{"title":"Asian History","description":"","products":[{"product_id":"the-taiwan-story-how-a-small-island-will-dictate-the-global-future-by-kerry-brown-pre-order","title":"The Taiwan Story: How a Small Island Will Dictate the Global Future by Kerry Brown","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAn urgent, indispensable guide to why Taiwan matters – for China, the West and everyone’s future.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWhen the bloody Chinese Civil War concluded in 1949, two Chinas were born. Mao’s Communists won and took China’s mainland; Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists fled to Taiwan island. Since then, China and Taiwan have drifted into being separate political and cultural entities.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eTaiwan is now a flourishing democracy and an economic success story: just one of its companies produces over 90 per cent of the semiconductors that power the world’s economy. It is a free and vibrant society. For the United States and the West, the island is a bastion of freedom against China’s assertive presence in the region.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAnd yet China, increasingly bellicose under Xi Jinping, insists Taiwan is part of its territory and must be returned to it. Should China blockade the island and mount an invasion, it would set off a chain reaction that would pitch it against the US – escalating a regional war into a global one. Taiwan is thus a geopolitical powder keg.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe Taiwan Story helps us understand how and why we’ve arrived at this dangerous moment in history. With unparalleled access to Taiwan’s political leaders and a deep understanding of the island’s history and culture, Professor Kerry Brown provides a new reading of Taiwan, its twenty-three million people, and how they navigate being caught in this frightening geopolitical standoff. This is the essential book delving into Taiwan’s unique story, buried beneath the headlines, told in an accessible, expert and urgent way.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003ePaperback | Extent: 288 pages \u003cbr\u003ePublication: 6 Nov 2025, Penguin | ISBN: 9781405966092\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"David's Bookshop","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56025258557822,"sku":null,"price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0753\/0892\/5225\/files\/9781405966092.jpg?v=1753972372"},{"product_id":"a-short-history-of-japan-by-christopher-harding-pre-order","title":"A Short History of Japan by Christopher Harding","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e'A history that somehow manages to be at once succinct and sweeping: essential reading for anyone interested in this most fascinating of countries' Tom Holland\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIn this enormously enjoyable introduction to a remarkable country, Christopher Harding traces Japan's rich history over several millennia. Beginning with its earliest coastal communities through to the spread of Buddhism, the rise of the warlords, the promise and menace of the West and Japan's own empire-building, Harding explores how a distinctly Japanese society and culture was forged. Drawing on the latest scholarship, A Short History of Japan moves beyond traditional tourist-board clichés to consider Japan's own view of its past, values and culture, from ceramics and theatre to food and architecture.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe result is a sensory, tactile history conveying to the reader much about Japan’s special nature. Harding skilfully shows how these everyday details are intimately bound up with the bigger historical picture, as an expression of the values that have been extraordinarily successful in helping the country to cope with centuries of radical change.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eHardback | Extent: 240 pages | ISBN: 9780241563199\u003cbr\u003ePublication: 4 Sept 2025, Penguin\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"David's Bookshop","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56028044296574,"sku":null,"price":20.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0753\/0892\/5225\/files\/9780241563199.jpg?v=1754047451"},{"product_id":"japan-story-in-search-of-a-nation-1850-to-the-present-by-christopher-harding","title":"Japan Story: In Search of a Nation, 1850 to the Present by Christopher Harding","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThis is a fresh and surprising account of Japan's culture from the 'opening up' of the country in the mid-nineteenth century to the present. 'How much I admired it, what a lot I learned from it and, above all, how very much I enjoyed it ... Masterly.' Neil MacGregorIt is told through the eyes of people who greeted this change not with the confidence and grasping ambition of Japan's modernizers and nationalists, but with resistance, conflict, distress.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWe encounter writers of dramas, ghost stories and crime novels where modernity itself is the tragedy, the ghoul and the bad guy; surrealist and avant-garde artists sketching their escape; rebel kamikaze pilots and the put-upon urban poor; hypnotists and gangsters; men in desperate search of the eternal feminine and feminists in search of something more than state-sanctioned subservience; Buddhists without morals; Marxist terror groups; couches full to bursting with the psychological fall-out of breakneck modernization. These people all sprang from the soil of modern Japan, but their personalities and projects failed to fit. They were 'dark blossoms': both East-West hybrids and home-grown varieties that wreathed, probed and sometimes penetrated the new structures of mainstream Japan.