Asia Politics

A major historical account of the Korean War, its origins, and its evolving impact on the world. Sixty years after North Korean troops crossed the 38th parallel into South Korea, the Korean War has not yet ended. Sheila Miyoshi Jager presents the first comprehensive history of this misunderstood war, one that risks involving the world’s superpowers - again. Her sweeping narrative ranges from the middle of the Second World War - when Korean independence was fiercely debated between Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill - to the present day.

تعد الحضارة الهندية من أقدم الحضارات الأصيلة الحية في آسيا والتي أثبتت قدرة فائقة على الاستمرار وتجديد نفسها في مواجهة التحديات. وللحضارة الهندية سمة مميزة شأنها شأن جميع الحضارات القديمة، وهي قدرتها على الاستمرار بالتقاليد، وفي الوقت نفسه استيعاب العوامل الخارجية وخلق معادلة جديدة. ولذلك، تبدو منطقة جنوب آسيا كيانًا حضاريًا فريدًا يتضمن تعددًا في اللغات والديانات والأعراف والثقافات، لكنها لم تشهد أبدًا وحدة سياسية من النوع الذي نراه في الدول القومية بأوروبا.

Using exclusive interviews with Suu Kyi since her release from 15 years of house arrest, as well as recently disclosed diplomatic cables, Pederson uncovers new facets to Suu Kyi's extraordinary story. The Burma Spring also reveals the extraordinary steps taken by First Lady Laura Bush to help Suu Kyi, as well as how former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton injected new momentum into Burma's democratic rebirth.

Throughout the late 1970s and early '80s, dozens of Japanese citizens were abducted from coastal Japanese towns by North Korean commandos. In what proved to be part of a global project, North Korea attempted to reeducate the abductees and train them to spy on the state's behalf. When the project faltered, the abductees were hidden in a series of guarded communities known as "Invitation-Only Zones" - the fiction being that these were exclusive enclaves, not prisons.

In the opening months of 1949, US President Harry S. Truman found himself faced with a looming diplomatic catastrophe - "perhaps the greatest that this country has ever suffered", as the journalist Walter Lippmann put it. Throughout the spring and summer, Mao Zedong's Communist armies fanned out across mainland China, annihilating the rival troops of America's onetime ally Chiang Kai-shek and taking control of Beijing, Shanghai, and other major cities.

Maverick environmental writers William J. Kelly and Chip Jacobs follow up their acclaimed Smogtown with a provocative examination of China’s ecological calamity already imperiling a warming planet. Toxic smog most people figured was obsolete needlessly kills as many there as the 9/11 attacks every day, while sometimes Grand Canyon-sized drifts of industrial particles aloft on the winds rain down ozone and waterway-poisoning mercury in America. Vivid, gonzo prose blends first-person reportage with exhaustive research and a sense of karma, describing the horror of "Cancer Villages", spellbinding "peasant revolts" against cancer-spreading plants, and much more....

Viceroys is the story of the British aristocracy sent to govern India during the reigns of five British monarchs. It is also the story of how the modern British identity was established. British history from the Hundred Years War onwards gives an impression of how the British were seen. It is a misconception or, more kindly, a British view. Until the 19th century the British did not have an identity readily recognised throughout the world. Even the Elizabethans were never established other than as great individuals. From 1815, an image of Britain as the first superpower was built that would make do until even the 21st century.

In Cambodia in the 1960s, Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge declared war on their own people, enslaving and slaughtering anybody who disagreed with them. Sichan Siv knew he would soon be a target - ending up, perhaps, as one of the millions of anonymous human skeletons buried in his nation's Killing Fields - so he heeded his mother's pleas and ran. Captured and forced to perform slave labor, Siv feared that he'd be worked to death or killed. But he never abandoned hope or his improbable dream of freedom - a dream that liberated him.

What are the possibilities—and hazards—facing America as it withdraws from Afghanistan and reviews its long engagement in Pakistan? Where is the Taliban now in both of these countries? What does the immediate future hold, and what are America’s choices going forward? These are some of the crucial questions that Ahmed Rashid—Pakistan’s preeminent journalist—takes on in this follow-up to his acclaimed Descent into Chaos.

