About this Book

"This book is a study of the four countries that make up the East Asian cultural sphere (China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam) from roughly the mid-eighteenth century, when traditional cultures and civilizations were in full play, to the present. Since the historical trajectory of each country differed, there is no single starting year. The focus, however, is on changing political, social, economic, and cultural identities in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; the analysis considers the experiences of each nation and of the East Asian region. Chapters 1 and 20 are topical, looking, respectively, at traditional East Asian commonalities and differences and at contemporary commonalities and differences. The other chapters are chronological. All chapters except Chapter 1 include brief biographical vignettes of men and women who played significant or telling roles in their time; they range from emperor to assassin, from female political leaders to a feminist revolutionary, from rebel leaders to a Nobel Prize winner. At the end of each chapter is a timeline of key events described in the chapter, as a shorthand way of summing up major points, and a short annotated list of suggested additional readings. Finally, following the Endnotes, I have included a phonetic pronunciation glossary for the main historical figures and key geographical sites; this should make it easier to pronounce and remember East Asian names."--