Asia

For over two centuries Japan had been hidden behind a veil of seclusion. This changed in when Commodore Perry arrived in 1853. Unsurprisingly for a world power, Britain was fast to get in on the action. But unknown to the intruders their sudden...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781739822590Author Hiroki TakahashiFormat PaperbackPage Count 200Imprint Honford StarPublisher Honford Star

This is the go-to volume on bushido ("the way of the warrior"), drawing on a wide range of historical sources to paint a vivid picture of the samurai in action and separating the truth from the myth of samurai chivalry. It offers a long-overdue update to...

Hinduism has two major roots. The more familiar is the religion brought to South Asia in the second millennium BCE by speakers of Aryan or Indo-Iranian languages, a branch of the Indo-European language family. Another, more enigmatic, root is the Indus...

For many Westerners, the name Vietnam evokes images of a bloody televised American war that generated a firestorm of protest and brought conflict into their living rooms. In his sweeping account, Ben Kiernan broadens this vision by narrating the rich...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9789356294141Author Arup Kumar DuttaFormat PaperbackPage Count 432Imprint HarperCollins IndiaPublisher HarperCollins IndiaWeight(grams) 487gDimensions(mm)...

Lion City tells the extraordinary story of Singapore - the world's most successful city state. In 1965, Singapore's GDP per capita was on a par with Jordan. Now it has outstripped Japan. After the Second World War and a sudden rupture with newly formed...

The ghost of the Holocaust is ever present in Israel, in the lives and nightmares of the survivors and in the absence of the victims. In this compelling and disturbing analysis, Idith Zertal, a leading member of the new generation of revisionist...

WINNER OF THE ELIZABETH LONGFORD PRIZE FOR HISTORICAL BIOGRAPHY 'A narrative of startling originality ... As discussions of Britain's colonial legacy become increasingly polarised, we are in ever more need of nuanced...

Charts the incredible rise of South Korea, from colonisation and civil war to today's thriving nation. South Korea has a remarkable history. Born from the ashes of imperial domination, partition and a devastating war, back in the 1950s there were real...

From the author of The Roads to Sata', this book tells the story of an odyssey to the vanishing heart of Japan. A VIBRANT, MEDITATIVE WALK IN SEARCH OF THE SOUL OF JAPAN Traveling by foot through mountains and villages, Alan Booth found a Japan far...

The Battle of the Coral Sea is unique in the annals of naval history. It is the first battle in which enemy fleets never came within sight of one another. Instead, aircraft launched from carrier decks were sent out to attack the enemy with bombs and...

'THE VIETNAMESE ANNE FRANK'Last Night I Dreamed of Peace is the moving diary kept by a 27-year-old Vietnamese doctor who was killed by the Americans during the Vietnam War, while trying to defend her patients. Not only is it an important slice of...

Zhu Xiao-Mei was born to middle-class parents in post-war China, and her musical proficiency became clear at an early age. Taught to play the piano by her mother, she developed quickly into a prodigy, immersing herself in the work of classical masters...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9789887792741Author Barbara AnslowFormat PaperbackPage Count 372Imprint Blacksmith BooksPublisher Blacksmith Books

During the Second World War Eric Lomax was forced to work on the notorious Burma-Siam Railway and was tortured by the Japanese for making a crude radio.Left emotionally scarred and unable to form normal relationships, Lomax suffered for years until, with...

The definitive account of one of the twentieth century's most brutal, yet least examined, episodes of genocide and detentionThe Killing Season explores one of the largest and swiftest, yet least examined, instances of mass killing and incarceration in...

A Concise History of Modern India by Barbara D. Metcalf and Thomas R. Metcalf, has become a classic in the field since it was first published in 2001. As a fresh interpretation of Indian history from the Mughals to the present, it has informed students...

Idris (Taff) James was a driver in the Royal Army Service Corps and one of the thousands of young British soldiers taken prisoner by the Japanese in early 1942/. He was ordered to become a medic by his Company Commander, who must have been a very shrewd...

The idea of the sword-wielding samurai, beholden to a strict ethical code and trained in deadly martial arts, dominates popular conceptions of the samurai. As early as the late seventeenth century, they were heavily featured in literature, art, theater,...

