Ronald P. Dore’s Shinohata brings to life the recent history of rural Japan. Shinohata is a small, wooded village in Tochigi prefecture, part of Japan’s central plain.
Asia
Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II by John Dower (1999)
Before John Dower’s Embracing Defeat, many English-language accounts of the United States’ occupation of Japan contextualized the event in terms of American foreign policy and the emerging Cold War. Scholars writing from this Western-centric perspective produced much fine scholarship, and no doubt will continue to do so.
Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand (2010)
The Pacific is in vogue. After years of attracting little but scholarly attention, the Pacific Theater of the Second World War has captured the popular imagination in a string of books, feature films and an Emmy-award winning television series, aptly called “The Pacific” and written in part by University of Texas and Plan II graduate Robert Schenkkan.
Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and his Struggle with India by Loseph Lelyveld (2010)
Gandhi challenges biographers. The author must confront Gandhi’s prodigious writings, six decades of work as a political activist and social reformer, and importantly, his consecration as “Father of India” and international stature as Mahatma (Great Soul).Perhaps aware of this difficulty, Joseph Lelyveld sets himself a modest goal to “amplify rather than replace the standard narrative” of Gandhi’s life.
Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie (1980)
We are in the delivery room in Bombay, at midnight on August 14/15, 1947, the moment India and Pakistan are created as independent nations. Two children enter the world simultaneously, one Muslim, one Hindu, and their destinies will be determined by the timing of their birth.
Prejudice and Pride: School Histories of the Freedom Struggle in India and Pakistan by Krishna Kumar (2001)
Krishna Kumar’s study of school textbooks in Pakistan and India shows that the discipline of history in South Asia has “come under the strain of nation-building rather more than other subjects.” History teaching in these textbooks seeks to settle political and ideological points and guide children’s responses to present day situations.
The Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan by Yasmin Khan (2008)
Reading this compelling account of the partition of India in 1947, one is moved to ask: What were they thinking? Early accounts of the end of British rule in India concentrate on the high politics of the negotiations between the leaders of the Indian National Congress, the Muslim League, and a succession of Viceroys—ending with the striking and decisive Lord Mountbatten.
Beseiged: Voices from Delhi 1857 by Mahmood Farooqui (2010)
During the summer of 1857, Indian rebel soldiers from the British Army attempted to overthrow the British hold on India and reinstall Mughal rule. For five months, rebels seized Delhi and declared the aged Mughal noble, Bahadur Shah Zafar, Emperor of India. Referred to as the 1857 Mutiny by British rulers and as the First War of Independence by enthusiastic nationalists, few events in Indian history incite more passion than the 1857 seige of Delhi.
Voices of India’s Partition, Part I: Mrs. Zahra Haider
I remember when we were in our old house, it was a big house, which is a big house with a big courtyard inside and a big garden outside. It was a big area. And we used to all sleep inside in the courtyard with all the beds laid out and mosquito nets and everything and one table fan for all of us because we used to be in a row, all the beds laid out.
The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India by Urvashi Butalia (2000)
In the wake of Indira Gandhi’s assassination by her Sikh bodyguard, the citizens of Delhi unleashed a murderous campaign of violence on the Sikh community as a whole. Delhi-ites were horrified to discover both the inaction of the local authorities to provide safety and security for citizens, and the failure of the media to report the atrocities taking place.
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