Asia

*Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award* *Shortlisted for the Costa Biography Award**Shortlisted for the Jhalak Prize**Shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize 2018**A Sunday Times Book of the Year*Xiaolu Guo meets her parents for the first...

The book responds to the challenge of the global turn in the humanities from the perspective of art history. A global art history, it argues, need not follow the logic of economic globalization nor seek to bring the entire world into its fold. Instead,...

In late-eighteenth-century India, the glory of the Mughal emperors was fading, and ambitious newcomers seized power, changing the political map forever. Enter the legendary Maharajah Ranjit Singh, whose Sikh Empire stretched throughout northwestern India...

'excellent' LSE Review of Books China is the world's most populous country and newest superpower, whose place on the international stage can only be understood through the lens of its modern history. The Oxford History of Modern China is essential...

This classic in the annals of village studies will be widely read and debated for what it reveals about China's rural dynamics as well as the nature of state power, markets, the military, social relations, and religion. Built on extraordinarily intimate...

Although Christianity has been a minority religion in Chinese societies, Christians have been powerful catalysts of social activism in seeking to establish democracy and rule of law in mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and diasporic communities. The...

The horrific torture and execution of hundreds of thousands of Cambodians by Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge during the 1970s is one of the century's major human disasters. David Chandler, a world-renowned historian of Cambodia, examines the Khmer Rouge phenomenon...

For centuries, the Japanese samurai were the unquestioned leaders of their society, maintaining their position through their iron will, Zen-like emotional control and clan-building social skills. Today, in a modern world that so often privileges instant...

If we place women at the center of our account of China's last two centuries, how does this change our understanding of what happened? This deeply knowledgeable book illuminates the places where the Big History of recognizable events intersects with the...

This illustrated introduction to the history of China offers a fresh understanding of China's progress from the Neolithic age to the present. Told in six chapters arranged chronologically, through art, artefacts, people and places, and richly illustrated...

The definitive biography of the eldest son of Emperor Shah Jahan, whose death at the hands of his younger brother Aurangzeb changed the course of South Asian history.Dara Shukoh was the eldest son of Shah Jahan, the fifth Mughal emperor, best known for...

In this monumental, authoritative new history of Afghanistan, Jonathan L. Lee places the current conflict in its historical context and challenges many of the West's preconceived ideas about the country. Lee chronicles the region's monarchic rules and...

A Stanford University Press classic.Book InformationISBN 9780804709019Author R. A. SteinFormat PaperbackPage Count 336Imprint Stanford University PressPublisher Stanford University PressWeight(grams) 408g

Now in a thoroughly updated edition, Resistant Islands offers the first comprehensive overview of Okinawan history from earliest times to the present, focusing especially on the recent period of colonization by Japan, its disastrous fate during World War...

'The next Bill Bryson' New York TimesTwo tigers cannot share the same mountain - Chinese proverbDespite geographical proximity, cultural similarities, and shared status as highly powerful nations, China, Korea and Japan love to hate each other. Why?In...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9789814625562Author Charles McCormacFormat PaperbackPage Count 240Imprint monsoonPublisher Monsoon BooksDimensions(mm) 198mm * 129mm * 15mm

This introduction to Tanabe Hajime (1885-1962), the critical successor of the "father of contemporary Japanese philosophy" Nishida Kitaro (1870-1945), focuses on Tanabe's central philosophical ideas and perspective on self, world, knowledge, and the...

I have learned many words for 'island': isle, atoll, eyot, islet, or skerry. They exist in archipelagos or alone, and always, by definition, I have understood them by their relation to water. But the Chinese word for island knows nothing of water. For a...

A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, Duong Van Mai Elliott's The Sacred Willow illuminates recent Vietnamese history by weaving together the stories of the lives of four generations of her family. Beginning with her great-grandfather, who rose from rural...

Inventing the Way of the Samurai examines the development of the 'way of the samurai' - bushido - which is popularly viewed as a defining element of the Japanese national character and even the 'soul of Japan'. Rather than a continuation of ancient...