In addition to providing excerpts from classic tales of Japan's warrior past, this volume draws on a wide range of lesser-known but revealing sources-including sword inscriptions, edicts, orders, petitions, and letters-to expand and deepen our...

In November 1963, the president of South Vietnam and his brother were brutally executed in a coup that was sanctioned and supported by the American government. President Kennedy later explained to his close friend Paul Red" Fay that the reason the...

This book is an accessible, comprehensive, and nuanced history of Pakistan. It reflects upon state and society in Pakistan and shows they have been shaped by historical forces and personae. Hoodbhoy expertly maps the journey of the region from many...

In this fascinating account of one of the least known parts of South Asia, Eaton recounts the history of the Deccan plateau in southern India from the fourteenth century to the rise of European colonialism. He does so, vividly, through the lives of eight...

The Tiananmen protests and Beijing massacre of 1989 were a major turning point in recent Chinese history. In this new analysis of 1989, Jeremy Brown tells the vivid stories of participants and victims, exploring the nationwide scope of the democracy...

How the global tea industry influenced the international economy and the rise of mass consumerismTea has been one of the most popular commodities in the world. For centuries, profits from its growth and sales funded wars and fueled colonization, and its...

You'll never guess what doctors call tummy rumbles or how many smells your nose can recognise, and did you know that you could catch a yawn? This delightful information book is full of fun and surprising things to know about the human body, all brought...

The third book in V. S. Naipaul's acclaimed Indian trilogy, with a preface by the author. India: A Million Mutinies Now is a truly perceptive work whose insights continue to inform travellers of all generations to India. Much has changed since V. S...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781804510148Author Stephen RookesFormat PaperbackPage Count 88Imprint Helion & CompanyPublisher Helion & Company

Xi Jinping wants to become the world's most powerful leader. To succeed, he must balance Mao's Little Red Book with the Analects of Confucius, and more. For Xi, the task ahead of China is to preserve the guiding ideology of Marxism, while challenging...

In May 1947 a Jewish teenager was mysteriously abducted in Jerusalem. He was never seen alive again. A grey felt hat found at the scene was traced to Major Roy Farran, a highly decorated ex-SAS officer leading a covert counter-terrorist squad. Farran was...

In all of the South Asian subcontinent, Bengal was the region most receptive to the Islamic faith. This area today is home to the world's second-largest Muslim ethnic population. How and why did such a large Muslim population emerge there? And how does...

Original publication and copyright date: 2003. Gichin Funakoshi, the father of karate,' once said that 'the ultimate aim of karate lies not in victory nor defeat, but in the perfection of the character of its participants.''About the AuthorGICHIN...

Liberty or Death is Patrick French's vivid and surprising account of the chaotic final years of colonial rule in India, acclaimed as the definitive book on this subject. At midnight on 14 August 1947, Great Britain's 350-year-old Indian Empire was...

Nepal emerged as a unified state over two hundred years ago, centred on the Kathmandu Valley with its two thousand years of urban civilisation. While John Whelpton's history focuses on the period since the overthrow of the Rana family autocracy in...

The final months of Allied naval bombardments on the Home Islands during World War II have, for whatever reason, frequently been overlooked by historians. Yet the Allies' final naval campaign against Japan involved the largest and arguably most...

With more than 5,000 entries totaling over a million words, this is the most comprehensive and authoritative dictionary of Buddhism ever produced in English. It is also the first to cover terms from all of the canonical Buddhist languages and traditions:...

The first full-scale account of a Persian king vilified by history Xerxes, Great King of the Persian Empire from 486-465 B.C., has gone down in history as an angry tyrant full of insane ambition. The stand of Leonidas and the 300 against his army at...

Whereas previous studies of the end of British rule in India have concentrated on the negotiations of the transfer of power at the all-India level or have considered the emergence of separatist politics amongst India's Muslim minorities, this study...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780812984804Author Robert D. KaplanFormat PaperbackPage Count 256Imprint Random House IncPublisher Random House USA IncWeight(grams) 215gDimensions(mm)...