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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis talks with reporters during a fundraising picnic for GOP Rep. Randy Feenstra of Iowa, May 13, 2023, in Sioux Center, Iowa. The governor has largely refused to engage with the mainstream press.

Ron DeSantis wades into a crowd of Republicans in a hotel ballroom in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and presses the flesh. He signs a book here, a baseball there. He asks folks how they’re doing. He smiles. 

For most any other prominent Republican making a play for the presidency, the scene would be unremarkable. But this is the governor of Florida, a known introvert but ever the student, trying to get better at what should be the easy part of politics – engaging on a personal level with activists and donors. 

This is the DeSantis way: Study the problem, make a plan, and then follow through.

It’s a modus operandi that has served the governor well as the two-term leader of the third-largest state. It made him a conservative hero early in the COVID-19 pandemic, when he defied the guidance of Washington experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci and reopened businesses and schools after just a few months of lockdown. And it helped him transform Florida from a political battleground into a laboratory for conservative policies – all the while positioning himself as the strongest challenger to former President Donald Trump for the 2024 GOP nomination.

“He’s very strategic in the policies he tackles and how he plans to get them implemented,” says Susan MacManus, professor of political science emerita at the University of South Florida. 

Yet that deliberate approach – and confidence in his own judgment – has also arguably led to political missteps. He picked a fight with the Walt Disney Company, one of Florida’s largest employers, over free speech around LGBTQ+ issues, dismaying at least some pro-business Republicans. He has largely refused to engage with the mainstream press, even as his poll numbers have slipped and new rivals entered the field.

Douglas R. Clifford/Tampa Bay Times/AP/File

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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signs the Parental Rights in Education bill at Classical Preparatory school, on March 28, 2022, in Shady Hills, Florida.

Most head-scratching was Wednesday’s official presidential campaign launch – a glitch-filled livestream discussion on Twitter with the site’s eccentric owner, billionaire Elon Musk, that may well go down as one of the all-time campaign kickoff belly-flops. 

It was an embarrassing stumble for a candidate whose main selling point is that he’d be more competent than Mr. Trump. Indeed, where supporters see a methodical and effective executive, critics see a rigid and untested politician who refuses to take advice and is struggling to make the transition to the national stage.

Still, the campaign is just getting going, and while Mr. DeSantis has his work cut out for him, he also has room to grow. Polls show GOP voters remain open to a Trump alternative – and many are still getting to know the Florida governor, who, in his mid-40s, is a generation younger than Mr. Trump and has an attractive young family. With degrees from Yale and Harvard, a Bronze Star from his service in Iraq as a Navy judge advocate general, and three terms in Congress, he’s got the golden résumé. 

The next few months will show whether he can make his message resonate nationally, and overcome the large field dominated by the more charismatic Mr. Trump. 

“I like what he has to say,” offers Jim Heavens, the former mayor of Dyersville, Iowa, after seeing Mr. DeSantis speak in Cedar Rapids. Mr. Heavens, whose town is home to the “Field of Dreams,” the baseball diamond built on farmland for the 1989 movie, says he isn’t ready to commit – not even to the former captain of the Yale baseball team – but he’s “open” to a DeSantis ticket. 

“We just have to make sure we win,” he says. 

Campaigning by governing

While Mr. DeSantis became an official candidate only this week, he’s been running a shadow campaign for months now – essentially campaigning by governing.

DeSantis advocates tout Florida’s strong economy and robust in-migration – making it the fastest-growing state in the country – as proof of his effective leadership.

In four-plus years as governor, Mr. DeSantis has turned the nation’s biggest political battleground state into a haven for conservatives, winning reelection last November by 19 percentage points after barely squeaking by in his first election.

The recent session of the Florida legislature was a juggernaut of social conservative activism, aided by new supermajorities in both houses. Mr. DeSantis signed bills prohibiting gender-transition procedures and medication for minors, banning abortion after six weeks’ gestation with some exceptions, barring children from attending drag shows, expanding the death penalty to include child rapists, and allowing Floridians to carry a concealed firearm without a permit. 

