New Book Announcements

New Non-Fiction Books
New Book Announcement: “Where the Madness Lies: Citizen Accounts of Identity and Nationalism” by Kishalay Bhattacharjee
12 April 202312 April 2023
The idea of citizenship today conveys a static dullness, a clerical certification, and a fixed sense of identity. By re-examining the relationship between citizenship and nationality, Where the Madness Lies redefines the multiple sources of identity that ordinary people contend with. Citizenship becomes a critical theatre where diverse identities crisscross to create new forms of…
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New Fiction Books
New Book Announcement: “Boomtown Girl” by Shubha Sunder
5 April 20235 April 2023
Set entirely in the Bangalore region of South India, Boomtown Girl explores the ambitions, delusions, and struggles of people navigating a rapidly developing city. A rebellious teenager and her workaholic father confront their mutual distrust while dining at a newly opened Pizza Hut; a tailor nostalgic for his past glory in the employ of an…
Read More New Book Announcement: “Boomtown Girl” by Shubha Sunder
New Non-Fiction Books
New Book Announcement: “Labor of Reinvention: Entrepreneurship in the New Chinese Digital Economy” by Lin Zhang
2 April 20232 April 2023
From start-up founders in the Chinese equivalent of Silicon Valley to rural villages experiencing an e-commerce boom to middle-class women reselling luxury goods, the rise of internet-based entrepreneurship has affected every part of China. Problematizing worldwide euphoria about digital entrepreneurship while complicating the dichotomy of “China threat vs. China model”, The Labor of Reinvention attends…
Read More New Book Announcement: “Labor of Reinvention: Entrepreneurship in the New Chinese Digital Economy” by Lin Zhang
New Non-Fiction Books
New Book Announcement: “Biting the Hand: Growing Up Asian in Black and White America” by Julia Lee
27 March 202327 March 2023
When Julia Lee was fifteen, her hometown went up in smoke during the 1992 Los Angeles riots. The daughter of Korean immigrant store owners in a predominantly Black neighborhood, Julia was taught to be grateful for the privilege afforded to her. However, the acquittal of four white police officers in the beating of Rodney King,…
Read More New Book Announcement: “Biting the Hand: Growing Up Asian in Black and White America” by Julia Lee
New Non-Fiction Books
New Book Announcement: “Absence: On the Culture and Philosophy of the Far East” by Byung-Chul Han
25 March 2023
Western thinking has long been dominated by essence, by a preoccupation with that which dwells in itself and delimits itself from the other. By contrast, Far Eastern thought is centered not on essence but on absence. The difference between essence and absence is the difference between being and path, between dwelling and wandering.
Read More New Book Announcement: “Absence: On the Culture and Philosophy of the Far East” by Byung-Chul Han
New Non-Fiction Books
Podcast with Weijian Shan, author of “Money Machine: A Trailblazing American Venture in China”
23 March 202324 March 2023
In 2010, Ping An took over Shenzhen Development Bank, ending an experiment that had never been tried before, and not been tried since: a foreign company owning and managing a Chinese bank. Newbridge Capital, a private equity firm, shocked the financial world when it agreed to take over the bank five years earlier—and successfully made…
Read More Podcast with Weijian Shan, author of “Money Machine: A Trailblazing American Venture in China”
New Non-Fiction Books
New Book Announcement: “Anarchy of the Body: Undercurrents of Performance Art in 1960s Japan” by KuroDalaiJee
21 March 202321 March 2023
In Anarchy of the Body, art historian KuroDalaiJee sheds light on vital pieces of postwar Japanese avant-garde history by contextualizing the social, cultural, and political trajectories of artists across Japan in the 1960s. A culmination of years of research, Anarchy of the Body draws on an extensive breadth of source material to reveal how the…
Read More New Book Announcement: “Anarchy of the Body: Undercurrents of Performance Art in 1960s Japan” by KuroDalaiJee
New Non-Fiction Books
New Book Announcement: “The Dean of Shandong: Confessions of a Minor Bureaucrat at a Chinese University” by Daniel A Bell
19 March 202318 March 2023
On 1 January 2017, Daniel Bell was appointed dean of the School of Political Science and Public Administration at Shandong University—the first foreign dean of a political science faculty in mainland China’s history. In The Dean of Shandong, Bell chronicles his experiences as what he calls “a minor bureaucrat”, offering an inside account of the…
Read More New Book Announcement: “The Dean of Shandong: Confessions of a Minor Bureaucrat at a Chinese University” by Daniel A Bell
New Non-Fiction Books
New Book Announcement: “History of Japanese Art after 1945: Institutions, Discourse, Practice” by Kitazawa Noriaki, Kuresawa Takemi and Mitsuda Yuri
13 March 202313 March 2023
History of Japanese Art after 1945 surveys the development of art in Japan since WWII. The original Japanese work, which has become essential reading for those with an interest in modern and contemporary Japanese art and is a foundational resource for students and researchers, spans a period of 150 years, from the 1850s to the…
Read More New Book Announcement: “History of Japanese Art after 1945: Institutions, Discourse, Practice” by Kitazawa Noriaki, Kuresawa Takemi and Mitsuda Yuri
New Non-Fiction Books
New Book Announcement: “Electoral Reform and Democracy in Malaysia”, edited by Edited by Helen Ting MH and Donald L Horowitz
6 March 2023
This study takes stock of the state of democracy in Malaysia by offering readers a deep but readily understandable analysis of an array of electoral reform issues.
