Asian history Books

Book SynopsisA classic from the New York Times bestselling author of The Things They Carried One of the best, most disturbing, and most powerful books about the shame that was / is Vietnam.—Minneapolis Star and TribuneBefore writing his award-winning Going After Cacciato, Tim O'Brien gave us this intensely personal account of his year as a foot soldier in Vietnam. The author takes us with him to experience combat from behind an infantryman's rifle, to walk the minefields of My Lai, to crawl into the ghostly tunnels, and to explore the ambiguities of manhood and morality in a war gone terribly wrong. Beautifully written and searingly heartfelt, If I Die in a Combat Zone is a masterwork of its genre.Now with Extra Libris material, including a reader’s guide and bonus content.

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Book SynopsisHe argues that, contrary to previous scholarly opinion, nearly half of the Portuguese-Asian trade was controlled by New Christians-descendants of Iberian Jews forcibly converted to Christianity in the 1490s.Trade ReviewIn a superbly researched work, rich in provocative and revisionist interpretations, whose sources, ideas, and references will be mined by many scholars, Boyajian adopts a comparative approach to study Portuguese commercial links to Asia, reassess crown involvement in trade vis a vis private participation, place the Cape trade within the context of global trade, and throw new light on Portuguese merchant families. Canadian Journal of History Concentrates on the flourishing Portuguese private trade with Asia during the period of Spanish rule... A new turn in the historiography of European expansion. English Historical Review Portuguese Trade in Asia under the Habsburgs illuminates complex trade and social networks within an emerging global system. It is essential reading for those concerned with the interplay of state goals and private enterprise, as well as the influence of the Inquisition on global trade in the early modern era. -- Joan Meznar Renaissance Quarterly 2008Table of ContentsList of TablesPrefaceA Note on Spelling, Usage, and CurrencyIntroduction: Portugal's Asian Enterprise to 1580Chapter 1. The "Prudent" King as Merchant-King, 1580-1598Chapter 2. The Private Trade of the Carreira da Índia, 1580-1598Chapter 3. A Complex Relationship: Carreira and Casado Trade, 1580-1598Chapter 4. The Royal Monopoly and the Advent of European Competition on the Cape Route, 1599-1619Chapter 5. Private and Company TradeChapter 6. The Zenith of the Carreira Trade, 1599-1619Chapter 7. The Struggle for Asian Trade, 1599-1619Chapter 8. Trade, Inquisition, and Economic Growth and Stagnation in PortugalChapter 9. War and Experimentation with the Cape Monopoly, 1620-1640Chapter 10. Crisis of the Carreira da Índia, 1620-1640Chapter 11. Private Trade in Asia: New Pressures, New Alternatives, 1620-1640Conclusion: Portugal's Asian Enterprise in 1640AppendixAbbreviationsNotesGlossaryBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisFor many years after its reform and opening in 1978, China maintained an attitude of false modesty about its ambitions. That façade, reports former New York Times Asia correspondent Howard French, has now been cast off. China is increasingly asserting its place among the global powers, signaling its plans for pan-Asian dominance by building its navy, increasing territorial claims to areas like the South China Sea, and diplomatically bullying smaller players. Underlying this attitude is the millennia-old concept of tian xia, which held that everything “under the heavens” fell within the influence of the Chinese empire.   If we understand how this historical identity continues to color current actions, in ways ideological, philosophical, and even legal, we can learn to forecast just what kind of global power China stands to become—as the world order is poised to shift. Steeped in deeply researched history and on-the-ground reporting, t

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Book SynopsisIn 1971 a South Vietnamese Army corps, with US air support, launched the largest airmobile operation in the history of warfare, Lam Son 719. The objective: to sever the North Vietnamese Army's main logistical artery. Robert Sander, a helicopter pilot in Lam Son 719, explores why an operation of such importance failed.Trade ReviewIn the final days of the operation, I watched at Khe Sanh as every UH-1 helicopter returned fully loaded with withdrawing troops and an additional four to six ARVN troops hanging on the skids. Robert Sander has done a truly superb job of telling what really happened in Lam Son 719. Great book!"" - Maj. Gen. Benjamin L. Harrison, author of Hell on a Hill Top: America's Last Major Battle in Vietnam ""With the keen eye for detail that comes from having served in combat, Bob Sander's Invasion of Laos is an important addition to the history of one of the pivotal battles of the Vietnam War. Sander's vivid accounts of the heroic actions of his fellow helicopter pilots and crewmen are especially noteworthy. Invasion of Laos deserves to be a part of any Vietnam War library or collection."" - Andrew Wiest, author of Vietnam's Forgotten Army: Heroism and Betrayal in the ARVN

