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Herunar  ·  3408 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Dear Hubski, what do you want to learn?

Right well, here's just a brief list:

Japan:

A Brief History of the Samurai by Jonathan Clements Japan in War and Peace by John Dower Kamikaze, Cherry Blossoms, and Nationalisms by Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney (Heartbreaking)

China:

China in the 20th Century by Paul Bailey (bit biased because he was my supervisor, but, it is a fantastic general history book)

Kay Ann Johnson's Women, the Family, and the Peasant Revolution has a pretty critical view of the CCP's early policies, but her work is slightly dated. Re-Envisioning the Chinese Revolution is a more modern work and goes into the various policies of the CCP and how they were successful but also not.

India:

Modern South Asia: History, Culture, Political Economy by Ayesha Jalal and Sugata Bose (probably the definitive general history book for modern Indian history, I'd say. Really easy to read, too)

Thomas Metcalf's The New Cambridge History of India is really good too, but veeeeeeeery lengthy, to say the least.

Alternatively, if you have access to JSTOR, there are plenty of really good articles to be found on any of these subjects. But, if you don't have access to a nearby library and understandably don't want to buy a bunch of books, I'd recommend John Green's CrashCourse World History on Youtube - it gives a pretty good general look at various places in the world and he has a fair few episodes dedicated to various Asian countries.