This accessible text provides a comprehensive history of China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, and parts of Southeast Asia and includes coverage of everyday life, the environment, and women--topics often neglected in other texts.

This accessible book provides a comprehensive history of China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam and includes coverage of the common people, the environment, and women--topics often neglected in other books.

Detailed Contents
List of Maps
Preface
A Note on the Spelling of Asian Names and Words
Wade-Giles/Pinyin Equivalents
About the Author
Atlas
Time Chart
*East Asia: Common Ground and Regional Differences *Prehistory, Beginnings in China, and the Shang Dynasty *The Zhou--Its Decline, and the Age of the Philosophers *Qin and Han: The Making of the Empire *Buddhism, Barbarians, and the Tang Dynasty *Achievement and Disaster: The Song and Yuan Dysnasties, 960-1355 *New Imperial Splendor in China: The Ming Dynasty *The Qing in Prosperity and Decline *Early Korea: Another Version of the Chinese Pattern *Premodern Vietnam *Beginnings in Japan: Patterns and Origins *Warriors, Monks, and Conflict: Medieval Japan *The West Arrives in Asia *Tokugawa Japan *Humiliation and Response in Nineteenth Century China *Japan Remakes Itself *Imperialism in Korea, Vietnam, and Southeast Asia *China in Taters, 1896-1925 *China and Japan: The Road to War *The Second World War in Asia *China Since 1945 *Japan Since 1945 *Korea and Mainland Southeast Asia