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Book SynopsisFor a brief period in the mid-twentieth century, China had the makings of a professional, apolitical military force. The Rise and Fall of an Officer Corps tells the story of that moment in the military history of modern China - how it came to be, why it ultimately failed, and what it meant for China at home and abroad.Trade ReviewDrawing on an array of Chinese-language archival materials and military journals from China's Republican era, Eric Setzekorn makes a substantial contribution to our understanding of the development of a professional officer corps in the Nationalist army."" - Peter Worthing, author of General He Yingqin: The Rise and Fall of Nationalist China""The Rise and Fall of an Officer Corps offers a critical new perspective on the cooperation between the United States and the Kuomintang, the wartime development of nationalist military culture, and civil-military relations during China's civil war. This work, rich with original Chinese sources, greatly expands our understanding of modern China's military history."" - Xiaobing Li, author of China's Battle for Korea: The 1951 Spring Offensive

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Book SynopsisEast Timor, also known as Timor-Leste, comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, located at the eastern end of the Indonesian archipelago. East Timor was among the last of colonial territories to become independent, and it actually had to be liberated twice. First, after more than four centuries of Portuguese colonial rule, it achieved independence in 1975 only to be invaded and occupied by Indonesia. After a blood-soaked occupation of 24 years and following intense international pressure, the Jakarta-regime only grudgingly allowed East Timor to form a nation of its own in 1999. Since then, the new state has faced further armed clashes and is only now able to seriously engage in nation-building. Historical Dictionary of East Timor relates the turbulent history of this country through a chronology, an introductory essay, an expansive bibliography, and over 200 cross-referenced dictionary entries on significant persons, events, places, organizations, and other aspects of East TTrade ReviewThis is a much-needed introduction to East Timor (or, locally, Timor-Leste) for students and researchers. Gunn, a faculty member in economics at the University of Nagasaki and former consultant to the United Nations in East Timor, has done a good job of collecting and distilling the history of the small nation, which achieved independence in 2002. A large bibliography of both English and Portuguese books and articles will serve researchers well. The chronology and historical essay that are standard parts of the publisher's numerous Historical Dictionaries series introduce the country to those unfamiliar with East Timor. East Timor is at the eastern end of the Indonesian archipelago. It occupies the eastern end of the Island of Timor, which is the Malay word for "east." (Leste is the Portuguese word for "east," so whatever name of the country is used, it means East East.) In addition to the eastern end, a small enclave on the northern side of the island, named Oecusse, bounded by the sea and surrounded by Indonesia, is also part of the country. Indonesia still refuses to allow a land connection between the two parts of East Timor. In addition to Portuguese, Tetum, an Austronesian language, is the other national language. All of this is explained in the volume, as is other biographical, historical, and geographical information. If all readers know about East Timor are the names of two Nobel Peace Prize winners, Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo and José Ramos-Horta, then this book will bring them up to speed. Recommended for academic and large public libraries. * Booklist *For those with an interest in Timor-Leste, from students to more established scholars, this historical dictionary is an exceptionally useful and very engaging read. It is one of those rare books that it is perfectly legitimate to dip in and out of, rather than read from beginning to end, and it is enjoyable to do so. All of the major places, events and people are well covered and virtually all readers will find new and useful information about Timor-Leste here. For those of us who enjoy encyclopaedic reading for its own general value, this is an engaging read; for readers specifically interested in Timor-Leste, it is a must....Gunn is probably the premier historian of Timor-Leste and certainly holds that position in English accounts of the place....This work should rightfully be the standard reference point for matters Timor-Leste. For more sanguine readers, it remains a very enjoyable reacquaintance and should occasionally constitute lively points of discussion for those interested in matters East Timorese. * Journal of Contemporary Asia *

