New Books in East Asian Studies

Justin M. Jacobs, Xinjiang and the Modern Chinese State (U. Washington Press, 2016)

09 Dec 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Justin M. Jacob‘s new book proposes that we understand modern China as a national empire, and traces the strategies of difference that have consiste...

Ruth Rogaski, “Hygienic Modernity: Meanings of Health and Disease in Treaty-Port China” (U. California Press, 2014 reprint)

07 Dec 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Since it was published in 2004, Ruth Rogaski’s Hygienic Modernity: Meanings of Health and Disease in Treaty-Port China (University of California Pre...

Robert Peckham, “Epidemics in Modern Asia” (Cambridge UP, 2016)

06 Nov 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Robert Peckham’s Epidemics in Modern Asia (Cambridge University Press, 2016) explores the crucial yet under-explored role that epidemics have played...

Kate Merkel-Hess, “The Rural Modern: Reconstructing the Self and State in Republican China” (U. Chicago Press, 2016)

01 Nov 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Kate Merkel-Hess‘s new book looks closely at a loose group of rural reformers in 1920s and 1930s China who were trying to create a rural alternative...

Pamela S. Turner, “Crow Smarts/Samurai Rising” (HMH/Charlesbridge, 2016)

28 Oct 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Award-winning author, Pamela S. Turner discusses two new books, Crow Smarts: Inside the Brain of the Worlds Smartest Bird (HMH Books for Young Readers...

Jessamyn R. Abel, “The International Minimum: Creativity and Contradiction in Japan’s Global Engagement, 1933-1964” (U. of Hawaii Press, 2015)

24 Oct 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Jessamyn R. Abel’s new book carefully traces the rise and transformations of an internationalist worldview in modern Japan, from its withdrawal from...

John Prados, “Storm Over Leyte: The Philippine Invasion and the Destruction of the Japanese Navy” (NAL, 2016)

13 Oct 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Narratives of the Pacific War frequently examine the 1944 Battle of Leyte Gulf from the operational perspective, focusing on the desperate actions of ...

Kristin Stapleton, “Fact in Fiction: 1920s China and Ba Jin’s Family” (Stanford UP, 2016)

05 Oct 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Kristin Stapleton’s new book opens onto a political crisis in China, and into a spirit of reform touched off by student demonstrations on May 4, 191...

Ellen Widmer, “Fiction’s Family: Zhan Xi, Zhan Kai, and the Business of Women in Late-Qing China” (Harvard UP, 2016)

21 Sep 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Ellen Widmer’s new book tells a story of the life and work of a literary family in China, in order to open out into a fascinating discussion of the ...

Liam Brockey, “The Visitor: Andre Palmeiro and the Jesuits in Asia” (Harvard UP, 2014)

11 Sep 2016

Contributed by Lukas

The transmission of a religion closely connected to a particular culture into a very different religious and cultural environment is a difficult act o...

Akiko Takenaka, “Yasukuni Shrine: History, Memory, and Japan’s Unending Postwar” (U. of Hawaii Press, 2015)

24 Aug 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Akiko Takenaka’s new book looks carefully at Yasukuni Shrine as a war memorial, examining its role in waging war, honoring the dead, promoting peace...

Patricia Buckley Ebrey, “Emperor Huizong” (Harvard UP, 2014)

23 Aug 2016

Contributed by Lukas

The Song Chinese emperor Huizong (r. 1100-1126 CE) has long been regarded as a failure due to his dynasty’s defeat in their war against the Jurchens...

Richard L. Davis, “From Warhorses to Ploughshares: The Later Tang Reign of Emperor Mingzong” (Hong Kong UP, 2015)

17 Aug 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Ruling as he did during the Five Dynasties period of Chinese history, the emperor Mingzong (r. 926-933) has not received the same degree attention fro...

Morgan Pitelka, “Spectacular Accumulation: Material Culture, Tokugawa Ieyasu, and Samurai Sociability” (U. of Hawaii Press, 2016)

10 Aug 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Morgan Pitelka’s new book looks closely at the material culture of the Three Unifiers of the late sixteenth century in Japan– Oda Nobunaga, Toyoto...

