The history of the book in East Asia is closely linked to problems of language and script, problems which have also had a profound impact on the technology of printing and on the social and intellectual impact of print in this area. This volume contains key readings on the history of printed books and manuscripts in China, Korea and Japan and includes an introduction which provides an overview of the history of the book in East Asia and sets the readings in their context.

This book traces the story of East Asia from the dawn of history to the present.

Apr. issue lists studies in progress; Oct. issue, completed studies.

This volume provides the first comparative survey of the relations between the two most active book worlds in Eurasia between 1450 and 1850. Prominent scholars in book history explore different approaches to publishing, printing, and book culture. They discuss the extent of technology transfer and book distribution between the two regions and show how much book historians of East Asia and Europe can learn from one another by raising new questions, exploring remarkable similarities and differences in these regions’ production, distribution, and consumption of books. The chapters in turn show different ways of writing transnational comparative history. Whereas recent problems confronting research on European books can instruct researchers on East Asian book production, so can the privileged role of noncommercial publications in the East Asian textual record highlight for historians of the European book the singular contribution of commercial printing and market demands to the making of the European printed record. Likewise, although production growth was accompanied in both regions by a wider distribution of books, woodblock technology’s simplicity and mobility allowed for a shift in China of its production and distribution sites farther down the hierarchy of urban sites than was common in Europe. And, the different demands and consumption practices within these two regions’ expanding markets led to different genre preferences and uses as well as to the growth of distinctive female readerships. A substantial introduction pulls the work together and the volume ends with an essay that considers how these historical developments shape the present book worlds of Eurasia. “This splendid volume offers expert new insight into the ways of producing, financing, distributing, and reading printed books in early modern Europe and East Asia. This is comparative history at its best, which leaves us with a better understanding of each context and of the challenges common to book cultures across space and time.” —Ann Blair, author of Too Much to Know: Managing Scholarly Information before the Modern Age and professor of history, Harvard University “This engrossing account of the history of the book by leading specialists on the European and East Asian publishing worlds takes stock of what we know—and how much we still need to know—about the places that books had in the lives of our early modern forebears. Each chapter is masterful state-of-the-field coverage of its subject, and together they set a new standard for future studies of the book, East and West.” —Timothy Brook, author of The Troubled Empire: China in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties

Written with rare mastery and a sure sense of the essential, this concise general history of modern East Asia offers students and general readers an understanding of this dynamic region from a global perspective. It is the ideal introductory text for college survey courses in Asian and international studies.Following an introductory discussion of the regional concept, the first two chapters lay the foundations. Chapter 1 describes East Asia's geographical, human, cultural, economic, social, and political setting as it has evolved over the past several millennia, and the three major belief systems - Confucianism, Buddhism, and Islam. Chapter 2 presents a panoramic view of the region ca. 1800. The chapter introduces the "dramatis personae" - the Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Vietnamese, Thai, Burmese, Indonesians, Filipinos, and others - and describes their interactions with each other and with Imperial China.The following three chapters deal with European expansionism and East Asians' responses to the civilizational challenge; the stirrings of nationalism in reaction to European colonial rule; and the remarkable rise of Imperial Japan. Chapters 6 and 7 trace Japan's bid to lead a pan-Asianist revolt against the twin threats of Western liberalism and Soviet communism, and the ensuing Pacific War. Chapters 8 and 9 span the cold war era, from postwar U.S. hopes for a "Pax Americana" to the division of East Asia into communist and anti-communist blocs. The Sino-Soviet split and the Sino-American rapprochement of the early 1970s open the way to the "East Asian miracle" and a resurgence of East Asian regionalism, surveyed in Chapter 10. A concluding chapter considers the prospects for continued economic dynamism and the balance of nationalism and pan-Asian trends in shaping the future.

This book presents a great deal of new primary research on a wide range of aspects of early modern East Asia. Focusing primarily on maritime connections, the book explores the importance of international trade networks, the implications of technological dissemination, and the often unforeseen consequences of missionary efforts. It demonstrates the benefi ts of a global history approach, outlining the complex interactions between Western traders and Asian states and entrepreneurs. Overall, the book presents much interesting new material on this complicated and understudied period. .

From the Foundations in Global Studies series, this text offers students a fresh, comprehensive, multidisciplinary entry point to East Asia. After a brief introduction to the study of East Asia, the early chapters of the book survey the essentials of East Asian history; important historical narratives; and the region's languages, religions, and global connections. Students are guided through the material with relevant maps, resource boxes, and text boxes that support and guide further independent exploration of the topics at hand. The second half of the book features interdisciplinary case studies, each of which focuses on a specific country or region and a particular issue. Each chapter gives a flavor for the cultural distinctiveness of the particular country yet also draws attention to global linkages. Readers will come away from this book with an understanding of the larger historical, political, and cultural frameworks that shaped East Asia as we know it today, and of current issues that have relevance in Asia and beyond.

This innovative text provides the reader with an historical analysis of Southeast Asia from the unusual perspective of regionalism.

This book explores the role of education in the formation of the Singapore developmental state. The book provides a historical study of citizenship education in Singapore, whereby a comparative study of history, civics and social studies curricula, and the politics and policies that underpin them are examined.