Asia

From the bestselling author of Kokoda and Gallipoli comes the epic story of Australia's deadliest Vietnam War battle. 4.31 pm: Enemy [on] left flank. Could be serious. 5.01 pm: Enemy ... penetrating both flanks and to north and south. 5.02: Running short of ammo. Require drop through trees. It...

The Mongol army led by Genghis Khan subjugated more lands and people in 25 years than the Romans did in 400....

The Anarchy tells the remarkable story of how one of the world’s most magnificent empires disintegrated and came to be replaced by a dangerously unregulated private company....

Lee, the founding father of modern Singapore and its prime minister from 1959 to 1990, has honed his wisdom during more than fifty years on the world stage....

The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon is a fascinating, detailed account of Japanese court life in the closing years of the 10th century....

The Art of War by Sun Tzu is much more than an ancient treatise on military strategy: it is a timeless guide on how to face challenges, make wise decisions, and win intelligently.

“A must read for anyone who wants to learn more about the history of the Islamic world” (San Francisco Chronicle) In Destiny Disrupted, Tamim Ansary tells the rich story of world history as it looks from a new perspective: with the evolution of the Muslim community at the center. His story...

On May 7, 1954, when the bullets stopped and the air stilled in Dien Bien Phu, there was no doubt that Vietnam could fight a mighty colonial power and win. After nearly a decade of struggle, a nation forged in the crucible of war had achieved a victory undreamed of....

Sasha Wakefield intertwines the life and legacy of Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyal (1594-1651) with her own personal spiritual journey as she explores Bhutan’s rich history.

This Very Short Introduction audiobook offers the listener an entry to understanding the world's most populous nation, giving an integrated picture of modern Chinese society, culture, economy, politics, and art....

In December 1937, in the capital of China, one of the most brutal massacres in the long annals of wartime barbarity occurred.

A Green Beret's gripping memoir of American Special Forces in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War....

The monumental struggle fought against Imperial Japan in the Asia/Pacific theater during World War II is primarily viewed as an American affair. While the United States did play a dominant role, the British and Commonwealth forces also made major contributions.

This landmark book, first published in 1978, remains one of the most influential books in the Social Sciences, particularly Ethnic Studies and Postcolonialism....

A Brief History of China tells of the development of a rich, complex civilization where the use of paper, writing, money, and gunpowder were widespread in ancient times and where silk, ceramics, tea, metal implements, and other products were produced and exported around the globe....

Once described by Mao Zedong as a "needle inside a ball of cotton", Deng was the pragmatic yet disciplined driving force behind China's radical transformation in the late 20th century....

From the Samuel Johnson Prize-winning author of Mao's Great Famine comes a timely and compelling account of China in the wake of Chairman Mao....

The explosive first-hand account of America's secret history in Afghanistan With the publication of Ghost Wars, Steve Coll became not only a Pulitzer Prize winner, but also the expert on the rise of the Taliban, the emergence of Bin Laden, and the secret efforts by CIA officers and their agents...

The first comprehensive and authoritative history of the Koh-i-Noor, arguably the most celebrated and mythologised jewel in the world....

South Korea's amazing rise from the ashes: the inside story of an economic, political, and cultural phenomenon....

A stunning exploration of the Greater Middle East, where lasting stability has often seemed just out of reach but may hold the key to the shifting world order of the twenty-first century “Engaging . . . Even those who resist Kaplan’s tragic sensibility have much to learn from his look at the...

Wing Chun is the most popular form of Chinese kung fu in the world today, with more than four million practitioners. This guide will fascinate and educate anyone interested in the martial arts, from beginner to master....

Many people in the West look upon the Second Sino-Japanese War, which took place in the 1930s and 1940s, as a sort of sideshow to the larger Second World War, but there is no separating the two....

Taj Mahal is Arabic for "crown of palaces", and the name could not be more fitting for one of the most instantly recognizable buildings in the world....

Lost Enlightenment chronicles this forgotten age of achievement, seeks to explain its rise, and explores the competing theories about the cause of its eventual demise....

The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) was the third most powerful navy in the world at the start of World War II, and came to dominate the Pacific in the early months of the war. This book details the Japanese ships which fought in the Pacific and examines the principles on which they were designed, how they were armed, when and where they were deployed and how effective they were in battle.

Japan's blissful isolation changed with the arrival of American Commodore Matthew Perry in 1853. In awe of the American weapons and ships, the Tokugawa shogunate quickly realized that they needed to evolve and modernize their military to survive, and a time of rapid change descended on Japan. Within a mere 30 years, the Tokugawa period’s great samurai caste was extinct. Military service was no longer the exclusive domain of the privileged warrior class who had combined the military with an intricate network of social status and vassalship to their feudal lords.