Read More New Book Announcement: “Electoral Reform and Democracy in Malaysia”, edited by Edited by Helen Ting MH and Donald L Horowitz
New Non-Fiction Books
New Book Announcement: “China: A Home Away” by Luc Kwanten
27 February 2023
China: A Home Away is the last work of Belgian scholar, Tangutologist, and pioneer literary agent Luc Kwanten. It represents his social and cultural musings gathered during a lifetime of teaching, research, and travel across Europe, the United States, and Asia.
Read More New Book Announcement: “China: A Home Away” by Luc Kwanten
New Non-Fiction Books
New Book Annoucement: “Rethinking Community in Myanmar: Practices of We-Formation among Muslims and Hindus in Urban Yangon” by Judith Beyer
20 February 202310 March 2023
In this first anthropological study of Muslim and Hindu lives in urban Myanmar today, Beyer develops the concept of ‘we-formation’ to demonstrate that individuals are always more than members of wider groups. ‘We-formation’ complements her rich political, legal and historical analysis of ‘community’, a term used by Beyer’s interlocutors themselves, even as it reinforces ethno-religious…
Read More New Book Annoucement: “Rethinking Community in Myanmar: Practices of We-Formation among Muslims and Hindus in Urban Yangon” by Judith Beyer
New Non-Fiction Books
New Book Announcement: “The Precious Summary: A History of the Mongols from Chinggis Khan to the Qing Dynasty”
15 February 202315 February 2023
The Mongols, their khans, and the empire they built and ruled in the 13th and 14th centuries exert an enduring fascination. Caricatured as a marauding horde that ravaged surrounding peoples, in reality the Mongols created institutions, trading networks, economic systems, and intellectual and technological exchanges that shaped the early modern world. However, the centuries after…
Read More New Book Announcement: “The Precious Summary: A History of the Mongols from Chinggis Khan to the Qing Dynasty”
New Non-Fiction Books
New Book Announcement: “New Threats to Academic Freedom in Asia”, edited by Dimitar D Gueorguiev
13 February 202312 February 2023
New Threats to Academic Freedom in Asia examines the increasingly dire state of academic freedom in Asia. Using cross-national data and in-depth case studies, the authors shed light on the multifaceted nature of academic censorship and provide reference points to those working in restrictive academic environments.
Read More New Book Announcement: “New Threats to Academic Freedom in Asia”, edited by Dimitar D Gueorguiev
New Non-Fiction Books
New Book Announcement: “Plato Goes to China: The Greek Classics and Chinese Nationalism” by Shadi Bartsch
5 February 202310 March 2023
As improbable as it may sound, an illuminating way to understand today’s China and how it views the West is to look at the astonishing ways Chinese intellectuals are interpreting—or is it misinterpreting?—the Greek classics. In Plato Goes to China, Shadi Bartsch offers a provocative look at Chinese politics and ideology by exploring Chinese readings…
Read More New Book Announcement: “Plato Goes to China: The Greek Classics and Chinese Nationalism” by Shadi Bartsch

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