Paul Roquet, “Ambient Media: Japanese Atmospheres of Self” (U. of Minnesota Press, 2016)

31 Jul 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Paul Roquet’s wonderful new book begins with an offering of jellyfish and proceeds to teach us how to read the air. Ambient Media: Japanese Atmosphe...

Mark R. E. Meulenbeld, “Demonic Warfare: Daoism, Territorial Networks, and the History of a Ming Novel” (U. of Hawaii Press, 2015)

25 Jul 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Mark R. E. Meulenbeld’s new book looks closely at the relationship between vernacular novels and vernacular rituals in Ming China. Focusing on a par...

David Brophy, “Uyghur Nation: Reform and Revolution on the Russia-China Frontier” (Harvard UP, 2016)

13 Jul 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Bringing together secondary and primary sources in a wide range of languages, David Brophy’s new book is a masterful study of the modern history of ...

Noriko Manabe, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: Protest Music After Fukushima” (Oxford UP, 2015)

09 Jul 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Noriko Manabe’s new book is a compelling analysis of the content, performance style, and role of music in social movements in contemporary Japan. Pa...

Miranda Brown, “The Art of Medicine in Early China: The Ancient and Medieval Origins of a Modern Archive” (Cambridge UP, 2015)

05 Jul 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Miranda Brown‘s new book takes a sustained look at the role and significance of the medical fathers in the historiography of Chinese medicine. Payin...

Susan Turner Haynes, “Chinese Nuclear Proliferation: How Global Politics is Transforming China’s Weapons Buildup and Modernization” (Potomac Books, 2016)

01 Jul 2016

Contributed by Lukas

While the world’s attention is focused on the nuclearization of North Korea and Iran and the nuclear brinkmanship between India and Pakistan, China ...

Chuing Prudence Chou and Jonathan Spangler, eds. “Chinese Education Models in a Global Age” (Springer, 2016)

18 Jun 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Dr. Chuing Prudence Chou, Professor, Department of Education, National Chengchi University, rejoins the New Books Network to discuss her newly edited ...

Kirk A. Denton, “Exhibiting the Past: Historical Memory and the Politics of Museums in Postsocialist China” (U. of Hawaii Press, 2014)

15 Jun 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Kirk A. Denton‘s recent book explores the role of the state in China in shaping particular visions of the past through work in and with museums. Foc...

Pi-Ching Hsu, “Feng Menglong’s ‘Treasury of Laughs’: A Seventeenth-Century Anthology of Traditional Chinese Humour” (Brill, 2015)

08 Jun 2016

Contributed by Lukas

The Treasury of Laughs was compiled by Feng Menglong in the 1610s. It includes more than 700 humorous skits and jokes from elite and popular sources, ...

Mingwei Song, “Young China: National Rejuvenation and the Bildungsroman, 1900-1959” (Harvard University Asia Center, 2016)

03 Jun 2016

Contributed by Lukas

What does it mean to be young? Mingwei Song‘s new book explores this question in the context of a careful study of the nature and significance of th...

Stephen L. Field, “The Duke of Zhou Changes: A Study and Annotated Translation of the Zhouyi” (Harrassowitz Verlag, 2015)

20 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Stephen L. Field‘s new translation and study of the Zhouyi offers an inspiring and fresh take that importantly differs from previous translators app...

Ho-fung Hung, “The China Boom: Why China Will Not Rule the World” (Columbia UP, 2016)

18 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Ho-fung Hung‘s new book has two main goals: to to outline the historical origins of Chinas capitalist boom and the social and political formations i...

Anthony Rausch, “Japan’s Local Newspapers: Chihoshi and Revitalization Journalism” (Routledge, 2012)

13 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Anthony Rausch‘s recent work looks closely at newspapers and journalism in modern Japan, focusing especially on the nature and significance of local...

Robert S. Boynton, “The Invitation-Only Zone: The True Story of North Korea’s Abduction Project” (FSG, 2016)

07 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

The inspiration for Robert S. Boynton‘s new book began with a photograph in the New York Times in October 2002. In the photo, two middle-aged Japane...