North Korea is perhaps the most intriguing, infamous and enigmatic nation of our modern world. Yet how many of us know its full history, and how it came to be? How can we understand such a strange, isolated state? This new edition seeks to provide some answers to these questions. Starting with its origins in the colonial period, Michael J Seth masterfully traces how North Korea transformed itself from a Soviet-style socialist state to the ultra-nationalist, dynastic dictatorship of the 21st century.

Cisnes salvajes marcó a toda una generación con la historia épica de tres hijas de la China del siglo XX. Comenzaba en 1909, bajo el último emperador, con el nacimiento de la abuela de Jung Chang, que se convirtió en concubina a los quince años, y recorría las vidas de tres generaciones de mujeres hasta la muerte de Mao Zedong y la llegada al poder de Deng Xiaoping. Casi medio siglo después, China ha pasado de ser un Estado arcaico y aislado a convertirse en una potencia mundial con Xi Jinping, que la ha transformado en un régimen comunista con rasgos capitalistas.

Ancient Japan: Untold Stories of Love, Power, and Everyday Life History is about more than just emperors, samurai, and war. It’s also about how real people lived, loved, and endured. Long before dating apps, there was the mysterious moonlight visit when men slipped into women’s rooms under the cover of darkness in a ritual woven from romance, danger, and deep cultural meaning. One misstep could ignite scandal, or a confrontation with a pitchfork.

Available for the first time in English, an intimate look into the private lives and spiritual experiences of 30 nuns and laywomen practicing under pioneering female Zen master Sozen Nagasawa Roshi in World War II-era Japan.

The English East India Company was the mother of the modern multinational. Its trading empire encircled the globe, importing Asian luxuries such as spices, textiles and teas. But it also conquered much of India with its private army and broke open China's markets with opium. The Company’s practices shocked its contemporaries and still reverberate today. This expanded edition explores how the four forces of scale, technology, finance and regulation drove its spectacular rise and fall.

The samurai are dead. That’s not a morbid or melancholic statement - just a fact. Every samurai who ever lived has long since passed, and only the memory of their way of life remains. By the mid 1800s, the old ways were fading. For centuries, Japanese society had followed a Confucian hierarchy that placed the samurai at the top.

Megalithic Wonders and Sacred Sites is a compelling exploration of Earth’s most mysterious ancient structures—from the silent stones of Stonehenge to the precision-cut megaliths of Baalbek and the enigma of Göbekli Tepe. This volume dives into the untold stories behind sacred ruins, prehistoric engineering, and the spiritual wisdom encoded in global monuments.

American forces in the Pacific faced an enemy unlike any in history. Soldiers who chose death over surrender, launched suicidal banzai charges, and crashed planes into ships. This wasn't madness. It was doctrine. Three cultural forces created history's most fanatical fighters. The ancient bushido code weaponized for modern war. The gyokusai belief that made surrender worse than death. And the emperor worship that convinced millions to die for a living god.

Fifteen Years Among the Top Knots: Life in Korea is a firsthand memoir by Lillias Underwood recounting her years of living and working in Korea during a period of profound cultural encounters and historical change. Writing from direct experience, she offers vivid observations of daily life, customs, family structures, and social traditions, while also sharing her Christian perspective and reflections on gospel mission work.

In 1911, Hermann Hesse sailed through southeastern Asian waters on a trip that would define much of his later writing. Hesse brings his unique eye to scenes such as adventures in a rickshaw, watching foreign theater performances, exploring strange floating cities on stilts, and luxuriating in...

There are very few modern hobbies that can honestly claim they have lived three distinct lives. Most begin as a craze, settle into a niche, and then either fade or become quietly institutional. The Pokémon Trading Card Game did something stranger and more enduring. It began as a children’s pastime, became a cultural flashpoint that adults argued about in staff rooms and school assemblies, then returned decades later as a booming adult obsession with its own economy, celebrities, and mythology. That alone would make it worth studying.

Born in the shadow of Ponniyin Selvan and inspired by Kalki Krishnamurthy's immortal legacy, this factual fiction ventures beyond known history into the most perilous moment of the Chola Empire. When a blazing comet returns, the same ominous signs that once preceded the murder of Aditya Karikalan rise again. As conspiracies stir within palace walls and loyalty turns fragile, a young Rajendra Chola finds himself encircled by prophecy, betrayal, and fate.

This is the story of how I awoken in the shadow of Chiyou. I experienced a spiritual awakening, and this is the story of that experience. This is my spiritual autobiography. This is the entirety of my spiritual journey up until I completed this audiobook in 2025. In this audiobook, I will only tell you the stories of my life based on what is relevant to my spiritual journey, so I will not bore you with the details in my life that are irrelevant. Although, this is not a complete autobiography, the stories associated with my spiritual journey will already paint a decent autobiography for you.