Last year, he captured headlines when he banned the teaching of critical race theory in schools, signed legislation that made it easier to restrict access to books that some deem inappropriate for children, and used state planes to fly migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, via Florida. 

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Protesters march near the hotel where donors backing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis are expected to meet on May 24, 2023, in Miami.

The Parental Rights in Education Act – which critics labeled “Don’t Say Gay” – demonstrates Mr. DeSantis’ skill at using the levers of power. The original legislation, which he signed into law in April 2022, banned classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity from kindergarten through third grade.

Last month, the state Board of Education – at Mr. DeSantis’ behest – expanded the law to cover grades 4 through 12, a more controversial move that impacts teens who are becoming aware of their sexuality. Now at least a dozen other states are considering similar legislation, with Texas close to passing a bill – a demonstration of Mr. DeSantis’ national influence.

His solidifying image as a culture warrior could cut two ways. It may endear the Florida governor to social conservatives, whose support is key to the GOP nomination. But it could also leave others wondering if he’s ready to tackle weightier national issues like the economy and foreign policy. 

On fiscal matters he’s largely untested – since under Florida law, the governor is required to balance the state operating budget, unlike in the federal government. On foreign policy, Mr. DeSantis has said little beyond an early gaffe when he called Russia’s war on Ukraine a “territorial dispute” and not a national security threat to the United States. He later walked back the comment after fellow Republicans expressed concern. A recent trip to Japan, Britain, Israel, and South Korea seemed aimed at bolstering Mr. DeSantis’ foreign expertise, but it’s not clear if Americans were paying attention.

One element of Mr. DeSantis’ record that’s lesser known – and could be more helpful in a general election – is his pragmatic side. In Florida, protecting the Everglades is seen as essential by many on both the right and left, as is effective handling of hurricanes. 

When Hurricane Ian slammed southwest Florida last fall at Category 5 strength, Mr. DeSantis swung into action in what was generally praised as a textbook case of competent emergency management. Now he cites completion of a temporary bridge to Pine Island in just three days as an example of his effectiveness, touting a “no bureaucracy, no excuses” approach in his stump speech. 

Within Florida, Mr. DeSantis’ pragmatism has likely helped boost his popularity among independents; 59% approve of his job performance, according to the latest Mason-Dixon Poll. But as he emphasizes far-right stances for the primaries, that could become a harder line to walk. 

Political evolution

Longtime Florida political observers say the governor’s evolution in many ways tracks the evolution of the Republican Party.

When Mr. DeSantis was first elected to the House in 2012, he was a Tea Party Republican and joined the Freedom Caucus, focused primarily on keeping taxes low and cutting government spending. 

“I used to say, ‘I’m a governing Republican and he’s a shutdown Republican,’” says former GOP Rep. David Jolly, a fellow Floridian who served in Congress with Mr. DeSantis and is now an independent. 

“As the chief executive officer of the state, he’s happy to use tax cuts as a way to incentivize activities he wants,” Mr. Jolly says. “And he’s happy to use Biden money and then celebrate victories around the state for infrastructure.” 

Rebecca Blackwell/AP/File

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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis; his wife, Casey; and their children wave to supporters at an election night party in Tampa, Florida, Nov. 8, 2022. Governor DeSantis won reelection by 19 points.

Some observers trace the governor’s more recent emphasis on culture-war issues to the crucible of pandemic politics. After deciding to reopen the state in 2020, he also began pushing hard against mask and vaccine mandates – a stance that generated sharp criticism from the left.

“He was getting attacked so much for those positions that he just leaned into that, then started leaning into all these other conservative social issues,” says Aubrey Jewett, a professor of political science at the University of Central Florida. 

As a presidential candidate, Mr. DeSantis has yet to fully flesh out his platform. At events, his culture-war rallying cry is that Florida is the state “where woke goes to die.” That’s a reference to his successful elimination of liberal social initiatives in public institutions, such as DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) programs at state colleges and universities and ESG (environmental, social, and governance) standards in state investment strategies. 