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003ePaperback | Extent: 528 pages | ISBN: 9780141985374\u003cbr\u003ePublication: 1 Aug 2019, Penguin\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"David's Bookshop","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57176143626622,"sku":null,"price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0753\/0892\/5225\/files\/9780141985374.jpg?v=1774604669"},{"product_id":"shattered-lands-five-partitions-and-the-making-of-modern-asia-by-sam-dalrymple","title":"Shattered Lands: Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia by Sam Dalrymple","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDATE OF RELEASE: 30 JUL 2026\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e A Best Book of the Year in the Financial Times, The Week, Spectator, BBC History Magazine, NPR, History Today, Waterstones and Daunts\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eA history of modern South Asia told through five partitions that reshaped it. As recently as 1928, a vast swathe of Asia – India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Nepal, Bhutan, Yemen, Oman, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait – were bound together under a single imperial banner, an entity known officially as the ‘Indian Empire’, or more simply as the Raj. It was the British Empire’s crown jewel, a vast dominion stretching from the Red Sea to the jungles of Southeast Asia, home to a quarter of the world’s population and encompassing the largest Hindu, Muslim, Sikh and Zoroastrian communities on the planet.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIts people used the Indian rupee, were issued passports stamped ‘Indian Empire’, and were guarded by armies garrisoned in forts from the Bab el-Mandeb to the Himalayas And then, in the space of just fifty years, the Indian Empire shattered. Five partitions tore it apart, carving out new nations, redrawing maps, and leaving behind a legacy of war, exile and division. Shattered Lands, for the first time, presents the whole story of how the Indian Empire was unmade.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eHow a single, sprawling dominion became twelve modern nations. How maps were redrawn in boardrooms and on battlefields, by politicians in London and revolutionaries in Delhi, by kings in remote palaces and soldiers in trenches. Its legacies include civil war in Burma and ongoing insurgencies in Kashmir, Baluchistan and Northeast India, and the Rohingya genocide.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIt is a history of ambition and betrayal, of forgotten wars and unlikely alliances, of borders carved with ink and fire. And, above all, it is the story of how the map of modern Asia was made. Sam Dalrymple’s stunning history is based on deep archival research, previously untranslated private memoirs, and interviews in English, Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Punjabi, Konyak, Arabic and Burmese.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eFrom portraits of the key political players to accounts of those swept up in these wars and mass migrations, Shattered Lands is vivid, compelling, thought-provoking history at its best.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cem\u003ePaperback | Publication: 30 Jul 2026, HarperCollins \u003cbr\u003eISBN: 9780008466855\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003eExtent: 528 pages\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"David's Bookshop","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57407121457534,"sku":null,"price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0753\/0892\/5225\/files\/9780008466855.jpg?v=1778673383"},{"product_id":"breakneck-chinas-quest-to-engineer-the-future-by-dan-wang","title":"Breakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the Future by Dan Wang","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDATE OF RELEASE: 2 JUL 2026\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe New York Times bestseller, Financial Times and Sunday Times Book of the YearShortlisted for the Financial Times and Schroders Business Book of the YearThe book we need to understand China today: a riveting, first-hand account of its seismic progress from an indispensable expert voice For close to a decade, Dan Wang has been observing China’s tumultuous and astounding growth. The state has constructed towering bridges, gleaming railways and sprawling factories to improve economic outcomes in record time. But rapid change has also sent ripples of pain throughout society.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eChina has grown so quickly in part by beating America at its own game: capitalism and harnessing the restless energy of a vast population. Here Wang blends political and economic analysis with reportage into a provocative new framework for understanding China – one that helps us see America more clearly, too. Whereas China is an engineering state, relentlessly building big, the United States has transformed into a lawyerly society, stalling every attempt to make change, both good and bad.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAs relations between the US and China are tense and uncertain and the potential for dreadful conflict looms, Wang offers an inventive new way of thinking about the two superpowers. Breakneck reveals that each country points towards a better path for the other. 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