Asian Studies


A multifaceted history of Ho Chi Minh’s climactic victory over French colonial might that foreshadowed America’s experience in Vietnam

A sweeping account of how the sea routes of Asia have transformed a vast expanse of the globe over the past five hundred years, powerfully shaping the modern world

An impressive new history of China’s relations with the West—told through the lives of two language interpreters who participated in the famed Macartney embassy in 1793

A sweeping look at Chinese art across the millennia that upends traditional perspectives and offers new pathways for art history

A delightful collection of modern Chinese tales

How privileged adolescents in China acquire status and why this helps them succeed

A groundbreaking account of translation and identity in the Chinese literary tradition before 1850—with important ramifications for today

A cultural history of the concept of pharmacy, both the material nature of drugs and the trade in medicine, in early modern China

How China is using the US-led war on terror to erase the cultural identity of its Muslim minority in the Xinjiang region

The definitive English translation of the classic Sanskrit epic poem—now available in a one-volume paperback

A richly illustrated history of textiles in the Mughal Empire

How English has become a language of the people in India—one that enables the state but also empowers protests against it

A major history of Central Asia and how it has been shaped by modern world events

A groundbreaking history of the political ideas that made modern India

A revealing exploration of political disruption and violence in a rural Chinese county during the Cultural Revolution

From the acclaimed author of The Gunpowder Age, a book that casts new light on the history of China and the West at the turn of the nineteenth century

A pioneering history that transforms our understanding of the colonial era and China's place in it

Available in a limited print run of 1,000 sets—the stunning nine-volume presentation of the incredible Buddhist caves at Dunhuang in northwestern China

A beautifully illustrated study of the caves at Dunhuang, exploring how this important Buddhist site has been visualized from its creation to today

An anthropologist's groundbreaking account of how Islamic religious authority is assembled through the unceasing labor of community building on the island of Java

An essential companion to a timeless spiritual classic

A history of opium's dramatic fall from favor in colonial Southeast Asia

A history of how Chinese officials used statistics to define a new society in the early years of the People’s Republic of China

How Japan captured the Victorian imagination and transformed Western aesthetics