Mr. DeSantis’ political path has also tracked with the rise of President Trump – a onetime ally whose endorsement boosted him in his first run for governor. 

He’s aligned with Mr. Trump on many issues – but not all. In his campaign announcement Wednesday, Mr. DeSantis echoed Mr. Trump when he said he would reverse many of President Joe Biden’s border policies: “declare a national emergency on Day One,” build a border wall, reinstate the Remain in Mexico policy, and crack down on the cartels.

Notably, where the two diverge, the governor is most often to Mr. Trump’s right. Abortion is a key example. Last month, Mr. DeSantis signed the six-week ban passed by his legislature, doing so late at night and without fanfare – suggesting he may not feel it’s a winning position in a general election campaign.

Mr. Trump takes credit for nominating three of the Supreme Court justices who voted last year to overturn the nationwide right to abortion but has avoided getting specific about abortion policy. Only after being pressured by a major anti-abortion group did he say he’d consider signing federal legislation that bans the procedure after 15 weeks of pregnancy. After Mr. Trump suggested that many opponents of abortion feel the DeSantis legislation is “too harsh,” Mr. DeSantis has retorted that “it seems like he’s running to the left.”

The importance of Iowa

Outflanking Mr. Trump on the right is really a play for Iowa, which will kick off the GOP nomination process with caucuses in January. Iowa Republicans – many of whom are strong social conservatives – appear open to considering Mr. DeSantis, if not already supporting him. Flush with cash, Mr. DeSantis’ allies are building an army of volunteers with a plan to knock on every potential supporter’s door in Iowa and other early states multiple times. 

Mr. DeSantis’ Iowa team showed its effectiveness recently, quickly assembling an event with the candidate at a barbecue place in the capital, Des Moines, after Mr. Trump canceled a rally there at the last minute, citing severe weather warnings. Mr. DeSantis and his wife, Casey, addressed a cheering crowd from atop a picnic table.

If Mr. DeSantis can win Iowa, or even come close, that would rock the field, not least Mr. Trump.

“Presidents should have morals,” says a longtime Iowa Republican activist, speaking not for attribution, who voted for Mr. Trump twice but says he won’t again. “If [Trump] had the right values, and a bit of ‘Iowa nice,’ he’d be finishing the second term of one of the great presidencies.”

For Mr. DeSantis, the still-unanswered question is how to navigate the “Trump dilemma,” in a primary battle that is starting to look like 2016 all over again – many candidates in the hunt, and a solid Trump base that could hand him the GOP nomination with just 30% or 35% of the vote. 

Over the past two months, Mr. Trump’s average lead over Mr. DeSantis has more than doubled – from 16 percentage points to 34 – as the former president and his allies have gone on the attack, without much pushback from the Floridian. 

Evan Vucci/AP/File

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Then-President Donald Trump listens as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis talks about coronavirus response during a White House meeting, April 28, 2020, in Washington.

During his shadow campaign, Mr. DeSantis avoided going after Mr. Trump by name, even as he faced criticism for looking “weak.” Now he appears to be engaging more directly – attacking, for example, the former president’s reliance on Dr. Fauci during the pandemic. 

One outstanding question is whether he will state outright that Mr. Trump lost the 2020 election. So far, Mr. DeSantis has only referenced Mr. Trump’s defeat obliquely, speaking generally of a “culture of losing” that has cost the party in the last three election cycles. 

To some Republicans who like Mr. Trump’s policies but are tired of his baggage, including a raft of legal problems, Mr. DeSantis already looks like the future of the party. 

“Trump was an outstanding president, in terms of his policies, but all his extracurricular activities have been distracting,” says Brian Elsasser, a farmer and DeSantis backer, speaking after a recent Lincoln Day dinner featuring the Florida governor in Peoria, Illinois, that drew a record 1,100 attendees for that event. “I’m just worried about whether Trump can win.”

