Asia

There are few moments in American history in which the course of events tipped so suddenly and so dramatically as at the Battle of Midway....

The Anarchy tells the remarkable story of how one of the world’s most magnificent empires disintegrated and came to be replaced by a dangerously unregulated private company....

Andrei Lankov has gone where few outsiders have ever been....

A war between China and the US would be catastrophic, deadly, and destructive. Unfortunately, it is no longer unthinkable....

Why did humans abandon hunting and gathering for sedentary communities dependent on livestock and cereal grains and governed by precursors of today's states? Find out....

A vivid, uniquely powerful history of the conflict that tore America apart....

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Inglorious Empire written and read by Shashi Tharoor....

Vietnam became the Western world’s most divisive modern conflict, precipitating a battlefield humiliation for France in 1954, then a vastly greater one for the United States in 1975....

In February 1944, a rag-tag collection of clerks, drivers, doctors, muleteers and other base troops, stiffened by a few dogged Yorkshiremen and a handful of tank crews, managed to hold out against some of the finest infantry in the Japanese Army....

From a leading expert in Japanese history, this is one of the first full histories of the art and culture of the Samurai warrior....

China’s story is extraordinarily rich and dramatic. Now Michael Wood, one of the UK's pre-eminent historians, brings it all together in a major new one-volume history of China that is essential listening for anyone who wants to understand its burgeoning role in our world today.... 

1943. Major-General Orde Wingate startles the military world by commanding a daring raid in the heart of Japanese-occupied Burma. But this was just the beginning....

This fascinating history tells the story of the people of Japan, from ancient teenage priest-queens to teeming hordes of salarymen, a nation that once sought to conquer China, yet also shut itself away for two centuries in self-imposed seclusion....

Michael Wood weaves a spellbinding narrative out of the 10,000-year history of India....

In the Spring of 1974, 2nd Lt. Hiroo Onoda of the Japanese army made world headlines when he emerged from the Philippine jungle after a thirty-year ordeal....

A classic of Japanese history, this audiobook is the preeminent work on the history of Japan. Newly revised and updated, A History of Japan is a single-volume complete history of the nation of Japan....

In 1616, an English adventurer, Nathaniel Courthope, stepped ashore on a remote island in the East Indies on a secret mission....

As scout and machine-gunner for the First Marine Division, Leckie fought in all its engagements until his wounding at Peleliu....

In 1965, the US government helped the Indonesian military kill approximately one million innocent civilians. This was one of the most important turning points of the 20th century, eliminating the largest communist party outside China and the USSR and inspiring copycat terror programs....

A Green Beret's gripping memoir of American Special Forces in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War....

This landmark book, first published in 1978, remains one of the most influential books in the Social Sciences, particularly Ethnic Studies and Postcolonialism....

An in-depth biography of the towering 20th-century Chinese military and political figure who led the government, first on the mainland and then in exile in Taiwan....

In Kingdom of Characters, Jing Tsu shows that China's most daunting challenge was a linguistic one: to make the formidable Chinese language - a 2,200-year-old writing system that was daunting to natives and foreigners alike - accessible to a globalised digital world....

This history of modern Iran is not a survey in the conventional sense but an ambitious exploration of the story of a nation. It offers a revealing look at how events, people, and institutions are shaped by currents that sometimes reach back hundreds of years....

Dara Shukoh - the emperor Shah Jahan's favourite son, and heir-apparent to the Mughal throne prior to being defeated by Aurangzib - has sometimes been portrayed as an effete prince, incompetent in military and administrative matters....

Defying the Dragon tells a remarkable story of audacity—of how the people of Hong Kong challenged the PRC's authority, just as its president reached the height of his powers. Is China as unshakeable as it seems? What are its real interests in Hong Kong? Why are Beijing's means of control no longer working? Where does this leave Hongkongers themselves? Stephen Vines has lived in Hong Kong for over three decades. His book unpacks the Hong Kong-China relationship and its wider significance—right up to the astonishing convergence of political turmoil and international crisis.

The Kushans began as nomadic steppe warriors who eventually grew tired of constantly migrating and subsequently put their skills and experience to use by conquering Bactria and creating a kingdom that was stronger economically than it was militarily. Taking advantage of their location on the Silk Road trade routes, the Kushan kings charged fees and tolls for goods passing through. But silk, textiles, gold, silver, and other commodities were not the only things that entered the Kushan Empire from the East and West; it was a focal point for the spread of ideas, diplomats, and diseases. 

Little is known about the Moghuls in the book of history. Nevertheless, their impact on the world system and their great feat is not something that can be swept under the carpet. The Moghuls dynasty were the rulers of most of Northern India from the early 16th to the mid-18th century. Prominent among the Moghul rulers were the founder, Bābur, who ruled between 1526-30, followed by his grandson Akbar (r. 1556-1605). As far as Akbar's life history was concerned, his forefathers came from three separate non-Indian ethnic groups.