Matthew H. Sommer, “Polyandry and Wife-Selling in Qing Dynasty China” (U of California Press, 2015)

04 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

First things first: Matthew H. Sommer‘s new book is an absolute must-read for anyone interested in the history of China and/or the history of gender...

Brian James DeMare, “Mao’s Cultural Army: Drama Troupes in Chinas Rural Revolution” (Cambridge UP, 2015)

02 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

The Chinese Revolution was a profoundly theatrical event. Brian James DeMare’s new book explores the relationship between drama and political action...

Seth Jacobowitz, “Writing Technology in Meiji Japan” (Harvard UP, 2015)

26 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Seth Jacobowitzs new book opens with a balloon ride and closes with a record-scratching cat, and in between it offers a fascinating history of Meiji m...

Beverly Bossler, ed., “Gender and Chinese History: Transformative Encounters” (U of Washington Press, 2015)

18 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Beverly Bossler‘s wonderful new edited volume is a must-read for anyone interested in histories of and with gender in China. Gender and Chinese Hist...

Douglas Clark, “Gunboat Justice: British and American Law Courts in China and Japan (1842-1943)” (Earnshaw Books, 2016)

11 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Douglas Clark’s new Gunboat Justice: British and American Law Courts in China and Japan (1842-1943) (Earnshaw Books Limited, 2016) is a three-volume...

Sigrid Schmalzer, “Red Revolution, Green Revolution: Scientific Farming in Socialist China” (University of Chicago Press, 2016)

11 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Sigrid Schmalzer‘s new book is an excellent and important contribution to both science studies and the history of China. Red Revolution, Green Revol...

Jeffrey Wasserstrom, “Eight Juxtapositions: China through Imperfect Analogies from Mark Twain to Manchukuo” (e-Penguin, 2016)

03 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Jeffrey Wasserstrom‘s wonderful new book in the “China Specials” series at Penguin opens with two main premises. First, it is more important tha...

Minsoo Kang, trans. “The Story of Hong Gildong” (Penguin Classics, 2016)

01 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Minsoo Kang‘s new translation of The Story of Hong Gildong (Penguin Classics, 2016) is a wonderful rendering of a text that is arguably the “singl...

Erik Hammerstrom, “The Science of Chinese Buddhism: Early Twentieth-Century Engagements” (Columbia UP, 2015)

30 Mar 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Erik J. Hammerstrom‘s new book looks carefully at “what Chinese Buddhists thought about science in the first part of the twentieth century” by e...

Pamela D. Winfield, “Icons and Iconoclasm in Japanese Buddhism: Kukai and Dogen on the Art of Enlightenment” (Oxford UP, 2013)

29 Mar 2016

Contributed by Lukas

What role do images play in the enlightenment experience? Can Buddha images, calligraphy, mandalas, and portraits function as nodes of access for a pr...

Eubanks, Abel and Chen, eds., “Verge: Studies in Global Asias 1.2: Collecting Asias” (U of Minnesota Press, 2015)

18 Mar 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Verge: Studies in Global Asias is an inspiring and path-breaking new journal that explores innovative forms for individual and collaborative scholarly...

Paul Rouzer, “On Cold Mountain: A Buddhist Reading of the Hanshan Poems” (U. of Washington Press, 2015)

14 Mar 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Paul Rouzer‘s new book offers a Buddhist reading of a famous collection of poems and the author associated with them, both of which were called Hans...

J. Brown and M. D. Johnson, eds., “Maoism at the Grassroots: Everyday Life in China’s Era of High Socialism” (Harvard UP, 2015)

07 Mar 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Jeremy Brown and Matthew D. Johnson‘s new edited volume offers a fresh perspective on the history of the Mao Zedong era (1949-1978). Maoism at the G...

Christopher Bondy, “Voice, Silence, and Self: Negotiations of Buraku Identity in Contemporary Japan” (Harvard Asia Center, 2015)

01 Mar 2016

Contributed by Lukas

“You are a member of a minority group but do not know it. How is this possible?” Christopher Bondy’s new book explores this question in a study ...

Will Buckingham, “Sixty-Four Chance Pieces: A Book of Changes” (Earnshaw Books, 2015)

20 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Will Buckingham‘s new book is a wonderful cycle of stories that are inspired by and speak back to the Chinese Yijing, the Classic of Changes. Sixty-...

