Blood Dawn
World War II and the Making of Modern Asia
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Blood Dawn
Pre-order for $31.86
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Narrated by:
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By:
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Hans van de Ven
About this listen
'Essential reading for understanding Asia's present' RICHARD OVERY
A momentous new history of World War II in Asia.
In the early twentieth century, from India to China, Western imperial powers dominated Asia. Then, in the 1930s, Japan began to tear down this old order in pursuit of its own imperial ambitions - first by invading China, and then by launching its assault against British, Dutch, and American outposts across Asia and the Pacific in December 1941. As Japanese forces seized vast swaths of territory and pressed toward India, the brutal fighting cost millions of lives across the continent. Simultaneously, the war's chaos and suffering supercharged anti-colonial movements from British India to Dutch Indonesia. Ultimately, it was the charismatic leaders of these movements - Mao, Nehru, Sukarno - who built the new Asia of independent nation-states that emerged in the war's bloody wake.
Drawing on deep archival research across continents, leading historian Hans van de Ven tells the dramatic story of how Asia's people mobilized to defeat both Japanese aggression and European imperialism, forging modern Asia in the process.
Blood Dawn is a landmark new account of one of the most important and overlooked episodes of the twentieth century, revealing how Asia's Second World War was central in creating the post-war order.©2025 Hans van de Ven (P)2026 Hodder & Stoughton Limited
Critic Reviews
World War II in Asia is essential context for understanding the political and economic revolution that has created the modern Asian world. Hans Van de Ven has produced a concise, stimulating, and highly readable account of how the war made that transformation possible. Essential reading for understanding Asia's present (Richard Overy, author of BLOOD AND RUINS)
Blood Dawn does something essential: it restores the missing map of Asia to the history of World War II. It recognises, fully and soberly, the endurance, sacrifice, and contribution of Asian peoples long written out of the central narrative (Xinran, author of THE GOOD WOMEN OF CHINA)
World War II is central to modern global history, and Asia is central to World War II. Yet until now, it has been hard to find a history of Asia's role in the war that combines expert judgement about the region's importance and deep research to underpin the analysis. Hans van de Ven's Blood Dawn breaks new ground with its skilled and lucid prose that brings together understanding of war, anti-imperialism and strategic analysis with research in archives and materials that spans languages and continents. A monumental and essential work (Rana Mitter, author of CHINA'S GOOD WAR)
Written with an impressive clarity of thought and prose, this is the history we so badly needed to balance the West's version of the Second World War (Antony Beevor, author of STALINGRAD)
This fascinating history will reset how many Western readers understand the second world war in Asia. With skill and verve Hans van de Ven challenges framings of the conflict as a heroic saga ending with the Allied defeat of Japan . . . The lessons could hardly be more timely today, as nationalist movements and leaders reshape a world order that is in tumult once more (David Rennie)
World War II was a global conflict, but its history, memory and lessons are still predominantly Eurocentric. Concise and erudite, well written and highly accessible, Blood Dawn offers a necessary corrective and places Asia and its transformation from Empires and colonies to nation states the at the center of the World War II history. A necessary reading for those seeking to understand World War II as a truly global war (Eugene Finkel, author of TO KILL UKRAINE)
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