But getting enough soft Trump supporters to actually shift allegiances won’t be easy.

Back in Cedar Rapids, Rowdy Templer, a retired window washer in a cowboy hat, came to see Mr. DeSantis after the Trump rally in Des Moines was canceled – still sporting his Trump event wristband. When asked whether he might caucus for Mr. DeSantis, he shook his head. 

“I’m going to support President Trump,” Mr. Templer says. “He’s already been elected twice.” 

Meryem Eger has suffered more than most mothers. 

When her apartment in downtown Antakya began to crumble during the 7.8-magnitude earthquake on Feb. 6, and furniture blocked the way out, she thought she’d never see her family again.

In fact, they all survived. But her husband lost his job as a driver. Her son, partially deaf, lost his medical treatment. Her daughter is still out of high school. Today the four live in a tent, in the hills above this southern Turkish city, where many homeless fled, preferring the security of the rocky outcrop to the soft earth of the valley below.

Given the hardships they are facing, Ms. Eger and her new neighbors might have been expected to vote against President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan at elections two weeks ago. It turned out, though, that far more earthquake survivors than predicted cast their votes for the president – helping to prolong the race to a second round this Sunday.

Their votes drew harsh criticism from President Erdoğan’s opponents, and Ms. Eger feels unfairly targeted. “When we saw bad words about us, we felt deep pain,” Ms. Eger says. “To live through what we have experienced, I wish to God nobody ever experiences this.”

The blame game has served to reinforce the polarization that has defined Turkey under Mr. Erdoğan’s leadership, even after the February earthquakes killed more than 50,000 people and spread shared grief across ethnic and political lines. And it helps explain why Erdoğan loyalists still predominate in the hills of Antakya despite the president’s authoritarian grip – and despite his government’s responsibility for lax construction regulations and a chaotic emergency response that exacerbated the disaster.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

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Supporters of the opposition presidential candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu leave a rally he had addressed. His chances of victory against President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan are seen as slim.

“This is a very divided country, right down the middle,” says Aslı Aydıntaşbaş, a Turkish analyst at the Brookings Institution in Washington. “People who have hated Erdoğan have come to see it as just a story of utter failure,” while his supporters have “bought the narrative that this is God-given ... and that Erdoğan is doing his best.”

In the chasm between the two lies an enormous potential for misunderstanding.

Defying expectations

Political observers initially thought that the earthquakes’ impact, turning victims against the authorities, might finally usher in change after 20 years of Mr. Erdoğan’s rule. In the run-up to presidential and parliamentary elections, polls showed Mr. Erdoğan’s national support slipping amid economic woes, including high inflation.

Instead, President Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) came out on top in parliamentary elections in 10 of 11 provinces hit by the quakes. In Hatay province, of which Antakya (once known as Antioch) is the capital, Mr. Erdoğan failed to secure an outright majority of the votes by only five-hundredths of a percentage point.

Nationally he prevailed with 49.5% of the vote over 44.9% for his opponent Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu of the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP). That made Antakya campaign territory this week.

Here the AKP is the face of relief efforts. Mr. Erdoğan visited Antakya last Sunday to inaugurate a new hospital and a container city. “Despite what they say,” he told the crowd, “your government is here for you.”

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

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Ayça Dal (center) and her friends, supporters of opposition presidential candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, say they say they would like to see a less influential role for Islam in Turkish politics.

Mr. Erdoğan has promised to rebuild everybody’s homes within a year – a goal everyone wants to believe in but which most experts consider unrealistic with hundreds of thousands still homeless.

As recovery grinds into a fourth month, Mehmet Güzelmansur, a national assemblyman for the CHP in Hatay province, faults the AKP for making promises it can’t keep. But they are attractive promises and Mr. Erdoğan is a familiar face. “The people know Erdoğan,” he says. “They hear Erdoğan is going to construct new houses,” and they trust him.