India's relations with the People's Republic of China have captured the popular imagination ever since the 1950s but have rarely merited a detailed understanding of the issues. Individual episodes tend to arouse lively debate, which often dissipates without a deeper exploration of the factors that shaped the outcomes.

The 19th daughter of a local village leader in rural Afghanistan, Fawzia Koofi was left to die in the sun after birth by her mother. But she survived, and perseverance in the face of extreme hardship has defined her life ever since. Despite the abuse of her family, the exploitative Russian and Taliban regimes, the murders of her father, brother, and husband, and numerous attempts on her life, she rose to become the first Afghani woman Parliament speaker.

The United States is in the midst of a substantial and long-term national project, which is proceeding in fits and starts, to reorient its foreign policy to the East. The central tenet of this policy shift, aka the Pivot, is that the United States will need to do more with and in the Asia-Pacific hemisphere to help revitalize its own economy, to realize the full potential of the region's dramatic innovation, and to keep the peace in the world's most dynamic region, where the lion's share of the history of the 21st century will be written.

As Morgan Stanley's chief Asia specialist, getting Asia right is Stephen Roach's personal obsession, and this in-depth compilation represents more than 70 of Roach's key research efforts not just on Asia, but also on how the region fits into the broad context of increasingly globalized financial markets. The book argues that the "Asia factor" is not a static concept, but rather one that is constantly changing and evolving.

Entre 1958 y 1962 cuarenta y cinco millones de chinos perecieron a causa de los trabajos forzados, la violencia y la hambruna a los que fueron sometidos por el gobierno de Mao Zedong. Obsesionado con la empresa frenética del Gran Salto Adelante, su iniciativa, destinada a superar el modelo económico occidental en menos de quince años, provocó una de las mayores catástrofes humanas de la historia.

A decade ago, Burma was full of light and hope. Today, it has descended into darkness and despair. The once promising political and opening up of the country has been set back, possibly for a long time. How did this happen? Why? Many outside observers are surprised by the developments, but it was predictable. For those watching Burma the February 2021 coup was in the making for some time. Its seeds were planted in the constitution, which created false expectations on both the military and the civilian parties that both sides are going to emerge as long-term winners.

This is the story of the women who took part in the Long March, seen through the biographies of three key players. Lee and Wiles trace the womens' stories in three time periods: the Long March itself, a decade later at liberation and then 40 years on. Drawing on published and unpublished sources, including interviews, this is the moving story of one of the great events of 20th-century history.

Traveling across India, interviewing Hindu zealots, armed insurgents, jailed dissidents, and politicians and thinkers from across the political spectrum, Siddhartha Deb reveals a country in which forces old and new have aligned to endanger democracy. The result is an absorbing—and disturbing—portrait. India has become a religious fundamentalist dystopia, one depicted here with a novelist's precise language and eye for detail.

Gefährlicher Drache statt gemütlicher Panda: Mit welchen Strategien China die Welt erobert. Chinas Aufstieg zur Weltmacht ist unaufhaltsam. Lange erwartete man, dass sich das Land mit zunehmendem Wohlstand demokratisieren würde. Doch das Gegenteil ist der Fall. Die Kommunistische Partei Chinas will sich mit allen Mitteln an der Macht halten. Dafür werden Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft im eigenen Land auf Linie gebracht und ein weitreichendes Programm wurde entwickelt, mit dem China die westlichen Demokratien unterwandert und eine neue Weltordnung etablieren will.

Many see China's rise as a threat to US leadership in Asia and beyond. Thomas J. Christensen argues instead that the real challenge lies in dissuading China from regional aggression while eliciting its global cooperation. Drawing on decades of scholarship and experience as a senior diplomat, Christensen offers a deep perspective on China's military and economic capacity. Assessing China's political outlook and strategic goals, Christensen shows how nationalism and the threat of domestic instability influence the party's decisions about regional and global affairs.

A big part of Hindu and Indian mythology is the lengthy Mahabharata, with stories about princes, princesses, monsters, and many mysterious creatures. Krishna is one of the prominent figures in many ancient mythology writings from this region, and his victories over evil have been applauded and believed by many.