East Asia

A character-driven history that describes the bizarrely ill-suited alliance between America and Pakistan, written by a uniquely insightful participant: Pakistan's former ambassador to the US. The relationship between America and Pakistan is based on mutual incomprehension, and always has been. Pakistan - to American eyes - has gone from being a stabilizing friend to an essential military ally to a seedbed of terror.

During the long 18th century, Europe's travelers, scholars, and intellectuals looked to Asia in a spirit of puzzlement, irony, and openness. In this panoramic book, author Jürgen Osterhammel tells the story of the European Enlightenment's nuanced encounter with the great civilizations of the East, from the Ottoman Empire and India to China and Japan. A momentous work by one of Europe's most eminent historians, Unfabling the East takes listeners on a thrilling voyage to the farthest shores, bringing back vital insights for our own multicultural age.

Brought to you by Penguin. From its birth in seventh-century Arabia, Islam has been a faith on the move. In Worlds of Islam, James McDougall explores its origins and transformations from Late Antiquity to the digital age. Over the span of a thousand years, armies, missionaries, and merchants...

This landmark book, first published in 1978, remains one of the most influential books in the Social Sciences, particularly Ethnic Studies and Postcolonialism. Said is best known for describing and critiquing "Orientalism", which he perceived as a constellation of false assumptions underlying Western attitudes toward the East. In Orientalism Said claimed a "subtle and persistent Eurocentric prejudice against Arabo-Islamic peoples and their culture."

Brought to you by Penguin. This rich and enjoyable book by the acclaimed author of Japan Story explores the many ways in which Asia has influenced Europe and North America over centuries of tangled, dynamic encounters From the time of the ancient Greeks onwards the West's relationship with Asia...

Author Stewart Gordon has fashioned a fascinating and unique look at Asia from AD 700 to 1500, a time when Asia was the world, by describing the personal journeys of Asia's many travelers - the merchants who traded spices along the Silk Road, the apothecaries who exchanged medicine and knowledge from China to the Middle East, and the philosophers and holy men who crossed continents to explore and exchange ideas, books, science, and culture. 

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of East of Croydon written and read by Sue Perkins. A few years ago I was asked if I'd like to make a documentary on the Mekong River, travelling from the vast delta in Vietnam to the remote and snowy peaks of Tibet. Up until that point, the farthest East...

Fourteen years after the publication of his landmark travel narrative Among the Believers, V.S. Naipaul returned to the four non-Arab Islamic countries he reported on so vividly at the time of Ayatollah Khomeini’s triumph in Iran. Beyond Belief is the result of his five-month journey in 1995 through lands where descendants of Muslim converts live at odds with indigenous traditions.

For eighty-two years the Royal Flying Corps (RFC), which in 1918 became the Royal Air Force (RAF), maintained a permanent military aviation presence in the Far East. The first RFC units arrived in India in 1915. RAF India grew substantially in the interwar period and throughout World War Two. Various changes in the command structure finally saw the creation of the Far East Air Force (FEAF) in June 1949, covering South East Asia and Hong Kong.

Brought to you by Penguin. Thomas Asbridge’s remarkable new book reveals the global impact of humanity’s greatest natural disaster, and the terrible human cost of this calamity. In the mid-fourteenth century, a lethal plague struck the medieval world, causing unimaginable suffering and...

In just over a hundred years - from the death of Muhammad in 632 to the beginning of the Abbasid Caliphate in 750 - the followers of the Prophet swept across the whole of the Middle East, North Africa, and Spain. Their armies threatened states as far flung as the Franks in Western Europe and the Tang Empire in China. The conquered territory was larger than the Roman Empire at its greatest expansion, and it was claimed for the Arabs in roughly half the time.

Throughout the past three decades East Asia has seen more peace and stability than at any time since the Opium Wars of 1839-1841. During this period China has rapidly emerged as a major regional power, averaging over nine percent economic growth per year since the introduction of its market reforms in 1978. Foreign businesses have flocked to invest in China, and Chinese exports have begun to flood the world.

Bloomsbury presents A War of Empires by Robert Lyman, read by Roger May. SHORTLISTED FOR THE RUSI DUKE OF WELLINGTON MEDAL FOR MILITARY HISTORY 2022 'This is a superb book.' – James Holland In 1941 and 1942 the British and Indian Armies were brutally defeated and Japan reigned supreme in its...

Brought to you by Penguin. This lush, lyrical fantasy is Steinbeck's sole work of historical fiction. Henry Morgan ruled the Spanish Main in the 1670s, ravaging the coasts of Cuba and America and striking terror wherever he went. His lust and greed knew no bounds, and he was utterly consumed by...

How the Mongol invasions of the Near East reshaped the balance of world power in the Middle Ages. For centuries, the Crusades have been central to the story of the medieval Near East, but these religious wars are only part of the region's complex history. As The Mongol Storm reveals, during the...

To win the God of War’s favour was wise – to fall in love with him would ruin me 'Lush, deeply romantic, and endlessly enchanting. Sue Lynn Tan is a master of both fable-like whimsy and epic, sweeping adventure' —Ava Reid, #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Study in Drowning...

'Indispensable and timely' - Melissa Chan, Emmy-nominated international affairs correspondent 'Few books qualify as essential reading but Ghost Nation is one of them' - Clive Hamilton, bestselling co-author of The Hidden Hand The gripping story of Taiwan's past and precarious present from one of...

Bloomsbury presents The Midnight Shift by Cheon Seon-Ran, read by Rosa Escoda A bestseller in Korea, a biting, fast-paced vampire murder mystery exploring queer love and the consequences of loneliness. When four isolated elderly people die back-to-back at the same hospital by jumping out of the...

“Jenkins is one of America’s top religious scholars.” —Forbes magazine The Lost History of Christianity by Philip Jenkins offers a revolutionary view of the history of the Christian church. Subtitled “The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia—and...

Brought to you by Penguin. While fulfilling his dead father's dream of creating a prosperous farm in California, Joseph Wayne comes to believe that a magnificent tree on the farm embodies his father's spirit. His brothers and their families share in Joseph's prosperity andthe farm flourishes -...