That message is carried across a media landscape that is largely controlled by the government, say observers. Mr. Erdoğan cracked down on dissent after a 2016 coup and changed the way Turkey is governed, from a parliamentary democracy to a presidential system that has consolidated power in the hands of the executive. 

“The media portray the government as an effective political party providing the citizens in the region with relief,” says Berk Esen, a professor of comparative politics at Sabancı University.

It seems to work. “He is doing everything for the south,” says Mehmet Hilmi Bilge, a retired construction worker who lost his home and is now living in a container. “The container has everything I need,” he adds. “It’s much better than a tent.”

But perhaps the real explanation of why the AKP came out on top in the first round of elections in the earthquake zone overall is simply that much of the region has long been traditional AKP territory. And as in the United States and Brazil today, “political preferences have turned into identities,” says Emre Erdoğan, a professor of political science at Istanbul Bilgi University.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

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Mehmet Hilmi Bilge, who has lived in a container since an earthquake destroyed his home, says he supports President Erdoğan for reelection.

On the shores of the Orontes River in Antakya’s Atatürk Park – named after the founder of modern Turkey, who secularized the country and sought closer ties to Europe – Mr. Kılıçdaroğlu addressed his many supporters on Tuesday against the backdrop of near complete ruins, promising honesty and democratization. Supporters chanted back: “The hope of young people – Kılıçdaroğlu!”

“We want our freedom as women,” says nursing graduate Ayça Dal, attending the rally with her family and friends who also say they want Islam to play a less significant role in Turkish politics.

But their vision is starkly different from that commonly found in poorer neighborhoods, in surrounding mountain towns and heartland provinces, where conservative religious voters have long made up President Erdoğan’s intensely loyal base.

When the president called the earthquakes “part of destiny’s plan,” many dismissed it as a crude political ploy, but others found solace in it. “They have a lot of trauma to deal with,” Professor Erdoğan says, “and maybe religion helps them.”

At the mercy of aid

Sultan Eroğlu’s hillside house is only moderately damaged. But Ms. Eroğlu is so fearful that a new tremor will destroy it that she has pitched a tent outside the family home for herself and her husband, young son, and elderly mother-in-law. It’s just up the sidewalk from where Ms. Eger’s tent stands.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

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Sultan Eroğlu, with her son Ilker, talks about the upcoming Turkish election election. She plans to vote for President Erdoğan, despite suffering from the recent earthquake.

A deeply pious woman, Ms. Eroğlu is angered by those who posted messages on social media after the first round of elections declaring that they would no longer support earthquake victims who had voted for President Erdoğan. “We are at the mercy of those who help us,” she says.

In fact, the women here on a recent day, who care for each other’s children, feel forgotten; the elections are far from their minds. Ms. Eroğlu holds a baby who was just 10 days old when the earthquakes struck. She is preoccupied with the care of her own 9-year-old son, whose spinal problems prevent him from walking properly.

As she speaks, a truck arrives to distribute boxes of diapers, baby food, and staples like rice. No one seems to know, or care, about the politics behind the aid, which has come from a city on the other side of the country. 

And yet her vote for Mr. Erdoğan is instinctive, without any fuller explanation than her conviction that he is the man to defend their interests as they try to restore their lives. “He,” she says, “is the one who will support us.”

On a small vegetable farm in Lal-lo town in the northern Philippine province of Cagayan, Eduardo Pamittan starts his day before dawn. Since April, the middle-aged farmer has been trying to finish all his work between 4 a.m. and 10 a.m., before the late morning sun and humidity become “unbearable.” 

“I have to wake up so early each day,” he says. “It is really unsafe to work under the unrelenting heat.” 

And unrelenting it is, as record-breaking heat waves continue to grip much of southern Asia. On May 12, the Philippines logged a heat index – what the temperature feels like combined with humidity – of 122 degrees Fahrenheit in Legazpi City. Thailand is now in its ninth week of intense heat, and Vietnam broke its national temperature record for a second time this month when the northern district of Tuong Duong clocked in at 111.6 F.