The audiobook covers the first stages of the war, from 1927-1937, the interlude from 1938-1945 during the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II, and the final and most well-known phase of the war from 1946-1949. Learn about the causes, events, and lasting effects of the Chinese Civil War and about the warfare tactics and political strategy of the Chinese Communist Party and the Nationalist Kuomintang during these integral years. This is the story about how a group of young, inexperienced Chinese revolutionaries changed the destiny of China.

Decades after his death, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar continues to uniquely influence India's political scenario. An optimistic advocate of Hindu-Muslim unity in his treatise on the 1857 War of Independence, what was it that transformed him into a proponent of "Hindutva"? A former president of the All-India Hindu Mahasabha, Savarkar was a severe critic of the Congress's appeasement politics. 

"We had to take that island to speed the end of the war against Japan." But the capture of Iwo Jima had come at great cost. Sixty-thousand marines had landed on the barren, volcanic island. For five weeks these men would become involved in some of the bloodiest and fiercest fighting of the Second World War. One third of them would end the battle either dead or wounded. The U.S. Marines on Iwo Jima, written by five official marine combat writers who personally saw action on the island, provides vivid insight into the battle that was described as "a nightmare in hell."

1943. Major-General Orde Wingate startles the military world by commanding a daring raid in the heart of Japanese-occupied Burma. But this was just the beginning. In the following year, Wingate spearheaded an even more ambitious operation, flying 10,000 men and 1,000 animals behind Japanese lines to disrupt communications and harass the Japanese forces. With close tactical support from Colonel Philip Cochran, Chindit was the name given to these operations and the men who made them happen. This is their story, told by one man who was at the heart of it all. 

Japan has seen the rise and fall of emperors, samurai warriors, isolation, expansion, defeat, rebirth, and much more. In this book we explore the magnificent history of Japan from its early origins to its rise as a modern superpower. 

The autobiographical first novel by Etsu Inagaki Sugimoto, A Daughter of the Samurai tells the incredible true story of a young girl born into a high-status family in Nagaoka, Japan, whose father, a samurai, is stripped of his power when the feudal system in Japan collapses and his family is thrown into turmoil and uncertainty. Originally destined to become a priestess, young Etsu is instead betrothed to a wealthy Japanese merchant in Cincinnati, Ohio, and makes the unlikely and culturally jarring journey from the Japanese countryside to the American Midwest.

Tony Saich tells the authoritative, comprehensive story of the Chinese Communist Party—its rise to power against incredible odds, its struggle to consolidate rule and overcome self-inflicted disasters, and its thriving amid other Communist parties' collapse. Saich argues that the brutal Japanese invasion in the 1930s actually helped the party. Once in power, however, the Communists faced the difficult task of learning how to rule. From Rebel to Ruler shows that the party owes its endurance to its flexibility. 

The defeat of South Vietnam was arguably America's worst foreign policy disaster of the twentieth century. Yet a complete understanding of the endgame—from the January 27, 1973 signing of the Paris Peace Accords to South Vietnam's surrender on April 30, 1975—has eluded us. Black April addresses that deficit.

It would be common to hear stories of the gods fighting demons (the machines). It would not be easy to establish and maintain order. Several gods reestablished order repeatedly after Indra defeated the serpent-dragon Vritra. He fought demons when he was young, but only as an incarnation, or avatar, such as a fish, a boar, Krishna, or Rama, not as the Supreme. There was a contest for supremacy with a sage-like Nârada—if not with another god or demon. The ascetic practice of tapas (giving up the pleasure of gaining power) was the currency of the gods.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was an Indian attorney, anti-colonial patriot, and political ethicist who used nonviolent resistance to lead the triumphant struggle for India's independence from British rule, motivating civil liberties and liberty movements around the globe. The epithet Mahtm (which means "great-souled" or "age-old" in Sanskrit) was at first appointed to him in South Africa in the year 1914 and is now used all across the world. Gandhi was born into a Hindu family in seaside Gujarat and studied law at the Inner Temple in London.

I have described 35 of my favorite colonial buildings in Yangon (formerly Rangoon) and placed them in their historical context. Each one of them has a fascinating story to tell and is best understood and appreciated as a milestone in the history of Rangoon. The audiobook has two parts. Part one is the history of Rangoon, and part 2 is the buildings.

Asoka, who reigned from 268 to 232 BC, was the most famous emperor of the Maurya Dynasty, which was the ruling clan of the Indian subcontinent from 321 BC to 185 BC. He was one of the most famous early converts to Buddhism and became one of its greatest evangelists. Today Asoka has a twofold interest for us: political and religious. The illustrious member of the great dynasty, of which he was the most celebrated representative, has left indelible traces of its achievements in Indian history. Moreover, he was the leader of a spiritual movement that spread rapidly throughout the East.