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Book SynopsisThis Noble House explores the preoccupation with biblical genealogy that emerged among Jews in the Islamic Near East between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries. Arnold Franklin looks to Jewish society''s fascination with Davidic ancestry, examining the profusion of claims to the lineage that had already begun to appear by the year 1000, the attempts to chart the validity of such claims through elaborate genealogical lists, and the range of meanings that came to be ascribed to the House of David in this period. Jews and Muslims shared the perception that the Davidic line and the noble family of the Prophet Muhammad were counterparts to one another, but captivation with Davidic lineage was just one facet of a much broader Jewish concern with biblical ancestry.Based on documentary material from the Cairo Geniza, the book argues that this genealogical turn should be understood as a consequence of Jewish society''s dynamic encounter with its Arab-Islamic milieu and constiTrade Review"Franklin's rich contribution to the field of Jewish history and culture in the medieval Islamic Near East . . . restores a key aspect of Jewish society to its proper place in historical scholarship, an achievement that is long overdue. Most importantly, Franklin's work fills in a major gap in our understanding of the complex negotiation and confident self-assertion of minority populations within the medieval Islamic world. For his sophisticated synthesis and analysis of a complex web of interconnected topics pertaining to Jewish prestige and power within medieval Islam, scholars of medieval Judaism and Islam alike owe Arnold Franklin a debt of gratitude." * Jewish History *"A welcome, thoroughly researched, and important study of the barely noticed shift in the attitude of the Jews of the Muslim East toward genealogy and the ways in which this shift was occasioned by their deep encounter with Islamic civilization. I applaud the ease with which Franklin incorporates such diverse materials." * Ross Brann, Cornell University *"A substantial, rich, and original work that takes a typically Jewish topic into the heart of an Islamic cultural context." * Menahem Ben-Sasson, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem *Table of ContentsA Note on Transliteration, Names, and Dates Preface Introduction Chapter 1."Sharīf of the Jewish Nation": Reconceptualizing the House of David in the Islamic East Chapter 2. "The Truth of the Pedigree": Documenting Origins and the Public Performance of Lineage Chapter 3. Ancestry as Authority: Lineage and Power in Near Eastern Jewish Society Chapter 4. "Designated in the Past and for the Future": Davidic Dynasts and Medieval Messianic Anticipation Chapter 5. "The Sharīf of Every People Is Well-Born": Genealogy and the Legitimization of Minority Culture Conclusion Appendix A. Halper 462: Transcription and Translation Appendix B. Tentative List of Davidic Dynasts Datable between ca. 950 and ca. 1450 Notes Bibliography Index Acknowledgments

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Book SynopsisOn the world maps common in America, the Western Hemisphere lies front and center, while the Indian Ocean region all but disappears. This convention reveals the geopolitical focus of the now-departed twentieth century, but in the twenty-first century that focus will fundamentally change. In this pivotal examination of the countries known as “Monsoon Asia”—which include India, Pakistan, China, Indonesia, Burma, Oman, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Tanzania—bestselling author Robert D. Kaplan shows how crucial this dynamic area has become to American power. It is here that the fight for democracy, energy independence, and religious freedom will be lost or won, and it is here that American foreign policy must concentrate if the United States is to remain relevant in an ever-changing world. From the Horn of Africa to the Indonesian archipelago and beyond, Kaplan exposes the effects of population growth, climate change, and extremist politics on this unstable region,

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Book SynopsisJoanne Bernardi offers a study of Japanese cinema's ""pure film movement"" era, recovering a body of lost film and establishing its significance in the development of Japanese cinema. Building on a wealth of original-language sources she examines how the movement challenged the industry.Trade ReviewIt is surely one of the greatest tragedies in the history of world cinema that virtually no Japanese films from the pre-World War I period survive and that almost nothing from the 1920s exists in anything like its original form. Laboring under this unfillable gap. Joanne Bernardi has done as much as anyone can to bring to life this crucial and fascinating era of Japanese cinema. Relying on a wealth of primary and secondary original-language sources in a manner unprecedented in the published literature on early Japanese cinema in English, she has impressively exhausted the written record to re-create these tragically lost films and what they meant for the development of the Japanese cinema. With this impressively and thoroughly researched volume, Bernardi instantly joins the ranks of Joseph L. Anderson and Hiroshi Komatsu as the foremost scholars of the Japanese silent cinema.

