China and India in the Age of Globalization. By Shalendra D. Sharma. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2009. 321 pp., $85.00 hardcover (ISBN-13: 978-0-521-51571-9); $27.99 paperback (ISBN-13: 798-0-521-73136-2). Professor Shalendra Sharma's China and India in the Age of Globalization provides an informative and timely contribution to the literature on the rising role and status of China and India in world affairs. Sharma's treatment of the political economy of both countries and implications for future-defining Sino-Indian, US–China, and US–India relations is richly detailed, current, and informed by consultation with much of the voluminous relevant literature concerned with the two emerging powers. Professor Sharma's decision to compare China and India, and to analyze his chosen subject within the context of relations with the United States, will be welcomed by many readers. Within this comparative framework, he raises and addresses questions of importance for today's students of comparative politics and international studies, policymakers in all three political systems, and others generally interested in understanding the contemporary “contradictions and paradoxes” (p. 271) of globalization. His key questions include: Will China become a “responsible global stakeholder” (also see Bhattacharya 2005)? Will growing economic convergence further solidify Sino-Indo relations? I would add: How will the economic, social, and political implications of unparalleled disparities in aggregate national income relative to per-capita income play out over time in China and India? Sharma's approach to his subject is thorough, balanced, and cautious. He effectively interweaves historical analysis with recent developments. Table 2 (p. 57) listing “major reform steps in China: 1978–2006” is particularly helpful. His critical analysis of China's banking and financial sectors (pp. 116–27) is illuminating. The book certainly does not avoid informed speculation on the future, but Sharma typically hedges his bets.1 Based on power-transition theory, for instance, he expects China's rise to destabilize the international system.2 At the same time, he envisions the prospect that the United States can further facilitate integrating China “into the international economy and embedding it in the …