Agnieszka Joniak-Luthi, “The Han: China’s Diverse Majority” (U of Washington Press, 2015)

16 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Agnieszka Joniak-Luthi‘s new book opens with a series of questions that animate the study. They include but are not limited to: What does being Han ...

Erica Fox Brindley, “Ancient China and the Yue: Perceptions and Identities on the Southern Frontier, c.400 BCE-50 CE” (Cambridge UP, 2015)

03 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Erica Fox Brindley‘s new book is a powerful study of the history of conceptions of ethnicity in early China that focuses on the Hua-xia and the peop...

Miao Li, “Citizenship Education and Migrant Youth in China: Pathways to the Urban Underclass” (Routledge, 2015)

03 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Dr. Miao Li, assistant professor, Department of Sociology and School of Philosophy and Social Development at Shandong University, joins New Books in E...

Lisong Liu, “Chinese Student Migration and Selective Citizenship” (Routledge, 2015)

29 Jan 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Lisong Liu‘s thoughtful new book is an important and insightful read for any of us who are currently engaged in conversations about supporting the i...

Heather Blair, “Real and Imagined: The Peak of Gold in Heian Japan” (Harvard U Asia Center, 2015)

20 Jan 2016

Contributed by Lukas

In her recent monograph, Real and Imagined: The Peak of Gold in Heian Japan (Harvard University Asia Center, 2015), Heather Blair explores the religio...

Joan Judge, “Republican Lens: Gender, Visuality, and Experience in the Early Chinese Periodical Press” (U of California Press, 2015)

19 Jan 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Joan Judge‘s wonderful new book takes readers into the pages of the Funu shibao (the Women’s Eastern Times), a “Shanghai-based, nationally distr...

James A. Benn, “Tea in China: A Religious and Cultural History” (U of Hawaii Press, 2015)

04 Jan 2016

Contributed by Lukas

James A. Benn‘s new book is a history of tea as a religious and cultural commodity in China before it became a global commodity in the nineteenth ce...

Christopher Rea, “The Age of Irreverence: A New History of Laughter in China” (University of California Press, 2015)

21 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Christopher Rea‘s new book explores five kinds of laughter that emerged from the tumultuous first decades of China’s twentieth century: jokes, pla...

Janet Gyatso, Being Human in a Buddhist World: An Intellectual History of Medicine in Early Modern Tibet (Columbia University Press, 2015)

18 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Janet Gyatso‘s new book is a masterfully researched, compellingly written, and gorgeously illustrated history of medicine in early modern Tibet that...

Francesca Bray et al.,eds., “Rice: Global Networks and New Histories” (Cambridge UP, 2015)

14 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

The new edited volume by Francesca Bray, Peter Coclanis, Edda Fields-Black and Dagmar Schafer is a wonderfully interdisciplinary global history of ric...

Nanxiu Qian, “Politics, Poetics, and Gender in Late Qing China: Xue Shaohui and the Era of Reform” (Stanford UP, 2015)

11 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Nanxiu Qian, professor at Rice University, discusses her new book Politics, Poetics, and Gender in Late Qing China: Xue Shaohui and the Era of Reform ...

Roberta Wue, “Art Worlds: Artists, Images, and Audiences in Late 19th-Century Shanghai” (U of Hawaii Press, 2014)

11 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Roberta Wue‘s new book brings readers into the world of late Qing Shanghai, a center of art, culture, and entertainment. As artists fled to the city...

Peter van der Veer, “The Modern Spirit of Asia: The Spiritual and the Secular in China and India” Princeton University Press, 2013

07 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

What are the differences between religion, magic, and spirituality? Over time, these categories have been articulated in a variety of ways across diff...

Ping Foong, “The Efficacious Landscape: On the Authorities of Painting at the Northern Song Court” (Harvard UP, 2015)

09 Nov 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Ink landscape painting was distinctive to the Song dynasty, and the Northern Song period was a special time for the medium. By the tenth century, this...

