Asian history Books

The Sundarban stretches from the brackish waters of the broad Hooghly on the west, to the fresh waters of the still broader Meghna to the east; the turbid waters of the Bay of Bengal on its southern limits, to the zamindari or pargana lands on its...

This book seeks to reconstruct the past of undivided Panjab during five medieval centuries. It opens with a narrative of the efforts of Turkish warlords to achieve control in the face of tribal resistance, internal dissensions and external invasions. It...

This pioneering volume navigates cultural memory of the Korean War through the lens of contemporary arts and film in South Korea for the last two decades. Cultural memory of the Korean War has been a subject of persistent controversy in the forging of...

The volume provides a complex portrait of the chieftains of Bihar and their relationship with the Mughal Empire as well as their role in the consolidation and expansion of the Mughal Empire in India. Please note: Taylor & Francis does not sell or...

Guru Nanak had gifted the Sikhs with an ideology. Guru Angad had given them the Gurmukhi script. Guru Arjan Dev coalesced the hymns authored or collected by the Gurus and made them a people of the book. Guru Govind Rai created the Khalsa identity with...

Kakuei Tanaka was the most powerful politician in Japan for nearly two decades, and his followers have dominated Japanese politics for most of the country's recent history. This account of the life and times of Tanaka explores the public profile and...

This is a historical fiction of the most prominent years of Mao Zedong, a political and military leader in modern China. The author has lived under Mao's reign for several decades and also done extensive research in addition to first-hand experiences. ...

Sir Martin Ewans, former Head of the British Chancery in Kabul, puts into an historical and contemporary context the series of tragic events that have impinged on Afghanistan in the past fifty years. The book examines the roots of these developments in...

The descriptions Chinese and Japanese people attribute to themselves and to each other differ vastly and stand in stark contrast to Western perceptions that usually identify a 'similar disposition' between the two nations. Academic Nationals in China and...

In the decades following the introduction of Communist Party rule in Shanghai in 1949, the city's economy, infrastructure and links with the world all atrophied. However, the past decade has seen far-reaching economic reforms implemented to recreate...

This book offers a new insight into one of the most interesting and long-lived institutions known to historians of science, the Chinese imperial Astronomical Bureau, which for two millennia observed, recorded, interpreted and predicted the movements of...

This volume focuses on the religious shrine in western India as an institution of cultural integration in the period spanning 200 BCE to 800 CE. It presents an analysis of religious architecture at multiple levels, both temporal and spatial, and...

Of Colonial Bungalows and Piano Lessons can be read as a metaphor - as an icon - of the encounter between cultures. The memoir is based on Monica Chanda's recollections between about 1913 and 1927, of life in Calcutta, districts of undivided Bengal,...

This book critically analyses the changing role and nature of post-Cold War humanitarianism, using Foucault's theories of biopolitics and governmentality. It offers a compelling and insightful interpretation of the policies and practices associated with...

Investigating more than 70 key concepts relating to the performing arts in more than six non-European languages, this volume provides a groundbreaking research tool and one-of-a-kind reference source for theatre, performance, and dance studies worldwide.

This book presents a comprehensive narrative and historical analysis of the political and economic relations between China and Italy from the Treaty of Friendship and Commerce signed in October 1866 to the Second World War.

This book examines the French theatricalization of India from 1770 to 1865 and how a range of plays not only represented India to the French viewing public but also staged issues within French culture including colonialism, imperialism, race, gender, and...

This book investigates public claims for the protection of weak groups and interests in Japan and China from the nineteenth century to the present day. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, it engages with ongoing global debates relevant to both Western...

Covering the ancient period through to the 21st century, this book examines how landscapes have changed across East Asia over time. Featuring examples of a variety of landscapes, from the riverine and agricultural to the urban and aesthetic, this books...

Originating in the 1820s and used for 150 years thereafter, qiaopi is the name given in Chinese to letters written home by Chinese emigrants to accompany remittances. Their key function was to preserve family ties. Although such correspondence focused...

China Briefing, 1987 reviews the events and trends of the year 1987 in foreign relations, domestic politics, the economy, foreign investment and technology transfer, defense, and culture. It is essential reading for travelers bound for China, business...

发生于1834年的"律劳卑事件"，是中国对外关系史上的重要转折，它彻底改变了中英关系的性质，将两国关系置于双方政府层面之上进行交涉，并由此导致了当年的虎门之战和后来1840年的中英战争。如此重要之此一事件以往从未有过深入研究，大多是在相关书籍中被简单提及，而且往往是人亦云亦，以讹传讹，所有的引用、描述及结论都存在严重问题。甚至连伟大的马士也是如此，他在相关此处误引了被人篡改过的一段文字，被人误导和欺骗。本书是有关此一事件的第一部专著，读后给人以精彩、专业、深刻和尖锐的印象。书的专业性体现在它对于史料的引用...

