Asian History Books

New and Published Books

1. China and the First Vietnam War, 1947-54

   By Laura M. Calkins

   Series: Routledge Studies in the Modern History of Asia

   This book charts the development of the First Vietnam War – the war between the Vietnamese Communists (the Viet Minh) and the French colonial power – considering especially how relations between the Viet Minh and the Chinese Communists had a profound impact on the course of the war. It shows how...

   Published April 2nd 2013 by Routledge
2. Martial Arts and the Body Politic in Meiji Japan

   By Denis Gainty

   Series: Routledge Studies in the Modern History of Asia

   In 1895, the newly formed Greater Japan Martial Virtue Association (Dainippon Butokukai) held its first annual Martial Virtue Festival (butokusai) in the ancient capital of Kyoto. The Festival marked the arrival of a new iteration of modern Japan, as the Butokukai’s efforts to define and popularise...

   Published March 25th 2013 by Routledge
3. A Colonial Economy in Crisis

   Burma's Rice Cultivators and the World Depression of the 1930s

   By Ian Brown

   Series: Routledge Studies in the Modern History of Asia

   The book challenges the orthodox argument that rural populations which abandoned self-sufficiency to become single commodity producers, and were supposedly very vulnerable to the commodity price collapse of the 1930s Depression, did not suffer as much as has been supposed. It shows how the effects...

   Published March 21st 2013 by Routledge
4. Communist Indochina

   By R. B. Smith

   Edited by Beryl Williams

   Series: Routledge Studies in the Modern History of Asia

   This book examines the history of communist Indochina, from the foundation of the Indochinese Communist Party in 1929-30 to the end of the 1970s. It explores the impact of the Japanese invasion of Indochina in 1940, and the subsequent relationship between the Japanese occupiers and the Vichy French...

   Published March 21st 2013 by Routledge
5. The Origins of Himalayan Studies

   Brian Houghton Hodgson in Nepal and Darjeeling

   By David Waterhouse

   Series: Royal Asiatic Society Books

   Brian Hodgson lived in Nepal from 1820 to 1843 during which time he wrote and publisged extensively on Nepalese culture, religion, natural history, architecture, ethnography and linguistics. Contributors from leading historians of Nepal and South Asia and from specialists in Buddhist studies, art...

   Published March 21st 2013 by Routledge
6. Truth, History and Politics in Mongolia

   Memory of Heroes

   By Christopher Kaplonski

   Using Mongolia as its example, this book examines how knowledge is transmitted and transformed in light of political change by looking at shifting conceptions of historical figures. It suggests that the reflection of people's concept of themselves is a much greater influence in the writing of...

   Published March 21st 2013 by Routledge
7. Imperial Japan

   1926-1938

   By A Young

   Series: Routledge Library Editions: Japan

   A journalist on the Japan Chronicle for eleven years, the author collected in this volume the most significant current events for discussion. They include the financial crisis of 1927, hostilities with China and in particular Manchuria, Japan’s booming manufacturing industry, Japanese nationalism,...

   Published March 21st 2013 by Routledge
8. Japan and Britain at War and Peace

   Edited by Hugo Dobson, Nobuko Kosuge

   Series: Sheffield Centre for Japanese Studies/Routledge Series

   Since the events of the Second World War the relationship between Japan and Britain has undergone an extraordinary transformation, from bitter conflict to peaceful alliance. Japan and Britain at War and Peace is a multilayered examination of this bilateral relationship with an emphasis on the issue...

   Published March 14th 2013 by Routledge
9. The Death of Old Yokohama

   In the Great Japanese Earthquake of 1923

   By Otis Poole

   Series: Routledge Library Editions: Japan

   It was almost noon in the picturesque city of Yokohama on Saturday, September 1st 1923 when the first sway of one of the world’s most destructive earthquakes was felt. The first great shock lasted for four minutes and in that time every building in the city was destroyed, together with 100,000 of...

   Published March 11th 2013 by Routledge
10. A Cultural History of Postwar Japan

    1945-1980

    By Shunsuke Tsurumi

    Series: Routledge Library Editions: Japan

    Shunsuke Tsurumi, one of Japan’s most distinguished contemporary philosophers, continues his study of the intellectual and social history of modern Japan with this penetrating analysis of popular culture in the post-war years. Japanese manga (comics), manzai (dialogues), television, advertising and...

    Published March 11th 2013 by Routledge