Written by the highly regarded diplomat Marty Natalegawa, former ambassador and foreign minister of Indonesia, this book offers a unique insider-perspective on the present and future relevance of ASEAN. It is about ASEAN's quest for security and...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781578637928Author David ShiFormat PaperbackPage Count 272Imprint Red Wheel/WeiserPublisher Red Wheel/Weiser

Kyoto, the ancient former capital of Japan, breathes history and mystery. Its temples, gardens and palaces are testimony to many centuries of aristocratic and religious grandeur. Under the veneer of modernity, the city remains filled with countless...

'The Book Collectors of Daraya celebrates the political and therapeutic power of the written word . . . defiant and cautiously optimistic' Financial Times'[An] incredible chronicle . . . The book tells the kind of story that often gets buried beneath...

SHORTLISTED FOR THE FT & MCKINSEY BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD 2018 A Financial Times Book of the Year and an Amazon Top 100 Book of the Year India's explosive rise has driven inequality to new extremes, with millions trapped in slums as...

An highly illustrated examination of the key ships, tactics and operations of the Imperial Japanese Navy in the War in the Pacific in World War II. The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) was the third most powerful navy in the world at the start of World...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9789356295940Author Sanjeev SanyalFormat HardbackPage Count 364Imprint HarperCollins IndiaPublisher HarperCollins IndiaWeight(grams) 476gDimensions(mm) 220mm...

*Winner of The North American Travel Journalists Association's Excellence in Travel Journalism Award*Japan mesmerizes and bewilders the visitor in equal measure, making a top-notch travel guide essential for anyone planning a trip to the land of the...

In Xanadu did Kubla KhanA stately pleasure dome decreeKublai Khan lives on in the popular imagination thanks to these two lines of poetry by Coleridge. But the true story behind this legend is even more fantastic than the poem would have us believe. He...

Designed for complete beginners, and tested for years with real learners, Complete Sanskrit offers a bridge from the textbook to the real world, enabling you to learn the grammar, understand the vocabulary and even how to translate the inscriptions and...

The first in-depth account of the sudden growth of China's sovereign wealth funds and their transformative impact on global markets, domestic and multinational businesses, and international politics.One of the keys to China's global rise has been its...

Benedict Rogers first went to China at age 18 to teach English for six months in Qingdao (1992), three years after the Tiananmen Square massacre. That opened the door to a thirty-year adventure with China, from teaching English in schools and hospitals...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780307388377Author Liao YiwuFormat PaperbackPage Count 352Imprint Anchor BooksPublisher Random House USA IncWeight(grams) 295gDimensions(mm) 202mm * 134mm *...

Spring, 1947. In a few months' time the British flag will be lowered all over India, and with Independence thousands of those who made their lives there - as planters, civil servants, or in the Indian army - will be returning to England. Among those...

"Spider Eaters" is at once a moving personal story, a fascinating family history, and a unique chronicle of political upheaval told by a Chinese woman who came of age during the turbulent years of the Cultural Revolution. With stunning honesty and a...

The turbulent and chequered past of the world's most populous country is one of the most fascinating in world history, and relatively little known in the west. From the beginnings of Chinese prehistory right through to internet censorship with the 'Great...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781611801255Author William Scott WilsonFormat PaperbackPage Count 288Imprint Shambhala Publications IncPublisher Shambhala Publications IncWeight(grams)...

Ancient Mesopotamia and Iran are usually treated separately or as part of a much broader 'Ancient Near East'. However, the developments that lie at the root of our own world - farming, cities, writing, organised religion, warfare - were forged in the...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780735224438Author Jonathan KaufmanFormat PaperbackPage Count 384Imprint Penguin USAPublisher Penguin Putnam IncWeight(grams) 306gDimensions(mm) 213mm *...

POLITICIAN * PRISONER * PARENTA portrait of one of the most charismatic, but unknown, world leaders Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and crusader for democracyin Myanmar, is once again behind bars. Her...