editor | Asian History Books

City at the End of Time: Poems by Leung Ping-Kwan (Echoes: Classics of Hong Kong Culture and History)

March 25, 2015

Written by Leung Ping-kwan in the 1980s and 1990s, this volume of poetry evokes the complexity of Hong Kong city life in the critical moments preceding the 1997 handover. The poet muses upon the problems of cultural identity and the passing of time, and explores the relationship between poetry and other genres and media within […]
Classical Chinese Literature

March 25, 2015

The summation of more than two thousand years of one of the world’s most august literary traditions, this volume also represents the achievements of four hundred years of Western scholarship on China. The selections include poetry, drama, fiction, songs, biographies, and works of early Chinese philosophy and history rendered in English by the most renowned […]
A History of Islamic Societies

March 25, 2015

Long considered a classic, A History of Islamic Societies is now that much more useful a reference for general readers and scholars alike. Widely praised for its balanced and comprehensive account, Ira Lapidus’ work has been fully revised in its coverage of each country and region of the Muslim world through 2001. It incorporates the […]
Strange Parallels: Volume 1, Integration on the Mainland: Southeast Asia in Global Context, c.800-1830 (Studies in Comparative World History)

March 25, 2015

In an ambitious effort to overcome the extreme fragmentation of early Southeast Asian historiography, this study connects Southeast Asia to world history. Victor Lieberman argues that over a thousand years, each of mainland Southeast Asia’s great lowland corridors experienced a pattern of accelerating integration punctuated by recurrent collapse. These trajectories were synchronized not only between […]
Sky Dancer: The Secret Life And Songs Of Lady Yeshe Tsogyel

March 25, 2015

Yeshe Tsogyel, consort of Guru Padmasambhava, is the most famous of the enlightened women of Tibet. Women have a special place in tantra, but except for Sky Dancer there are few writings that present the spiritual practices and evolution of female aspirants. Here women are in an eminent position, and a path of practice is […]
Thailand (Travellers’ Wildlife Guides)

March 25, 2015

Thailand holds a special place in the minds of the world’s nature-lovers as a paradise of splendid tropical forests, untrammeled ocean beaches, and spectacular underwater coral grottos. Nature travellers to Thailand want to experience these stunning habitats and catch glimpses of exotic wildlife-gibbons and elephants, hornbills and storks, gliding lizards and cobras, brightly colored reef […]
Taiwan: Nation-state Or Province? (Westview Profiles/Nations of Contemporary Asia)

March 25, 2015

Taiwan has few resources, has three times the population density of Japan and exports an incredible 50% of its gross national product, yet despite favourable economic trends and political stability, its future is uncertain. The author explains why, and offers an analysis of Taiwan’s status in the international political community, in the light of the […]
A History of Modern Indonesia

March 25, 2015

Since the Bali bombings of 2002 and the rise of political Islam, Indonesia has frequently occupied media headlines. Nevertheless, the history of the fourth largest country on earth remains relatively unknown. Adrian Vickers’s book, first published in 2005, traces the history of an island country, comprising some 240 million people, from the colonial period through […]
Desert Kingdom: How Oil and Water Forged Modern Saudi Arabia

March 25, 2015

Oil and water, and the science and technology used to harness them, have long been at the heart of political authority in Saudi Arabia. Oil’s abundance, and the fantastic wealth it generated, has been a keystone in the political primacy of the kingdom’s ruling family. The other bedrock element was water, whose importance was measured […]
Echoes from Dharamsala: Music in the Life of a Tibetan Refugee Community

March 25, 2015

In Echoes from Dharamsala, Keila Diehl uses music to understand the experiences of Tibetans living in Dharamsala, a town in the Indian Himalayas that for more than forty years has been home to Tibet’s government-in-exile. The Dalai Lama’s presence lends Dharamsala’s Tibetans a feeling of being “in place,” but at the same time they have […]

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