Asian Politics

In 1885, following the massacre of Chinese miners in Wyoming, communities throughout California and the Pacific Northwest harassed, assaulted, and expelled thousands of Chinese immigrants. The Chinese Must Go shows how American immigration policies incited this violence, and how this gave rise to the concept of the "alien" in America. Our story begins in the 1850s, before federal border control established strict divisions between citizens and aliens. By tracing the idea of the alien back to this violent era, Lew-Williams offers a new origin story of today's racialized border.

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. He confronted the damage wrought by the Cultural Revolution, dissolved Mao's cult of personality, and loosened the policies that had stunted China's growth. Obsessed with modernization, Deng opened trade relations with the West, which lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty. Yet he also answered to his authoritarian roots, most notably when he ordered the crackdown in 1989 at Tiananmen Square.

A classic of Japanese history, this audiobook is the preeminent work on the history of Japan. Newly revised and updated, A History of Japan is a single-volume complete history of the nation of Japan. Starting in ancient Japan during its early pre-history period, A History of Japan covers every important aspect of history and culture through feudal Japan to the post-Cold War period and collapse of the bubble economy in the early 1990s. Recent findings shed additional light on the origins of Japanese civilization and the birth of Japanese culture.

Some of the cruelest deeds of Japan's war in Asia did not occur on the battlefield, but in quiet, antiseptic medical wards in obscure parts of China. Far from front lines and prying eyes, Japanese doctors and their assistants subjected human guinea pigs to gruesome medical experiments in the name of science and Japan's wartime chemical and biological warfare research. Author Hal Gold draws upon a wealth of sources to construct a portrait of the Imperial Japanese Army's most notorious medical unit, giving an overview of its history and detailing its most shocking activities.

There is an ancient Chinese proverb that states, "Two tigers cannot share the same mountain." However, in East Asia, there are three tigers on that mountain: China, Japan, and Korea, and they have a long history of turmoil and tension with each other. In his latest entertaining and thought-provoking narrative travelogue, Michael Booth sets out to discover how deep, really, the enmity is between these three "tiger" nations and what prevents them from making peace.

The Scythians were nomadic horsemen who ranged wide across the grasslands of the Asian steppe from the Altai mountains in the east to the Great Hungarian Plain in the first millennium BC. Their steppe homeland bordered on a number of sedentary states to the south and there were, inevitably, numerous interactions between the nomads and their neighbours. The Scythians fought the Persians on a number of occasions, in one battle killing their king and on another occasion driving the invading army of Darius the Great from the steppe.

Listeners of this book will gain a clear understanding of what makes the Japanese, and their society, tick.

Korea was one of the last countries in Asia to be visited by Westerners, and its borders have remained largely unchanged since it was unified in the seventh century. Though it is one of the world's oldest and most ethnically homogeneous states, Korea was not born in a vacuum. Geographically isolated, the country was heavily influenced by powerful China and was often used as a bridge to the mainland by Japan. Calling themselves as "a shrimp among whales", Koreans borrowed elements of government, culture, and religion, all the while fiercely fighting to maintain independence.

Code of the Samurai is a 400-year-old explication of the rules and expectations embodied in Bushido, the Japanese Way of the Warrior. With a bright, conversational narrative by Thomas Cleary, this book is indispensable to corporate executives, students of Asian culture, martial artists, or anyone sincerely interested in Japan and its people.

Long overshadowed by Japan and China, South Korea is a small country that happens to be one of the great national success stories of the postwar period. From a failed state with no democratic tradition, ruined and partitioned by war, and sapped by a half-century of colonial rule, South Korea transformed itself in just 50 years into an economic powerhouse and a democracy that serves as a model for other countries. With no natural resources and a tradition of authoritarian rule, Korea managed to accomplish a second Asian miracle.

In The Ocean in the School, Rick Bonus tells the stories of Pacific Islander students as they and their allies struggled to transform a university they believed did not value their presence.

Welcome to The Book of Japanese Folklore: a fascinating journey through Japan’s folklore through profiles of the legendary creatures and beings who continue to live on in pop culture today. From the sly kitsune to the orgrish oni and mischievous shape-shifting tanuki, learn all about the origins of these fantastical and mythical creatures. With information on their cultural significance, and how it’s been spun into today’s popular culture, this tome teaches you about the stories and histories of the beings that inspired characters in your favorite movies, animes, manga, and games.

In the 70s and 80s, thousands of Hmong families made the journey from the war-torn jungles of Laos to the overcrowded refugee camps of Thailand and onward to the United States, all in search of a new place to call home. Decades later, their experiences remain largely unknown. Kao Kalia Yang was driven to tell her own family's story after her grandmother’s death. The Latehomecomer is a tribute to that grandmother, a remarkable woman whose spirit held her family together.

Indonesia is by far the largest nation in Southeast Asia and has the fourth-largest population in the world after the United States. Indonesian history and culture are especially relevant today as the island nation is an emerging power in the region with a dynamic new leader. It is a land of incredible diversity and unending paradoxes that has a long and rich history stretching back a thousand years and more.

In an extraordinary blend of narrative history, personal recollection, and oral testimony, the author presents a sweeping history of Asian Americans. This is a powerful and moving work that will resonate for all Americans, who together make up a nation of immigrants from other shores.

Spies and Lies a groundbreaking expose of elite influence operations by China's little-known Ministry of State Security. Revealing for the first time how the Chinese Communist Party has tasked its spies to deceive the world, it challenges the conventional account of China's past, present, and future.

From across the sea, they came by the thousands, escaping war and poverty in southern China to seek their fortunes in America. Converging on the enormous western worksite of the Transcontinental Railroad, the migrants spent years dynamiting tunnels through the snow-packed cliffs of the Sierra Nevada and laying tracks across the burning Utah desert. Their sweat and blood fueled the ascent of an interlinked, industrial United States. But those of them who survived this perilous effort would be pushed to the margins of American life and then to the fringes of public memory.

Born in war-ravaged Vietnam, Viet Nguyen arrived in the United States as a child refugee in 1975. The Nguyen family would soon move to San Jose, California, where the author grew up, attending UC-Berkeley in the aftermath of the shocking murder of Vincent Chin, which shaped the political sensibilities of a new generation of Asian Americans. The essays here, delivered originally as the prestigious Norton Lectures, proffer a new answer to a classic literary question: What does the outsider mean to literary writing?

Identical twins Isabella and Hà were born in Vietnam and raised on opposite sides of the world, each knowing little about the other’s existence, until they were reunited as teenagers, against all odds. Award-winning journalist Erika Hayasaki spent years and hundreds of hours interviewing each of the birth and adoptive family members and tells the girls’ incredible story from their perspectives, challenging conceptions about adoption and what it means to give a child a good life.

This is no mere observational account. The Future of Insurance, Volume IV: Asia Rising offers actionable insights, serving as both a roadmap and inspiration for those daring to navigate the future complexities of the insurance market—whether you're an industry professional, policy-maker, or a tech-savvy individual intrigued by the dynamism of business innovation.