20th Century History

The Greater Game offers a fresh look at India, showing it to be a dramatically changing democracy after decades of domination by the Nehru-Gandhi family dynasty and a newly emerging...

The astonishing story of a young man's upbringing in a remote tribal village in Burma and his journey from his strife-torn country to the tranquil quads of Cambridge. In lyrical...

Sirin Phathanothai was born into one of Thailand's most privileged and politically prominent families. But at the age of 8, her life changed dramatically. She and her brother were sent...

Introduced by Jeet Thayli, author of Booker Prize shortlisted novel Narcopolis. At the age of 20, Dom Moraes - already a celebrated poet who would go on to be regarded...

Like Angela's Ashes meets Bhowani Junction meets Empire of the Sun, a never less than engrossing, beautifully written memoir that reads like a novel. Kwan is an awkward, clumsy half-caste...

The Silk Road, which linked imperial Rome and distant China, was once the greatest thoroughfare on earth. Along it travelled precious cargoes of silk, gold and ivory, as well as...

Introduced by Jeet Thayli, author of Booker Prize shortlisted novel Narcopolis. At the age of 20, Dom Moraes - already a celebrated poet who would go on to be regarded...

Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle with India A highly original, stirring book on Mahatma Gandhi that deepens our sense of his achievements and disappointments -his success in seizing India's imagination...

From an 'indispensable voice on China' (Evan Osnos) comes a riveting, first-hand account of China's seismic progress America used to pride itself on ambition. Today, it looks stuck. Meanwhile, China...

Silk Silver Opium not only tells the fascinating stories of silk and tea, porcelain, silver and opium, missionaries, mercenaries and trade, but also what became inevitable - war and humiliation....

An ambitious and engagingly history of how encounters with Christianity have shaped Hindu identity and nationalism in colonial and contemporary India When European missionaries arrived in India in the sixteenth...

From war with the British to the enslavement of Indians, Ivermee uncovers the dark history of France's doomed imperial project in South Asia. This is a powerful new account of...

From the acclaimed author of The Gunpowder Age, a book that casts new light on the history of China and the West at the turn of the nineteenth century. George...

The Eichmann in Jerusalem for the Khmer Rouge, The Master of Confessions is a harrowing yet humane account of the trial of Duch, a Khmer Rouge operative and the director...

'Impressive ... Fascinating' Sunday Times 'An authoritative history' Financial Times 'Gripping and richly researched' Rana Mitter A superb new history of the rise of China and the fall of Hong...

In 1905 President Teddy Roosevelt dispatched Secretary of War William Taft, his gun-toting daughter Alice and a gaggle of congressmen on a mission to Japan, the Philippines, China, and Korea....

Irris Makler set out alone to cover a war in Afghanistan and found a much bigger story about the women behind enemy lines. This is as much their story as...

The diaries of the last British Governor, five weeks on the Sunday Times best-seller list In June 1992 Chris Patten went to Hong Kong as the last British governor, to...

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize In this groundbreaking biography of the Japanese emperor Hirohito, Herbert P. Bix offers the first complete, unvarnished look at the enigmatic leader whose sixty-three-year reign...

Inspiration for the major film starring Hugh Bonneville, Gillian Anderson, Manish Dayal and Huma Qureshi and directed by Gurinder Chadha. Seventy years ago, at midnight on 14 August 1947, the...

A fresh, illuminating narrative exploration of one of the most contradictory and dynamic countries on earth One of this century's greatest surprises has been the economic and social revolution in...

In humiliating circumstances, Indonesia's first democratically elected president, Abdurrahman Wahid, was forced from office in July 2001 after less that two years in the job. Wahid, almost blind and still...

This volume addresses these issues through the description of a series of interventions of territorial planning, environmental protection, recovery of historic buildings and traditional villages and the provement of living...

In late 1999 the world watched as a small country became the world's newest nation amid a frenzy of destruction and killing. Now, Deliverance tells the inside story of East...

'Michael Sheridan is one of the best informed and wisest writers on China' - Chris Patten, last governor of Hong Kong The Red Emperor presents an eye-opening portrait of Xi...

And then there were the children educated in India. Brendon reveals appalling stories of abuse at the hands of servants. What frequently unites Brendon's wildly different subjects is their loneliness--drawing...

How did upstart outsiders forge vast new empires in early modern Asia, laying the foundations for today's modern mega-states of India and China? In How the East Was Won, Andrew...

'An important contribution ... Delving lucidly into the most significant ideological battles of the era, this book deftly outlines the thinking and dialogue that laid the foundations of the Republic...

The diaries of the last British Governor, published on the 25th anniversary of the handover In June 1992 Chris Patten went to Hong Kong as the last British governor, to...

A compelling history of Chinese resistance to state oppression, told through the stories of three remarkable individuals In Wild Grass, Pulitzer Prize-winning Ian Johnson describes a China caught between the...

The remarkable true story of Saint Maximilian Kolbe, his sacrifice in Auschwitz, and the two men in war-torn Japan whose lives he changed forever The remarkable true story of Saint...

In this urgent book, we learn why a small island in the East China Sea will be central to the world's future An urgent, indispensable guide to why Taiwan matters...

A panoramic social history chronicling the lives of hundreds of British people of all classes in the most important territory of the British Empire The British in this book lived...

The crucial book for understanding modern China, now updated to include the rule of Xi Jinping In 1850, China was the 'sick man of Asia'. Now it is set to...

Great Game On is the story of the remaking of the world order. Historically, China has sought its security by building dominant relationships with pliant states that accept its pre-eminence....

The most authoritative life of Mao ever written, by the bestselling author of Wild Swans, Jung Chang and her husband, Jon Halliday. The most authoritative life of Mao ever written,...

An inspiring testament to China's dissident historians and activists, from the 1940s to the present A documentary filmmaker who uncovered a Mao-era death camp; an independent journalist who gave voice...

The legendary ex-US Secretary of State on the world's foremost emerging superpower In 1971 Henry Kissinger took the historic step of reopening relations between China and the West, and since...

The untold story of one of WW2's most extraordinary and significant battles which marked the turning of the tide of the war in the jungles of Burma 'A thrilling blow-by-blow...

Viewed in the West as a time of self-confident progress, the Victorian period was experienced by Asians as a catastrophe. Pankaj Mishra's provocative account of how China, India and the...

A magical cultural history of modern Japan Japan Story is a fascinating, surprising account of Japan's culture, from the 'opening up' of the country in the mid 19th century to...

Gandhi's non-violent struggles against racism, violence, and colonialism in South Africa and India had brought him to such a level of notoriety, adulation that when asked to write an autobiography...

The first major history of the Himalaya - an epic story of peoples, cultures and the world's highest mountains 'Magnificent ... this book is unlikely to be surpassed' Telegraph This...

A major new biography from the internationally bestselling author of Wild Swans, Mao and Empress Dowager Cixi- a gripping story of sisterhood, revolution and betrayal, and three women who helped...

From the bestselling author of Wild Swans and Mao- The Unknown Story, the extraordinary story of the woman who single-handedly dragged China into the modern age Discover the extraordinary story...