadian novelist and professor of English at the University of Toronto. “Now Canadians are forced to reconsider one of the fundamental features of their self-understanding.”

The founding idea of Canada lies in “peace, order, and good government.” Dr. Boyagoda saw proof of that reiterated in the orderly, yet slower, vaccine rollout where he is in Ontario. But is orderly always the best way forward if it gets in the way of dynamism and speed? “Eight months ago, we were taking great satisfaction in not having the same public health situation as in the United States. I think right now we take less satisfaction.”

The current situation is just a snapshot in time; Canada’s per capita death toll is still only a third of that of its neighbor. But the reversal comes as a punch, particularly because it involves health, one area where Canadians overwhelmingly agree their model is superior to the market approach taken in the U.S.

Kate Snider, a high school student in Toronto, is a Canadian American contemplating where to go to university next year: “Last year I was apprehensive about applying to any U.S. schools.” Right now “it seems to be a lot safer in the U.S.”

What Canadians fault most is what they see as a political response in many provinces that they find incoherent. The country’s current plight has spurred important debate, on topics ranging from the demise of Canadian manufacturing capability to provinces not offering workers paid sick leave. But there is also some sense of “humbling,” says Richard Nimijean, who teaches Canadian studies at Carleton University in Ottawa.

Rethinking the comparison

Comparing Canada with the U.S. often has a distorting effect on issues, whether it’s pandemic response, racism, police and gun violence, or poverty. Faring better than the U.S. on most measures can promote a complacency that makes it difficult to tackle internal problems.

Dr. Nimijean, for example, often talks about Canadian health care in his classes and asks if students would feel superior about their system if they compared it not with the U.S., but with Scandinavia. An answer, he says, “is not even in their mindset, because the U.S. dominates so much.”

“But in international comparisons of wealthy countries, Canada doesn’t perform that well. It performs better than the United States,” he says. “So we need to be careful about how we assert these ideas.”

Canadian activists trying to address discrimination in policing or racism generally also complain that their fight is discounted because problems here are overshadowed by incidents in the U.S. On the flip side, Niel Avendano, a Canadian in Toronto who lived in Texas for 20 years, says Canadians often assume that the U.S. is just the worst of what is seen on the nightly news, without any nuance.

Living next to the neighbor with the “10,000-square-foot house” compared with your “1,500-square-foot house” can also lend itself to outsize expectations, Mr. Avendano says. He is not surprised that a country a tenth of the size of the U.S. isn’t a leader on the world stage, and Canadians can have a “complex” for not being an economic, military, or diplomatic force. “Israel is not a world leader. Australia is not a world leader. Why is it we expect Canada can be?”

And despite a harsh third wave, Canadians remain firm in acknowledging that that shouldn’t take away all that Canada has done right, while the U.S. fights culture wars around the pandemic. Nelson Wiseman, a political science professor at the University of Toronto, says the pandemic has not been politicized like it has in the U.S. “I think Canadians can be too smug about themselves,” he argues, “but on the other hand, it is objectively the case that our society is, at the present time, more sane, more coherent, and just more together.”

Nathan Ellgren/AP

Kevin Mandia, CEO of FireEye, gives a tour of the cybersecurity company's office space in Reston, Virginia, on March 9, 2021. The firm, which revealed the SolarWinds cyberattack affecting U.S. federal agencies, now has 550 employees working remotely to respond to a recent barrage of cyber breaches, including four different attacks against Microsoft Exchange, he said.

The world watched in shock on Jan. 6 when the U.S. Capitol was physically breached. But the federal government had been breached in a different way months before – by a large-scale cyber intrusion that went unnoticed for months. 

This week, the U.S. responded, announcing economic sanctions against Russia for a hacking campaign that invaded nine federal agencies and about 100 private companies, and jeopardized the security of more than 16,000 computer systems worldwide. In the wake of the sanctions announcement, the long-term question remains: What needs to be done to curb such cyber malfeasance?

What happened?

The so-called SolarWinds hack, named for some of the private-sector software that attackers exploited, began at least a year ago, although it was publicly reported only in December after a private company alerted the federal government of the breach.

On Thursday, the United States named the Russian foreign intelligence service, the SVR, as the culprit. 

Despite having the capability to get into the networks of more than 16,000 SolarWinds customers, the alleged Russian espionage was very targeted. Files, including emails from the then-head of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), were accessed, as well as data from the departments of Energy, Commerce, Justice, State, and Treasury and major cybersecurity and technology firms.

Suzanne Spaulding, who served in the Department of Homeland Security as undersecretary for cyber and infrastructure during the Obama administration, says the most significant concern is that the SolarWinds intrusion could be reconnaissance for disruptive attacks. 

Moreover, another large-scale cyber intrusion into U.S. computer systems has been exposed in the past six months. This one, too, was not used to destroy systems but to spy and to steal. 

