Asian Studies - Columbia University Press Blog

January 22, 2009

David Kang Advises Obama on North Korea

The National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR) has published a special roundtable in which members of its editorial board offer their expert insights and recommendations on a wide array of topics and issues, including China, North Korea, Japan, Mongolia, economic...

January 15, 2009

The China Beat's 10 Best Books About Chinese Women in 2008

The China Beat has a very interesting list of the best books from 2008 on Chinese women, including two titles from Columbia University Press: The Song of Everlasting Sorrow by Wang Anyi; translated by Michael Berry and Susan Chan Egan...

December 1, 2008

Did Britain Just Sell Tibet? — An Op-ed from Robert Barnett

“Britain’s concession could be China’s most significant achievement on Tibet since American support for Tibetan guerillas was ended before Nixon’s visit to Beijing. Including China in global decision-making is welcome, but Western powers should not rewrite history to get support...

October 31, 2008

Halloween Reading and Horror Films

For some readers what might be most scary about university press books is the sometimes seemingly inscrutable writing of the authors. However, here at Columbia University Press we have a few legitimate books that make for perfect Halloween reading. First...

October 14, 2008

Japan Times Reviews Troubled Apologies

The Japan Times recently reviewed Alexis Dudden’s Troubled Apologies Among Japan, Korea, and the United States. The review begins: Alexis Dudden engagingly explores how the nexus of politics, war memory and apology shapes contemporary trilateral relations between Korea, Japan and...

October 8, 2008

Obituary for Masuda Sayo

The following is a post from G. G. Rowley, translator of Sayo Masuda’s Autobiography of a Geisha. Masuda Sayo died on 26 June 2008, a few months short of her eighty-third birthday. Her end was blessedly swift: she was admitted...

September 22, 2008

How East Asians View Democracy

East Asian democracies are in trouble, their legitimacy threatened by poor policy performance and undermined by nostalgia for the progrowth, soft-authoritarian regimes of the past. Yet citizens throughout the region value freedom, reject authoritarian alternatives, and believe in democracy. How...

September 11, 2008

"Dangerous Islands": Alexis Dudden on JapanFocus

“Although not immediately foreseeable, the results of [the Bush administration’s] move hold the potential to make the Falklands War look like child’s play.”—Alexis Dudden, JapanFocus As has been reported in the New York Times and elsewhere, the question of sovereignty...

September 2, 2008

Greatest Games Ever or Potemkin Village?: A Post by Victor Cha

The following post is by Victor Cha, the D. S. Song-Korea Foundation Chair in Asian Studies and associate professor of government in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and author of the forthcoming Beyond the...

August 28, 2008

The Art of War Translated by Victor Mair Ranked #1

Recently the Web site Sonshi, a site dedicated to Sun Zi’s The Art of War scholarship and interpretation, ranked Victor Mair’s translation of The Art of War as their most highly recommended translation of all the versions available. Founded in...

August 25, 2008

Zhang Yimou … Filmmaker

With the Olympics now finished, we can look forward to Victor Cha’s Beyond the Final Score: The Politics of Sport in Asia, which provides historical and political perspectives on the just-completed Games.For those more interested in the man behind the...

August 21, 2008

Coming Soon from China: Dystopic Futures, the Next Steve Jobs, and a World Full of Drumming Androids

On MangoBot, a great blog dedicated to Asian futurism, Andrew Nathan,editor of How East Asians View Democracy, joined other experts to speculate on the future of China. In particular, Nathan was asked to offer a prediction regarding China’s political future...

Category: Asian Studies