Just last week, the World Meteorological Organization warned that human-induced climate change and the looming El Niño phenomenon – a natural climate event that leads to a drier monsoon season – will likely “push global temperatures into uncharted territory” and “have far-reaching repercussions for health, food security, water management and the environment.”

While innovation and national climate plans will be critical in mitigating the long-term costs of extreme heat, flexibility and common-sense solutions are helping keep communities afloat in the short term. From condensing school days to shifting work hours, people throughout Asia are making sacrifices in the name of safety. It doesn’t hurt, some experts note, that resilience is part of the region’s DNA.

Asian people “have been coping with heat for a very long time,” says Ronita Bardhan, associate professor of sustainable built environment at the University of Cambridge.

“We have cultural mechanisms in place,” she says, from the clothing people wear to the foods they eat in the summer to how homes are built.

The key to climate resilience, she adds, will be preserving that cultural knowledge and marrying it with modern technology. “It cannot be a copy and paste of what a Global North country is doing in order to combat the heat,” she says. 

Carola Frentzen/dpa/Reuters

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Visitors to Wat Arun temple in Bangkok protect themselves from the heat with umbrellas. May is always a hot month in Southeast Asia, but several countries, including Thailand, have experienced abnormal temperatures in recent weeks.

Lifestyle changes

Earlier this month in the Philippines, public elementary schools in Quezon City shortened class hours to allow students and teachers to avoid dangerous temperatures. Some kids attend school from 6 a.m. to 10:30 a.m., others from 2 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.

The initiative is in line with the education department’s order permitting public schools to change teaching modalities, including blended and modular distance learning, in the event of natural disasters, power interruptions, and other calamities.

“Our utmost priority will always be the welfare of our children,” says Joy Belmonte, mayor of Quezon City.

There are downsides. Rinaliza Alvarez, mother of a fourth grader who’s attended morning classes this past month, worried that “my daughter would only learn half of the lessons” with shortened hours. Still, she agrees that “adjustments should be made to ensure the protection of the children.”

In Siem Reap, Cambodia, which has regularly reached triple digits over the past month, humanitarian worker Joseph Josh Ajero decided to extend office hours instead of cutting back. Mr. Ajero, who drives a motorcycle to work, says he leaves home early in the morning, “when the sun is still touching the horizon,” and leaves the office “when the sky turns orange.”

It makes for long days, he says, but it’s not that bad a trade-off.

“The advantage of spending extended hours at the office is that I can finish many tasks,” he says. 

Mercury is soaring in India as well, with several states struggling to manage earlier-than-average heat waves. Many in the country’s vast informal workforce have lost out on wages when it was too hot to work, and last month, 13 people died of heat stroke and many more were hospitalized during an outdoor political event in Mumbai. 

“Poor and vulnerable communities in India are the most affected by these extreme weather events,” says local geographer and National Geographic Explorer Alisha Vasudev, who’s written about the relationship between urban heat and shrinking green spaces. “If we want the safety of the people, governments and nations must come up with effective development strategies.”

Making a plan

Indeed, experts agree that no lifestyle adjustment can replace sustainable development. 

Researchers have linked these and other extreme heat events around the world to man-made global warming, particularly the burning of fossil fuels. Shortening school days and staying indoors during peak hours are surface-level solutions which often come with their own hidden costs. 

Lourdes Tibig, climate science adviser for the Philippines-based Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities, says that recent extreme heat underscores “the importance of incorporating climate change and resiliency into long-term development planning.”

Martial Trezzini/Keystone/AP

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Petteri Taalas, secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization, speaks about the group's predictions for 2023-27 during a press conference at the U.N.'s European headquarters in Geneva on May 17. He warned that the world is likely headed "into uncharted territory."

“Ensuring that climate-smart infrastructures and services are available in schools and workplaces can help students and workers focus on their tasks while minimizing discomfort,” she explains. 

