Asia Society

In 1975, at the height of Indira Gandhi’s “Emergency”, V. S. Naipaul returned to India, the country his ancestors had left 100 years earlier. Out of that journey he produced this concise masterpiece: a vibrant, defiantly unsentimental portrait of a society traumatized by centuries of foreign conquest and immured in a mythic vision of its past.

A “landmark book” (Robert J. Sternberg, president of the American Psychological Association) by one of the world's preeminent psychologists that proves human behavior is not “hard-wired” but a function of culture."

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

Every Falling Star, the first book to portray contemporary North Korea to a young audience, is the intense memoir of a North Korean boy named Sungju who is forced at age 12 to live on the streets and fend for himself. To survive, Sungju creates a gang and lives by thieving, fighting, begging, and stealing rides on cargo trains. Sungju richly recreates his scabrous story, depicting what it was like for a boy alone to create a new family with his gang, his "brothers".

Throughout this lively and concise historical account of Mao Zedong's life and thought, Rebecca E. Karl places the revolutionary leader's personal experiences, social visions and theory, military strategies, and developmental and foreign policies in a dynamic narrative of the Chinese revolution. She situates Mao and the revolution in a global setting informed by imperialism, decolonization, and third worldism, and discusses worldwide trends in politics, the economy, military power, and territorial sovereignty.

Crime and Custom in Colonial Society brings together, for the first time in a single volume, the complete stories from In Court and Kampong and In Days That Are Dead by Hugh Clifford—newly introduced and contextualized by Graeme Newman for modern readers. Set in British Malaya at the height of empire, these vivid and often unsettling narratives explore a world where radically different systems of law, morality, and social obligation collide. In the kampong villages, life is governed by custom, kinship, and deeply rooted traditions. In the colonial courts, British officials impose formal ...

THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER AND MODERN CLASSIC: NOW A MAJOR TV SERIES 'A phenomenon, a prodigy, a marvel' Evening Standard ONE OF THE BBC'S 100 NOVELS THAT SHAPED OUR WORLD A modern classic, this epic tale of families, romance and political intrigue, set in India, never loses its power to...

America in 1982. Japanese car companies are on the rise and believed to be putting American autoworkers out of their jobs. Anti-Asian-American sentiments simmer, especially in Detroit. A bar fight turns fatal, leaving Vincent Chin - a Chinese-American man - beaten to death at the hands of two white men, autoworker Ronald Ebens and his stepson Michael Nitz. From a Whisper to a Rallying Cry is a searing examination of the killing and the trial and verdicts that followed.

From critically acclaimed author Cindy Pon comes an edge-of-your-seat sci-fi thriller, set in a near-future Taipei plagued by pollution, about a group of teens who risk everything to save their city. Jason Zhou survives in a divided society where the elite use their wealth to buy longer lives...

Abandoning a recession-plagued America for the easy money of Southeast Asia's lucrative but highly illegal investment scam industry, Don Rouse must navigate through a sordid world of drug addicts, deviants, prostitutes and professional con men in order to achieve his lifelong dream of making it big. But his world is suddenly turned upside down when the police show up and his boss goes missing. After a chance meeting with the alluring but enigmatic Jessica, Don is plunged into a high stakes mystery that could very well put an end to his criminal career and perhaps even his life. From the ...

A 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...

On December 7, 1941—"a date which will live in infamy"—the Japanese navy launched an attack on the American military bases at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The next day, President Franklin Roosevelt declared war on Japan, and the US Army officially entered the Second World War. Three years later, on December 18, 1944, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which enabled the Secretary of War to enforce a mass deportation of more than 100,000 Americans to what government officials themselves called "concentration camps." None of these citizens had been accused of a real crime.

A classic—newly revised for this 40th Anniversary Edition, and read for you by the author—The Tea Lover’s Treasury is credited with sparking America’s present-day Tea Renaissance. The world’s most widely quoted tea authority narrates the story of tea's dramatic history since its mysterious origins in ancient China, and guides us on a journey through the world's tea growing regions to explore the finest teas from China, Japan, India, and beyond.

"Shadows of the Rising Sun" delves into the enigmatic Black Dragon Society, a secretive ultranationalist group in early 20th-century Japan. As Western imperialism spread across Asia, the Society proclaimed Japan as the defender and leader of Asian unity against Western dominance. Their ideology of "Greater Asianism" influenced Japan's aggressive expansion and contributed to the regional conflicts of World War II. This book explores the Society's origins, philosophy, and significant impact on Japan's foreign policy. It also examines their strategic support for Chinese revolutionary Sun Yat-...

From the poisoned rivers, barren wells, and clear-cut forests, to the hundreds of thousands of farmers who have committed suicide to escape punishing debt, to the hundreds of millions of people who live on less than two dollars a day, there are ghosts nearly everywhere you look in India. India is a nation of 1.2 billion, but the country's 100 richest people own assets equivalent to one-fourth of India’s gross domestic product.

An ambitious racer who dreams of becoming the first female F1 champion finds her plans going off track when she catches feelings for her biggest competition in this dishy, delicious contemporary romance for fans of love, Lynn Painter, and Lewis Hamilton. Justine Kwong has always dreamed of...

The electrifying sequel to THE OPENER! Don Rouse is young, rich, happily married and lives the life of a jet-setting expatriate in Southeast Asia. He also happens to be a master con artist, a manipulative swindler who controls a fictitious firm that convinces unsuspecting clients to place all their money into bogus investment opportunities. Aided by corrupt government officials, crooked cops, and unscrupulous bankers, Don lives a whimsical life of leisure and luxury with his alluring wife Jessica. When a mundane business meeting suddenly turns deadly, Don must use all of his cunning and ...

Near the end of World War II, in an attempt to attack the United States mainland, Japan launched its fu-go campaign, deploying thousands of high-altitude hydrogen balloons armed with incendiary and high-explosive bombs designed to follow the westerly winds of the upper atmosphere and drift to the west coast of North America. After reaching the mainland, these fu-go, the Japanese hoped, would terrorize American citizens and ignite devastating forest fires across the western states, ultimately causing the United States to divert wartime resources to deal with the domestic crisis.

On April 29, 1992, following the acquittal of four police officers charged with the beating and arrest of Rodney King and the earlier killing of teenager Latasha Harlins, the city of Los Angeles erupted in violence. Many of these events were centered on the city’s Koreatown, where tensions between the Black and Korean American communities had simmered for years, fueled by economic challenges and redlining and enflamed by sensationalized and racist media.

Japan has always seemed a puzzle to most westerners - so modern, so industrialized, yet somehow so different. Japanese Society and History seeks to initiate westerners to the learning process of making Japan seem a little less mysterious and a little more understandable. This book walks readers through some of the important features of Japanese society to help readers begin slowly forming a more complete picture of Japan.