Linda Rui Feng, “City of Marvel and Transformation” (U of Hawai’i Press, 2015)

27 Oct 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Linda Rui Feng‘s beautiful new book shows us the Tang city of Chang’an as we’ve not seen it before. City of Marvel and Transformation: Chang’a...

Joseph R. Dennis, “Writing, Publishing, and Reading Local Gazetteers in Imperial China, 1100-1700” (Harvard University Asia Center, 2015)

18 Oct 2015

Contributed by Lukas

In late imperial China, how did local elites connect with and influence the central government? How was local information made and managed? How did th...

Eric Tagliacozzo, et al., “Asia Inside Out: Connected Places” (Harvard UP, 2015)

28 Sep 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Eric Tagliacozzo, Peter C. Perdue, and Helen F. Siu‘s “Asia Inside Out” project is a model for interdisciplinary and collaborative scholarship i...

Federico Marcon, “The Knowledge of Nature and the Nature of Knowledge in Early Modern Japan” (U of Chicago, 2015)

22 Sep 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Federico Marcon‘s new book opens a fascinating window into the history of Japan’s relationship to its natural environment. The Knowledge of Nature...

Minghui Hu, “China’s Transition to Modernity: The New Classical Vision of Dai Zhen” (U of Washington Press, 2015)

15 Sep 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Minghui Hu‘s new book takes Dai Zhen as a case study to look at broader transformations in classical scholarship, technical methodologies, politics,...

Chuck Wooldridge, “City of Virtues: Nanjing in an Age of Utopian Visions” (University of Washington Press, 2015)

10 Sep 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Nineteenth-century Nanjing was a “city of virtues,” the raw material out of which a series of communities in China built the time and space of the...

Anna M. Shields, “One Who Knows Me: Friendship and Literary Culture in Mid-Tang China” (Harvard UP, 2015)

04 Sep 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Anna M. Shields has written a marvelous book on friendship, literature, and history in medieval China. One Who Knows Me: Friendship and Literary Cultu...

Gordon H. Chang, “Fateful Ties: A History of America’s Preoccupation with China” (Harvard UP, 2015)

30 Aug 2015

Contributed by Lukas

“There was China before there was an America, and it is because of China that America came to be.” According to Gordon H. Chang‘s new book, the ...

Shellen Wu, “Empires of Coal: Fueling China’s Entry into the Modern World Order, 1860-1920” (Stanford UP, 2015)

25 Aug 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Shellen Wu‘s new book is a fascinating and timely contribution to the histories of China, science, technology, and the modern world. Empires of Coal...

Paul A. Christensen, “Japan, Alcoholism, and Masculinity: Suffering Sobriety in Tokyo” (Lexington Books, 2014)

19 Aug 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Paul A. Christensen‘s new book is a thoughtful ethnography of drinking, drunkenness, and male sociability in modern urban Japan. Focusing on two maj...

Parks M. Coble, “China’s War Reporters: The Legacy of Resistance against Japan” (Harvard UP, 2015)

10 Aug 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Parks M. Coble‘s new book is a wonderful study of memory, war, and history that takes the Sino-Japanese War of 1937-1945 and its aftermath as its fo...

Barak Kushner, “Men to Devils, Devils to Men: Japanese War Crimes and Chinese Justice” (Harvard UP, 2015)

01 Aug 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Barak Kushner‘s new book considers what happened in the wake of Japan’s surrender, looking closely at diplomatic and military efforts to bring “...

Kirsteen Kim and Sebastian C. H. Kim, “A History of Korean Christianity” (Cambridge UP, 2014)

26 Jul 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Korea presents a fascinating chapter in the history of Christianity. For instance, the first continuous Christian community in the peninsula was found...

Jonathan M. Reynolds, “Allegories of Time and Space: Japanese Identity in Photography and Architecture” (U of Hawaii Press, 2015)

24 Jul 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Jonathan M. Reynolds‘s new book looks carefully at how photographers, architects, and others wrestled with a postwar identity crisis as they explore...

Barry Allen, “Vanishing into Things: Knowledge in Chinese Tradition” (Harvard University Press, 2015)

17 Jul 2015

Contributed by Lukas

What is knowledge, why is it valuable, and how might it be cultivated? Barry Allen‘s new book carefully considers the problem of knowledge in a rang...