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Book SynopsisThe Hashemite Kingdom of the Hijaz in Arabia, played a crucial role in modern Middle Eastern history from its founding in 1916 until its demise in 1925. It was the first Arab country to gain independence from the Ottoman Empire, and it's rulers led the Arab Revolt of Lawrence of Arabia fame. The holy cities of Mecca and Medina flourished under its control and it was praised as a model of justice and a beacon of hope for the Muslim world. Yet for all its significance, the Kingdom has received little attention from historians. In The Rise and Fall of the Hashemite Kingdom we learn how the Hijaz wrested its independence from the Ottoman Empire in the storied Revolt in the Desert and was celebrated by journalists and world leaders alike. But Teitlebaum is most concerned with the state's ultimate failure Using original sources, he shows how the kingdom was plagued by civil conflict between the Hashemite rulers (the ancestors of the current king of Jordan) and the influential Saudi family, aTrade Review"Josh Teitelbaum uses the concept of the tribal chieftaincy to describe the short-lived 'state' of Sharif Husain and thereby fills an important void in the research." -Guido Steinberg,Orient "the standard history" "excellent account" "detailed analysis" "casts light on many neglected subjects" "particularly interesting" "successful application of Joseph Kostiner's concept of the evolution of the tribal chieftaincy" "based his book on a careful and systematic use of the appropriate sources" "outstanding study" -William Ochsenwald,Middle East Journal "Teitelbaum recreates the political, economic, military and social history of the Hijazi kingdom" "successfully recreates the structure of the rising state" "recommended" "enriches our understanding" -Madawi Al Rasheed "This study...fills a significant gap in the history of the 20th century Middle East" "Well-researched" "[suitable for] graduate students and faculty" -J.W. Walt,Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries "Teitelbaum's thoroughly researched and lucidly presented study" "Teitelbaum provides the (surprisingly) first account of this state's existence whose importance has become apparent only in retrospect. He does it so well that one wishes the book were longer." -Daniel Pipes,Middle East Quarterly

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Book SynopsisOffers an authoritative guide to Kabuki. The book explains everything lucidly and painstakingly - the background, the facts, the emotions, both from a Japanese and a Western point of view. If you can keep paying attention you will find at the end that you seem to have been living in Japan.

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Book SynopsisTurning to three sources - historical, archaeological, and mythological, this title provides a multifaceted study of Himiko and ancient Japanese society.Trade ReviewGiven the author's long and distinguished career in the archaeological study of Japan, a retrospective summary of the archaeology alone is a significant event. Add to this his very thorough examination of textual sources, and the result is a truly unique, multifaceted study of ancient Japanese society. - Walter Edwards, Tenri University ""Using a balanced combination of archaeology and historical texts, Professor Kidder gives a marvelously rich portrait of life in Yayoi Japan."" - Mark Hudson, University of Tsukuba

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Book SynopsisExplores female sexual entertainment (songs and smiles) during Japan's Heian and Kamakura periods, examining the gradual construction of a transgressive identity (prostitute) for women engaged in the sex trade. This study unravels social attitudes toward female sexual entertainers.Trade Review"[This] is a work of weight; it is concise, focused, meticulously researched, and written with nuance and aplomb." - Monumenta Nipponica "Goodwin offers an erudite account that acknowledges all prior scholarly work on the subject.... The book is packed with juicy details, historically necessary and judiciously picked from sources not usually encountered. Of major interest, however, is Goodwin's ability to see behind the self-serving screens of political history, to divine the true intentions of this demonization of one of the few professions then open to women, and to present her facts in the fairest possible manner." - Japan Times"