This book is designed to reflect both our current knowledge regarding sport, globalisation and '"encounters" with several important "post-colonial" or non-western societies and to draw together scholars from a range of different disciplines. Case studies...

The Japanese occupation of both British Borneo - Brunei, Sarawak and North Borneo - and Dutch Borneo in 1941 to 1945 is a much understudied subject. Of particular interest is the occupation of Dutch Borneo, governed by the Imperial Japanese Navy that had...

The Chinese Army Today is a comprehensive study of the Chinese military, examining its ground forces in a level of detail not found in any other contemporary works. This new, revised edition has been fully updated to take account of recent changes in the...

The Amoy-dialect film industry emerged in the 1950s, producing cheap, b-grade films in Hong Kong for direct export to the theatres of Manila Chinatown, southern Taiwan and Singapore. Films made in Amoy dialect - a dialect of Chinese - reflected a...

This book shows how, during the period of the Japanese economic miracle, a distinctive female employment system was developed alongside, and different from, the better known Japanese employment system which was applied to male employees. Women, Work and...

Providing a wealth of empirical research on the everyday practise of Islam in post-Soviet Central Asia, this book gives a detailed account of how Islam is understood and practised among ordinary Muslims in the region, focusing in particular on...

Experiences of captivity in Japanese-occupied Asia varied enormously. Some prisoners of war (POWs) were sent to work in Japan, others to toil on the 'Death Railway' between Burma and Thailand. Some camps had death rates below 1 per cent, others of over...

This book offers a new insight into when and why paramilitary groups in Afghanistan engage in protective or predatory behavior against the civilians they purportedly defend. In Afghanistan's counterinsurgency environment, America leaned on militias to...

In order to truly understand the emergence, endurance, and legacy of autocracy, this volume of engaging essays explores how autocratic power is acquired, exercised, and transferred or abruptly ended through the careers and politics of influential figures...

This volume examines the idea of India as it emerges in the writing of its anglophone elite, post-2000. Drawing on a variety of genres, including fiction, histories, non-fiction assessments - economic, political, and business - travel accounts,...

This book investigates the translation field as a hybrid space for the competing claims between the colonisers and the colonised.By tracing the process of the importation and appropriation of Irish drama in colonial Korea, this study shows how the...

This book highlights what Buddhism has to offer for "living well" here and now-for individuals, society as a whole, all sentient beings and the planet itself.From the perspectives of a variety of Buddhist thinkers, the book evaluates what a good life is...

This book is the first account of the British diplomatic mission in Pakistan from its foundation at the end of the Raj in 1947 to the 'War on Terror'.Drawing on original documents and interviews with participants, this book highlights key events and...

This book offers a distinctive perspective on peace processes by comparatively analysing two cases which have rarely been studied in tandem, Ireland and Korea.The volume examines and compares Ireland and Korea as two peace/conflict areas. Despite their...

This book is a study of how the theories and actual practices of a Pan-Asian empire were produced during Japan's war, 1931-1945. As Japan invaded China and conducted a full-scale war against the United States in the late 1930s and early 1940s, several...

This book looks at the institutionalisation and refashioning of Ayurveda as a robust, literate classical tradition, separated from the assorted, vernacular traditions of healing practices. It focuses on the dominant perspectives and theories of...

Japan in the Heisei Era (1989-2019) provides a retrospective and multidisciplinary account of a society in flux. Featuring analyses from leading scholars around the globe, this textbook examines the evolving contexts of Japan throughout the Heisei era...

Paradise of the Blind is an exquisite portrait of three Vietnamese women struggling to survive in a society where subservience to men is expected and Communist corruption crushes every dream. Through the eyes of Hang, a young woman in her twenties who...

This book explores people's everyday experience of the media in Asian countries in confrontation with huge social change and transition and the need to understand this phenomenon as it intersects with the media. It argues for the centrality of the media...

Since the 1950s, Japan-Europe relations have been characterised by a mutual coldness in terms of diplomatic dialogue, punctuated by a number of trade disputes. This book analyses the development of the political and diplomatic relationship between Japan...

This book focuses on the entwinement of politics and medicine and power and knowledge in India during the age of empire. Using the powerful metaphor of 'pathology' - the science of the origin, nature, and course of diseases - the author develops and...

This book examines the Russian explorers and officials in the nineteenth and early twentieth century who came into contact with Iran as a part of the Great Game. It demonstrates the development of Russia's own form of Orientalism, a phenomenon that has...

Based on extensive original research, this book explores many aspects of unemployment, inequality and poverty in urban China.

What can the history of technology contribute to our understanding of late imperial China? Most stories about technology in pre-modern China follow a well-worn plot: in about 1400 after an early ferment of creativity that made it the most technologically...