Carlos Rojas, “Homesickness: Culture, Contagion, and National Transformation in Modern China” (Harvard UP, 2015)

08 Jul 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Carlos Rojas‘s new book is a wonderfully transdisciplinary exploration of discourses of sickness and disease in Chinese literature and cinema in the...

Steven E. Kemper, “Rescued from the Nation: Anagarika Dharmapala and the Buddhist World” (U of Chicago Press, 2015)

27 Jun 2015

Contributed by Lukas

In his recent book, Rescued from the Nation: Anagarika Dharmapala and the Buddhist World (University of Chicago Press, 2015), Steven E. Kemper examine...

Emily T. Yeh, “Taming Tibet: Landscape Transformation and the Gift of Chinese Development” (Cornell UP, 2013)

15 Jun 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Emily T. Yeh‘s Taming Tibet: Landscape Transformation and the Gift of Chinese Development (Cornell University Press, 2013) is an award-winning criti...

Ruth Hayhoe, “China Through the Lens of Comparative Education: The Selected Works of Ruth Hayhoe” (Routledge. 2015)

14 Jun 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Dr. Ruth Hayhoe, professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto, has dedicated her academic career to the st...

Tenzin Chogyel (trans. Kurtis R. Schaeffer), “The Life of the Buddha” (Penguin Books, 2015)

08 Jun 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Kurtis R. Schaeffer‘s new translation of Tenzin Chogyel’s The Life of the Buddha(Penguin Books, 2015) is a boon for teachers, researchers, and eag...

Brett Sheehan, “Industrial Eden: A Chinese Capitalist Vision” (Harvard UP, 2015)

02 Jun 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Brett Sheehan‘s new book traces the interwoven histories of capitalism and the Song family under a series of five authoritarian governments in North...

Winnie Won Yin Wong, "Van Gogh on Demand: China and the Readymade" (U Chicago Press, 2014)

26 May 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Reading Winnie Wong's new book on image production in Dafen village will likely change the way you think about copying, China, and the relationship b...

Julie Sze, “Fantasy Islands: Chinese Dreams and Ecological Fears in an Age of Climate Crisis” (U of California Press, 2015)

19 May 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Julie Sze‘s new book opens by bringing readers into the wetlands of Dongtan, introducing us to an ambitious but unrealized project to create the “...

Lu Zhang, “Inside China’s Automobile Factories” (Cambridge UP, 2014)

10 May 2015

Contributed by Lukas

China’s automobile industry has grown considerably over the past two decades. Massive foreign investment and an increased scale and concentration of...

John K. Nelson, “Experimental Buddhism: Innovation and Activism in Contemporary Japan” (U of Hawaii Press, 2013)

07 May 2015

Contributed by Lukas

In his recent book, Experimental Buddhism: Innovation and Activism in Contemporary Japan (University of Hawaii Press, 2013), John K. Nelson delves int...

Michael Nylan and Griet Vankeerberghen, “Chang’an 26 BCE: An Augustan Age in China” (U of Washington Press, 2015)

05 May 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Michael Nylan and Griet Vankeerberghen have produced a landmark volume. Chang’an 26 BCE: An Augustan Age in China (University of Washington Press, 2...

Rajika Bhandari and Alessia Lefebure, “Asia: The Next Higher Education Superpower?” (2015)

05 May 2015

Contributed by Lukas

The development of higher education in Asia has been as dramatic as the region’s rapid economic rise. The landscape of this diverse and ever-changin...

Stuart Young, “Conceiving the Indian Buddhist Patriarchs in China” (U of Hawaii Press, 2014)

25 Apr 2015

Contributed by Lukas

In Conceiving the Indian Buddhist Patriarchs in China (University of Hawai’i Press, 2015), Stuart Young examines Chinese hagiographic representation...

Albert L. Park, “Building a Heaven on Earth: Religion, Activism, and Protest in Japanese Occupied Korea” (U of Hawaii Press, )

24 Apr 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Christians, like other religious people, have to manage the relationship between their belief in supernatural forces and an afterlife on one side, and...