In March, the Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center exposed an attack that targeted Microsoft Exchange Servers, where hackers gained access to email accounts and installed malware to obtain long-term access to computer systems across various industries.

The malware, which the Microsoft group attributed to HAFNIUM, a state-sponsored organization “operating out of China,” allowed for the siphoning of companies’ economic and security information. While no U.S. federal agencies were affected in the Microsoft intrusion, according to the congressional testimony of DHS officials, a European Union agency (the European Banking Authority) was among those breached.

The larger context: On Tuesday, an annual assessment of global threats, made public by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, focused on cyber, technological, and military threats to the U.S. from China and Russia. 

What is being done in response? 

Collaboration between the U.S. government and the private sector brought the number of U.S. systems affected in the Microsoft Exchange compromise from 100,000 to less than 10,000, Anne Neuberger, a top White House cyber official, said at an event in early April. The Department of Justice announced this week that a court-authorized FBI action removed the illicit access capability on hundreds of U.S. computers, but warned additional malware may remain on some systems. 

The SolarWinds hack was exposed as the legislative process unfolded for what independent Sen. Angus King of Maine called “the most comprehensive piece of national cybersecurity legislation ever passed in U.S. history.” The 2021 annual defense bill, which became law on Jan. 2, included 27 cyber defense provisions, from efforts to improve email security to the creation of a new Office of the National Cyber Director within the White House. 

The provisions were largely the result of the work of the congressionally mandated Cyberspace Solarium Commission, which Senator King co-chaired with Republican Rep. Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin.  

“The national cyber director will make a significant difference going forward,” says Ms. Spaulding. She adds that the new position will help reduce interagency tensions, and the office’s additional staff will boost operational planning. 

On April 12, President Joe Biden announced his nominee for the new position, former National Security Agency Deputy Director Chris Inglis. Speaking with the Monitor that day, Ms. Spaulding, who served with Mr. Inglis on the Solarium Commission, said he will “be terrific” in the new role. Mr. Inglis, pending Senate confirmation, will lead the nascent office charged with aiding the ongoing remediation and the preventive work of deterring future attacks. 

On Thursday, a senior administration official said in a press briefing that the efforts already underway to increase multifactor authentication and other security measures across the nine affected agencies will be the “hallmark” of an upcoming executive order focused on the government’s software procurement. 

Targets of the newly announced sanctions against Russia include more than 30 entities and individuals the Biden administration says were involved in government-directed attempts to influence the 2020 U.S. presidential election and other acts of interference. Six Russian tech firms were designated in the sanctions announcement.

What are the next steps?

The SolarWinds and Microsoft Exchange intrusions came as schools, local governments, and businesses have faced cyberattacks of their own. 

“All these things are really putting a lot of pressure on [nations] to better secure their systems,” says Kristen Eichensehr, who directs the National Security Law Center at the University of Virginia School of Law. She says there is also pressure on the “international legal system to respond to this felt impulse that these things are wrong, and that they should be dealt with as illegal.”

The administration said Thursday it will be “bolstering efforts” through the George C. Marshall Center in Germany to provide training to foreign policymakers on the applicability of international law in cyberspace as well as providing a first-of-its-kind training course on publicly attributing cyber incidents. 

The U.S. “needs to speak frequently and openly with international counterparts in fora like the United Nations and groups of allies about what it thinks the international rules should be,” Ms. Eichensehr said Monday, prior to the announcement of sanctions. “The United States needs to be open, clear, transparent, and vocal about how it thinks international law [in cyberspace] should evolve.” 

Complicating it all, experts say, is that the U.S. conducts its own cyber espionage.

In announcing the sanctions against Russia, the Biden administration cited several reasons including the scale of the compromise, the cost to the private sector, and the potential risks for damage. “Citing a combination of factors is not surprising.” Ms. Eichensehr added Thursday via email, given the difficulty of drawing a single line of argument for Russian sanctions that wouldn’t open up the U.S. to similar allegations in response.

“It’s a hard line to find and not risk charges of hypocrisy based on U.S. behavior,” Ms. Eichensehr says.

Counterpoint, Penguin Random

"The Elephant of Belfast" by S. Kirk Walsh, Counterpoint, 336 pp.; and "My Broken Language" by Quiara Alegría Hudes, One World, 336 pp.

From a buoyant novel to an eloquent memoir, and from a spot-on biography to a history of the slave trade, April books provide opportunities for reflection and renewal. 

1. The Elephant of Belfast by S. Kirk Walsh

A young zookeeper caring for a motherless elephant plumbs the depths of love and loyalty in a spellbinding novel set in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in World War II. S. Kirk Walsh’s account was inspired by the true story of the “elephant angel” of the Belfast Zoo, and she provides a deeply researched backdrop for complex characters.

2. Early Morning Riser by Katherine Heiny

This funny, smart, and enormously kindhearted novel begins in 2002, as Jane, a 20-something Michigander and second grade teacher, settles into her new life in upstate Boyne City. As Jane’s love life kicks into gear and her social circle expands, the dynamics of small-town relationships play out in honest, hilarious ways.