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewCompletely individual and very interesting.... Kushner's book is, I think, the first to treat propaganda as a profession in wartime Japan. He follows it through its various stages and is particularly interested in its popular acceptance - wartime comedy, variety shows, how entertainers sought to bolster their careers by adopting the prewar message, which then filtered down into society and took hold. Using almost entirely primary materials, which have not before been translated, Barak re-creates the wartime world in which propaganda was the truth. In so doing, he has given us an eminently readable account of an unknown aspect of the war and has defined our understanding of it." — Japan Times"[The Thought War] reveals a good deal more about Japan at war than has been available heretofore in Western languages.... This soundly researched book highlights the multiple, often ill-coordinated sources of Japan's wartime propaganda.... [It] should help considerably in advancing the urgent project of defining and assessing responsibility, not only for Japan but for all combatants, and not only for World War II but for all conflicts and modes of political violence." — Journal of Japanese Studies

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Book SynopsisTells the stories of some “1.5” and second-generation Koreans who experienced life in Hawaii or on the US mainland since childhood. Some tales are humorous, some sad. Their stories were captured from nearly a hundred interviews taken by co-author Roberta Chang. Their stories are filled with amazing personal accomplishments, family love, and unique community life.

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Book SynopsisThe very purpose of history is to gather up what is about to be lost for ever.Between 500,000 to 2 million people died in the Cultural Revolution. Yet a silence remains as to why. Over eleven years in Mao’s China, an all-out assault on ‘class enemies’ took place. Teenagers smashed their teachers’ skulls. Doctors were tortured in jail as foreign spies. Ordinary people condemned ‘counter-revolutionaries’ to execution - and then went home and ate their dinner. This was less than fifty years ago. But the victims are being forgotten already. Wang Youqin unmasks the true brutality of the Cultural Revolution. Documenting the deaths of over six hundred individuals, Victims of the Cultural Revolution calls on us to remember the evil ideological fanaticism wreaks and pays tribute to all those who suffered.Trade Review'Carefully composed and captivating... May Wang Youqin’s monumental book reach beyond the narrow confines of the ivory tower and attract the many readers it so obviously deserves.' -- Frank Dikötter, TLS'In 1966, Wang was a schoolgirl who witnessed the hounding of Bian Zhongyun. Her response was to gather oral histories of the period, which are published . . . as Victims of the Cultural Revolution in a lucid translation by Stacy Mosher. Her book is . . a chronicle of deaths until now untold. Her teacher’s death is described, but so are countless others, mostly far less high-profile, like the 60-year-old Li Jingpo, who worked at the elite Jingshan high school in Beijing and was killed in August 1966. But he was not a teacher or administrator: he was just the doorman. Being a bona fide proletarian didn’t save him from the students who used to call him “Uncle Li”. Wang’s account of what happened during one of China’s darkest moments is a powerful companion to [Tania] Branigan’s compelling account of why it still haunts the very different country of today.' -- Rana Mitter, Guardian‘I find this book to have enormous historical value, and believe it will serve as a foundation for future historians carrying out research into the political, educational, and social history of this period.’ -- Yu Ying-shih, Emeritus Professor of East Asian Studies and History at Princeton University‘Wang Youqin is one of a number of Chinese-born scholars in the United States who have been undertaking the Cultural Revolution research that cannot be done in China. In this book, Professor Wang takes a very important step in the direction of making her fellow Chinese confront their recent past.’ -- Roderick MacFarquhar, Leroy B. Williams Professor of History and Political Science and former Director of the John King Fairbank Center for East Asian Research at Harvard University‘Insightful… Mosher has abbreviated the work to great effect, taking away some of its encyclopedic nature and duplicative material while also adding new information that Wang collected in the intervening 20 years… [the book] gives a sense of the enduring nightmare of this period… The broader significance of this book and these developments is that the Chinese Communist Party has not been able to erase or control history the way it would like. Overseas scholars like Wang now feed into a broad discussion in China, challenging the Chinese Communist Party on its most sacred ground: its control of history.’ -- The China Project

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Book SynopsisThe battle for Ap Bia Mountain (Hill 937), was one of the fiercest of the entire Vietnam War.

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Book Synopsis

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