thing to keep in mind is that this is a textbook, It has a corresponding detached and dry tone, It covers an enormous amount of ground, so there is no time and space for detail, With that caveat, it is a great introduction to the civilizations of East Asia, What I particularly appreciate, each chapter ends with a section listing a good number of books for further reading, and as far as I can see, the recommended books are an eclectic choice and provide exactly what a textbook of this type is necessarily missingcolor and detailed narrative for specific issues of scholarly historical interest.
Charles Holcombe begins his extraordinarily ambitious book by asking the question "What is East Asia" In the modern age, many of the features that made the region now defined as including China, Japan, and Korea distinct have been submerged by the effects of revolution, politics, or globalization.
Yet, as an ancient civilization, the region had both an historical and cultural coherence, It shared, for example, a Confucian heritage, some common approaches to Buddhism, a writing system that is deeply imbued with ideas and meaning, and many political and institutional traditions, This shared past and the interconnections among three distinct, yet related societies are at the heart of this book, which traces the story of East Asia from the dawn of history to the early twentyfirst century.
Charles Holcombe is an experienced and surefooted guide who encapsulates, in a fastmoving and colorful narrative, the vicissitudes and glories of one of the greatest civilizations on earth, I endorse other reviews that it is a pretty "decent introduction East Asian History",
I picked up this book as someone without any understanding of any Asian culture with an intention to get a light grasp about the beginnings of East Asia and how the different culture have evolved to become what they are now.
This book fulfilled its promise, . .
I was quite ignorant to the fact how big of an influence China has played in the entire region, I knew a bit about the Chinese civilization but could have never grasped the entire entanglements and influence of China on each country and its faint remains within each culture and even language to this day.
Due to the mightiness and especially long history China takes up a large part of the book which is not surprising since it has shaped the
entire region, But also China itself was in a constant flow and changed with each dynasty or e, g. "occupation" through the Mongols. What is interesting is that Chinese despite such inner diversity different ethnic groups formed such an empire and always adopted to the current circumstances, Rather than fighting to the last drop of blood, some regions for instance, adopted and the Mongolian influences, wore their dresses etc,
China, remained open minded to different cultural influences and religions more or less consistently until Mao, Whereas, other nations did differ substantiallywhich can be seen to this day,
The book goes through all development sections until now, so it can be quite interesting to see the rise and fall of certain nations and the probable cause of such ingrained within the capacity of certain region but also determined by the culture.
The book doesnt bear any strong political character but its quite helpful to the understanding of the political development since culture forestalls the politics and both influence each other.
The second edition of Charles Holcombe's A History of East Asia for Cambridge University Press is printed in a textbook format rather than one for general readers, Hence it has tall, wide pages densely packed with text and is not at all convenient for reading on the go in the way of more massmarket paperback histories such as The Penguin History of Latin America or The Fortunes of Africa, which I also read recently.
Nonetheless, also lashing out on the expensive ebook circumvented that problem and it is definitely comparable to those two works as large scale, broad scope histories go, The working definition of 'East Asia' for this book is a primarily cultural one which includes China, Korea, Japan and Vietnam, This does of course entail a huge variety of political entities historically, and today there are still such complexities as Taiwan, Macao, Hong Kong and the two Koreas to consider.
Even Singapore rates a brief subchapter near the end,
Vietnam is often excluded from such definitions, and although Holcombe argues persuasively for its inclusion, he also devotes by far the least word count to it and at times it feels like an afterthought.
Conversely, Mongolia often does appear in such definitions but here Holcombe has elected not to write its history per se, although inevitably it frequently arises in light of the Mongol impact on much of the world.
Tibet, similarly, is scarcely mentioned save for its relations with China,
As such broadbrushstroke histories go, this book makes a decent fist of balancing all the possible focus areas and of illustrating trends, commonalities and differences, This includes discussion of major intellectual, cultural and theological ideas such as Confucianism, Daoism, Buddhism, and later Marxism, which spread and changed through the lens of different languages, then in turn reflected back on and influenced the cultures and languages from which they had come.
This discussion extends to specific individuals, movements and artworks and especially to literature,
Arguably the most prominent emphasis, and the one that ties the above together, is on the complex nature of group identity, It is easy especially for Westerners to adopt a view of relatively homogenous people in any of these countries, In all of them to some extent but particularly in China, this book demonstrates how misguided such views are,
China has numerous indigenous peoples who were in important respects different from 'Han' Chinese, for example, More than that, the empire has been subject to rule by dynasties of Mongols and Manchus, Where it gets particularly complex is that the subjects adopted customs of these rulers, and those rulers of their subjects, until in some cases they came to be regarded as representing legitimately 'Chinese' culture in contrast to foreign adversaries!
There is also plenty of emphasis on economics, with some effort made to give a sense of its impact upon and contribution from all levels of society.
Military matters are dealt with cursorily, as the details are unimportant on this scale as compared to the outcomes, Political history is frequently addressed and shown to be intimately tied to all these other aspects,
One aspect which may surprise is how cities we now take for granted as among the largest and most important in the world, such as Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing and Shanghai, were unimportant or even nonexistent for large parts of history.
A book with such a highlevel perspective has the ability to illustrate the impermanence and fluidity of human institutions which may otherwise appear to us as bastions of stability since time immemorial.
Certainly it gives the lie to propagandist appeals to alleged traditions spanning milllenia,
Holcombe subscribes to the view of World War II as having commenced inwith the Japanese invasion of China proper, Whilst I can see an argument for that, I am accustomed to thinking of it as a regional war which happened to be subsumed into the global conflict, The reason for calling it a 'World War' is, after all, due to the involvement of a substantial part of the world as a function of Europe's colonial empires and alliances.
Holcombe doesn't mention any scholarly disagreement over the date and learning more about that debate could, in itself, be constructive,
Matters take an amusing turn when he tries to talk seriously about globalisation and crosspollination of pop culture, He manages to call Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers a Japanese show, which is not quite the whole story, And seeing Hello Kitty and 'Gangnam Style' mentioned in an academic history book is good for a giggle,
Helpful supplementary materials are provided, including a particularly useful pronunciation guide which I have as yet gone nowhere near to memorising, much less mastering,
One could always raise quibbles, but in its totality this book is fit for its purpose as an introductory overview to a region of the world that at times has had a third of the world's population and to which the locus of global power is increasingly shifting thus far in thest century.
Ngắn gọn, súc tích, dễ hiểu và khá khách quan, This textbook goes to the very beginnings of civilization in China and then branches through East Asia, defined culturally as those countries with civilizations who were Chinacentric, used the Chinese writing system, had Mahayana Buddhism, and Confucianism.
The countries defined as such are Korea, Japan, Vietnam, and China, with obvious branches in Singapore and Taiwan,
I learned more about China and East Asia than I thought possible from this textbook! It was dry, boring at times, and educational as a mandatory read, This is an extremely detailed book about the history of east asia, It covers all emperors, kings, queens and relevant concubines, It spans over such a large period of time, that I am unsure if I remember much if what I read but it certainly does cover enough to give you a general idea of the rise of East Asian countries.
I was most interested over the recent communistcapitalist feud in East Asia, which Is why I picked up the book, Looking back now, maybe a political book would have addressed my questions better than a historical book but this book definitely does what it is meant to : it gives you the highlight of what happened in that part of the continent.
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