The story underlying this ethnography began with the recent discovery and commercialization of the remnant of an ancient “queendom” on the Sichuan-Tibet border. Recorded in classical Chinese texts, this legendary matriarchal domain has attracted not only...

PULITZER PRIZE FINALISTA New York Times Notable Book of 2022What does it take to reinvent a language?After a meteoric rise, China today is one of the world’s most powerful nations. Just a century ago, it was a crumbling empire with literacy reserved for...

An exciting and richly detailed new history of the Silk Road that tells how it became more important as a route for diplomacy than for tradeThe King’s Road offers a new interpretation of the history of the Silk Road, emphasizing its importance as a...

A major history of Central Asia and how it has been shaped by modern world eventsCentral Asia is often seen as a remote and inaccessible land on the peripheries of modern history. Encompassing Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan,...

Cundill Prize FinalistA Financial Times Book of the YearA Spectator Book of the YearA Five Books Book of the YearThe Mongols are known for one thing: conquest. But in this first comprehensive history of the Horde, the western portion of the Mongol empire...

A Foreign Affairs Book of the YearA Spectator Book of the Year“Insightful…a deft, textured work of intellectual history.”―Foreign Affairs“A timely insight into how memories and ideas about the second world war play a hugely important role in...

As tensions continue to rise between the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan, numerous analysts and officials have warned of a growing risk of military conflict, which could potentially draw in the United States. How worried should we be about a war in...

Visitors to the island of Bali are often overwhelmed by the abundance and variety of paintings they encounter: traditional, typically Balinese paintings, non-traditional paintings that are nevertheless also typically Balinese, and paintings in which...

Using published and unpublished sources from Asia, Europe, and North America, Wei has created an impressive study of Shanghai from before its founding as a county at the beginning of the 13th century to 1949, after the entry of the People's Liberation...

Distinguished experts explain the economic trends and varied political goals at work in Southeast Asia.With China’s emergence as a powerful entity in Southeast Asia, the region has become an unlikely site of conflict between two of the world’s great...

This work surveys the treaty which leased the New Territories to Britain for 99 years. It also explains the difficulties which the treaty created in Sino-British affairs, as well as Hong Kong's domestic politics. The work includes the legal meanings of...