But when it comes to building a framework for responding to unprecedented heat waves, Dr. Bardhan, the University of Cambridge professor, notes that countries need to strike a balance between national planning and local discretion. In the case of India, she says the government must “develop heat action plans which will allow communities to create their own local responses to combat extreme heat.”

National governments tend to respond in “a quick manner which overlooks a lot of interconnected and intersectional issues,” she adds. 

One sector that’s feeling the burn is agriculture. These record-breaking temperatures are expected to impact Asia’s food chains long after the heat wave breaks.

It’s happened before – India was forced to ban wheat exports last year after persistent heats slashed the staple crop’s production by up to 25%. India’s Meteorological Department has warned the same could happen this year. 

And in the Philippines, similar concerns about crop viability have farmers reconsidering what they plant, especially as they prepare for El Niño to begin in June.

Alfie Pulumbarit, the national coordinator of MASIPAG, a farmer-led sustainable agriculture network, expects farmers to veer away from crops that require high capital, such as hybrid rice varieties, and turn to native seeds, which regenerate each season and don’t require expensive fertilizers and pesticides. “The needs of the family and the community must come first,” he says.

Peasant leader Ruben Salvador in Isabela province, north of Manila, says farmers in his community are already starting to plant root vegetables, okra, eggplant, and other drought-resistant crops.

“Rice won’t survive without water,” says Mr. Salvador. “That’s why we need to plan ahead and diversify the farms. We cannot just rely on emergency aid from the government. We must continue producing food, not for ourselves, but for the whole country.”

1 King: A Life, by Jonathan Eig

This major new biography of Martin Luther King Jr. benefits from a trove of newly available sources, from declassified FBI files to recently discovered audiotapes recorded by King’s widow, Coretta Scott King. In elegant prose, Eig presents King in full, capturing both the heroism and the frailties of the civil rights icon.

2 You Have To Be Prepared To Die Before You Can Begin To Live, by Paul Kix

Journalist Paul Kix has written a riveting account of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s daring 1963 campaign to dismantle segregation in Birmingham, Alabama. He describes the courage not only of celebrated movement leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. but also of everyday men, women, and children fighting for racial equality.

3 Burnt: A Memoir of Fighting Fire, by Clare Frank

The path to becoming a firefighter is arduous, especially for a young woman who must contend with gear scaled to fit men, as well as colleagues who believe women should not do this work watching for any misstep. None of this stopped Clare Frank, who recounts her climb from underage rookie to one of California’s highest-ranking fire chiefs. 

4 The Perfumist of Paris, by Alka Joshi

The glorious finale to the Jaipur Trilogy (“The Henna Artist”) finds Rhada living in 1976 Paris, wife to an architect, mother to two daughters and a secret son she left in India. Rhada’s emotionally charged past upends her world. Rich in evocative French and Indian cultures, “The Perfumist of Paris” celebrates artistic spirit and familial reconciliation.

5 You Are Here, by Karin Lin-Greenberg

At a moribund mall in Albany, a restless hairdresser, her magic-loving son, a cranky bigot, and a shlumpy young father work, shop, ... and judge. Then a shooting pierces the listless routine. Well-drawn characters, spot-on dialogue, and an emphasis on the sustaining power of community make this kindhearted debut a winner.

6 Honeybees and Distant Thunder, by Riku Onda, translated by Philip Gabriel

In Yoshigae, Japan, musicians gather for a high-stakes piano competition. Cosmopolitan Masaru, former prodigy Aya, modest Akashi, and unsettling Jin all vie for prizes. As points of view shift, the event’s intense emotions and rivalries come alive. Onda’s lilting, lovely tale celebrates the classical canon and friendships that flower among competitors.

7 Hula, by Jasmin ‘Iolani Hakes

It’s 1968, and Laka, a hula dancing legend, has returned to the Big Island after two years, a pale baby in her arms. Hakes’ vigorous saga, filled with the stories of hula and the hurts of history, astonishes. “We are not landscape, shadows in a postcard,” the narrator insists, a truth the novel makes clear.