David Hull (trans.), Mao Dun, “Waverings” (Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2014)

17 Apr 2015

Contributed by Lukas

David Hull‘s new translation of Mao Dun’s Waverings (Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2014)(Research Centre for Translation, Chinese University of...

Kurtis R. Schaeffer, et al. “The Tibetan History Reader/Sources of Tibetan Tradition” (Columbia UP, 2013)

11 Apr 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Two new books have recently been published that will change the way we can study and teach Tibetan studies, and Gray Tuttle and Kurtis Schaeffer were ...

David A. Pietz, “Yellow River: The Problem of Water in Modern China” (Harvard UP, 2015)

06 Apr 2015

Contributed by Lukas

David A. Pietz‘s new book argues that China’s water challenges are historically grounded, and that these historical realities are not going to dis...

Jie Li, “Shanghai Homes: Palimpsests of Private Life” (Columbia UP, 2015)

30 Mar 2015

Contributed by Lukas

What’s not to love about Jie Li‘s new book? Shanghai Homes: Palimpsests of Private Life (Columbia University Press, 2015) explores the history and...

Emily Anderson, “Christianity and Imperialism in Modern Japan: Empire for God” (Bloomsbury, 2014)

27 Mar 2015

Contributed by Lukas

When one thinks of the connection of religion and imperialism in Japan, one automatically thinks first of Shintoism and second of Buddhism. Christiani...

Agnieszka Helman-Wazny, “The Archaeology of Tibetan Books” (Brill, 2014)

21 Mar 2015

Contributed by Lukas

In Archaeology of Tibetan Books (Brill, 2014), Agnieszka Helman-Wazny explores the varieties of artistic expression, materials, and tools that have sh...

Wen Jin, “Pluralist Universalism: An Asian Americanist Critique of U.S. and Chinese Multiculturalisms” (Ohio State University Press, 2012)

20 Mar 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Wen Jin’s book, Pluralist Universalism: An Asian Americanist Critique of U.S. and Chinese Multiculturalisms (Ohio State Press, 2012), compares histo...

Tanya Storch, “The History of Chinese Buddhist Bibliography: Censorship and Transformation of the Tripitaka (Cambria, 2014),

18 Mar 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Tanya Storch‘s recent book, The History of Chinese Buddhist Bibliography: Censorship and Transformation of the Tripitaka (Cambria, 2014), focuses on...

Mark Dennis and Darren Middleton, eds., “Approaching Silence: New Perspectives on Shusaku Endo’s Classic Novel” (Bloomsbury, 2015)

15 Mar 2015

Contributed by Lukas

What does it mean to be a martyr? What does it mean to be an apostate? How should we understand people who choose one or the other? These are the ques...

Eugene N. Anderson, “Food and Environment in Early and Medieval China” (U of Pennsylvania Press, 2014)

15 Mar 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Eugene N. Anderson‘s new book offers an expansive history of food, environment, and their relationships in China. From prehistory through the Ming a...

Sarah M. Allen, “Shifting Stories: History, Gossip, and Lore in Narratives from Tang Dynasty China” (Harvard University Asia Center, 2014)

09 Mar 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Sarah M. Allen‘s new book looks at the literature of tales in eighth- and ninth-century China. Shifting Stories: History, Gossip, and Lore in Narrat...

Wilt Idema, “The Resurrected Skeleton: From Zhuangzi to Lu Xun” (Columbia University Press, 2014)

04 Mar 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Wilt Idema‘s new book traces a story and its transformations through hundreds of years of Chinese literature. The Resurrected Skeleton: From Zhuangz...

Kristina Kleutghen, “Imperial Illusions: Crossing Pictorial Boundaries in the Qing Palaces” (U of Washington Press, 2015)

20 Feb 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Kristina Kleutghen‘s beautiful new book offers a fascinating window into the culture of illusion in China in the eighteenth century and beyond. Impe...

Byonghyon Choi, “The Annals of King T’aejo: Founder of Korea’s Choson Dynasty” (Harvard UP, 2014)

18 Feb 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Byonghyon Choi‘s new book makes a key document of Korean and world history available in English in a volume that will be tremendously useful for bot...