3. First Person Singular by Haruki Murakami

Haruki Murakami enthralls with this short-story collection that proves again why he is foremost a remarkably affecting storyteller. In these tales, older men remember their younger selves; a tanka writer disappears but her verses linger; Charlie Parker plays again; a lonely monkey speaks of love; and baseball inspires poetry.

4. The Music of Bees by Eileen Garvin

The striking beauty of the Pacific Northwest, and the humble marvel of beekeeping, bring home nature’s life lessons to a trio of misfits in Eileen Garvin’s debut novel. This charming small-town story about second chances hums along, with the characters finding renewal in the kindness of friendship.

5. Peaces by Helen Oyeyemi

Otto and Xavier Shin and their pet mongoose set off on a mysterious train trip, the start of a surreal adventure of imaginings and memories and illusions. In this weird and wonderful novel, the trio explore the exquisite sleeper train as they uncover enigmas including personal insights that will forever bind them together.

6. My Broken Language by Quiara Alegría Hudes

Quiara Alegría Hudes wrote the book for the Tony-winning musical “In the Heights” and won a Pulitzer for her play “Water by the Spoonful.” In this raw and eloquent memoir, she brings a brutal honesty to the experiences of Latina girls and women. She uncovers how language both reflects and distorts the self-images of immigrants.

7. The Light of Days by Judy Batalion

Judy Batalion’s thrilling, devastating book tells of an underground network of young Jewish women in Poland who resisted the Nazis by engaging in smuggling, sabotage, and even armed defense. Their courageous deeds, largely forgotten until now, are astounding. 

8. The Ledger and the Chain by Joshua Rothman

In smoothly readable prose and with an unflinching moral eye, Joshua Rothman uses the biographies of a few key players to investigate the internal slave trade of America in the years before the Civil War, when a half-million enslaved people were bought and sold all over the South.

9. The Triumph of Nancy Reagan by Karen Tumulty

Karen Tumulty combines years of original research and sharply readable prose to effect a near-miracle: the complete rescue of former first lady Nancy Reagan from the hands of slanderers and trivializers. The woman who emerges from these pages might not always be likable, but she’s the most formidable first lady in half a century.

10. Ages of American Capitalism by Jonathan Levy

Economic historian Jonathan Levy has written a history of the American economy that is simultaneously comprehensive and readable. He explains fundamental economic concepts and their importance with unusual clarity, and recounts the major economic and societal shifts in the United States with an emphasis on their effects on ordinary lives.

AP

South Korean students and Myanmar people living in South Korea flash the three-fingered gesture outside the Myanmar Embassy in Seoul March 24.

Just over 35 years ago, most countries in East Asia were not democratic. Then a wave of change hit in the late 1980s and 1990s. The Philippines, Taiwan, South Korea, and Indonesia cast off authoritarian leaders. Myanmar had a partial revolution against military rule. Even in democratic Japan, a longtime ruling party fell from power.

Decades later, those transitions are paying off. In recent weeks, several Asian democracies have shed their reluctance to speak out on behalf of democracy and human rights in neighboring countries, marking a new level of political maturity and progress for the region.

The most vocal has been South Korea under President Moon Jae-in, a former human rights lawyer. He condemned the Feb. 1 coup in Myanmar and banned military exports to the country. In addition, the South Korean legislature called for an immediate suspension of the use of violence against innocent protesters.

Taiwan’s parliament also condemned the violence and called on the junta to restore democracy – despite significant Taiwanese investments in Myanmar. Meanwhile, Indonesian President Joko Widodo took a similar stance and called for an emergency meeting of the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which includes Myanmar.

Japan has fallen in line with these other democracies in criticizing Myanmar’s rulers. But its bolder move has been to stand up to Beijing on two issues: China’s rising military threats to Taiwan and, to a lesser degree, its mass incarceration of its Uyghur Muslim minority population in Xinjiang.

In March, Japan joined with the United States in an explicit statement about the importance of “peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.” The last time that Japan agreed with the U.S. in a statement on Taiwan was in 1969.

In a summit with President Joe Biden today, Japanese Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide said he wanted to demonstrate the leadership of both Japan and the U.S. in “achieving a free and open Indo-Pacific region.”

One reason these Asian democracies feel emboldened is that China has stepped up its support of authoritarian regimes, wielding its economic clout in a bid to become the region’s dominant power. Another reason is that many of their own people want to set an example. Taiwan, for instance, relied on the democratic spirit of its citizens to quickly suppress the coronavirus – in sharp contrast to the abusive and anti-democratic methods in China.

Democracy in Asia still faces strong headwinds. The Philippines, for example, has slid backward from its 1986 “people power” revolution. But the undercurrents of the democratic wave decades ago are still strong. Nations that taste freedom want to help others savor it.