8 The Paper Man, by Billy O’Callaghan

Irishman Jack Shine, orphaned at 11, excavates the history of his parents’ romance in 1938 Vienna. As clues emerge about his father Matthias, a genius footballer, and his mother Rebekah, a Jewish woman, Jack’s world upends. O’Callaghan writes beautifully, whether enraptured by Matthias’ gameplay or urging forgiveness for one’s ancestors. 

9 The Late Mrs. Willoughby, by Claudia Gray

Two scions of Jane Austen’s romances, Jonathan Darcy and Juliet Tilney, team up to clear Marianne Brandon’s name in Claudia Gray’s elegantly appointed sequel to “The Murder of Mr. Wickham.” Witty observations abound, as do suspects. The romance between our very proper sleuths is not quite a slow burn – more a sedate simmer. The solution lies in past hurts. As Jonathan says, “Resentment is, I believe, an even more insidious poison than arsenic.”

10 The Secret Book of Flora Lea, by Patti Callahan Henry

Evacuated from London during the Blitz, sisters Hazel and Flora create Whisperwood, an enchanting land that brings them strength, until Flora disappears. Twenty years later, Hazel discovers a fairytale book that might hold the key to finding Flora. The novel is a fascinating ode to storytelling, family, first love, and resilient hearts.

Reuters

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Laborers work at the construction site of the new Parliament building in New Delhi, India, May 23.

A common force often reshaping the world – the determination of people to be self-defined and self-governed – is playing out in India these days. On Sunday, the country will inaugurate a new building for the national Parliament, but the building itself, meant to hold civil debate, is already an object of robust debate. That’s because its design reflects a rise in Hindu nationalism, challenging India’s founding ideals of secular rule and respect for minority faiths.

One critic, Shiv Visvanathan, a sociology professor, wrote in the Deccan Herald that the new design is “rewriting history and redoing architecture” with the “majoritarian logic” of the dominant Hindu population. Yet the new building also has simple, practical purpose. It replaces a century-old structure that is crumbling and technologically ill-equipped. Its cavernous chambers will accommodate more members – meaning, in theory, better representative democracy as India has become the world’s most populous nation.

But architecture is never solely about use. In light and structure, buildings can highlight beauty, perception, listening, and integrity. As the visible expression of what the late British political scientist Ben Anderson called the “imagined community” of the nation-state, it projects power and identity.

The old Parliament, finished in 1927, was the centerpiece of a capital complex extolling British colonial rule. A vast circular structure, it evoked both the Roman Coliseum and a Hindu temple built in the state of Madhya Pradesh a thousand years ago – a deliberate attempt by its designer to impose Western concepts on Indian sensibilities. “Architecture, more than any other art, represents the intellectual progress of those that are in authority,” Edwin Lutyens, the architect, declared then.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi might very well agree. In December 2020, he laid the cornerstone for the new Parliament building as part of a broader project to assert a new national identity over the original imperial design of the capital complex. “It is a matter of pride for our countrymen that the new [Parliament] will be built by our own people as a prime example of [a self-reliant India],” said Speaker Om Birla on that occasion.

Mr. Modi’s critics point out that lawmakers neither debated nor approved the project. During his nine years in power, he has curtailed the rights of Muslims, eroded judicial independence, and targeted political opponents and journalists. The opening on Sunday coincides with the annual commemoration of the late founder of the Hindu nationalist ideology of Mr. Modi and his party.

Twenty opposition parties had vowed to boycott the building inauguration. In a joint statement on Wednesday, however, the 20 parties struck a note of reconciliation: “Despite our belief that the government is threatening democracy,” they remain “open to sinking our differences and marking this occasion.”

The architecture of a central government, said the late anthropologist Clifford Geertz, “marks the center as center.” Yet the vigorous debate stirred by India’s new Parliament building shows that democracy is proclaimed not by stone, but – as a former Indian Supreme Court justice once observed – “in due deference for the ideals of democracy and the rule of law.”