Why am I passionate about this?

Growing up during the Cold War, I wondered how the United States and the Soviet Union became locked into an existential struggle that threatened to vaporize the planet. So, I studied Russian, Chinese, and Japanese (along with French, Spanish, and German) to learn more. At issue was the global order and the outcome of this struggle depended on the balance of power—not only military power that consumed Soviet attention but also economic power and standards of living that Western voters emphasized. Yet it was Japan that had the workable development model as proven by the Four Asian Tigers (Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan) during the 1960s to 1990s.


I wrote

The Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895: Perceptions, Power, and Primacy

By S.C.M. Paine,

Book cover of The Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895: Perceptions, Power, and Primacy

What is my book about?

The Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 reversed the Asian balance of power, yielding the unprecedented outcome of Japan not China on…

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

The books I picked & why

Book cover of The Meiji Restoration

S.C.M. Paine Why did I love this book?

This book is a deep dive into what makes Japan special. William G. Beasley (1919-2006), a long-time professor at the University of London, was one of his generation’s finest Japanologists. This book highlights the enormous achievements of the Meiji generation, who alone among non-Western leaders, positioned their country to win the game of economic catch-up.

By W.G. Beasley,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Meiji Restoration as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

For Japan, the Meiji Restoration of 1868 has something of the significance that the French Revolution has for France: it is the point from which modern history begins. In this now classic work of Japanese history, the late W. G. Beasley offers a comprehensive account of the origins, development, and immediate aftermath of the events that restored Imperial rule to Japan. He makes the case that the origins of the Meiji Restoration are not found in economic distress or class struggle, but in a growing sense of national danger and national pride spurred by Japan's contacts with the West. Nationalism…


Book cover of Modern Chinese Warfare, 1795-1989

S.C.M. Paine Why did I love this book?

Outsiders do not grasp the frequency let alone the magnitude of the civil and foreign wars that ravaged China well into the Maoist era. Sometimes China was the aggressor and sometimes the victim and, in its many civil wars, the Chinese government was always brutal. Concise chapters describe each conflict.

By Bruce A. Elleman,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Modern Chinese Warfare, 1795-1989 as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Why did the Chinese empire collapse and why did it take so long for a new government to reunite China? Modern Chinese Warfare, 1795-1989 seeks to answer these questions by exploring the most important domestic and international conflicts over the past two hundred years, from the last half of the Qing empire through to modern day China. It reveals how most of China's wars during this period were fought to preserve unity in China, and examines their distinctly cyclical pattern of imperial decline, domestic chaos and finally the creation of a new unifying dynasty.
By 1989 this cycle appeared complete,…


Book cover of Japan and the Wider World: From the Mid-Nineteenth Century to the Present

S.C.M. Paine Why did I love this book?

Shakespeare commented that brevity is the soul of wit. No wasted words in this short book that provides a whirlwind tour of Japanese foreign policy from the mid-nineteenth century to the 1980s. Iriye starts with Japan’s emergence as a great power and takes the story through the end of the Cold War.

By Akira Iriye,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Japan and the Wider World as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Akira Iriye assesses Japan's international relations, from a Japanese perspective, in the century and a half since she ended her self-imposed isolation and resumed her place in the international community. The book is the author's own adaptation of two highly successful short studies, up to and after 1945, that he wrote for Japan. It ends with a consideration of Japan's international relations since the end of the Cold War, and her place in the world today. This is history written from within - and there could be no better interpreter of Japan to the West than this most distinguished of…


Book cover of Sino-Russian Relations

S.C.M. Paine Why did I love this book?

Western commentators still try to analyze East Asian politics without reference to Russia as if countries ignore bordering great powers. For this obvious reason, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Russian leaders pay careful attention to each other because they share crucial borders. There are hardly any books on Russia’s pivotal role in Asia and most authors who try read none of the relevant languages. Rosemary Quested packed a lot into her concise book highlighting Russia’s role in the evolution of the Asian balance of power.

By Rosemary Ouested,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Sino-Russian Relations as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This book provides a systematic history of Sino-Russian relations, a history which is invaluable in forming an understanding of relations between the two nations today. Becoming neighbours in the seventeenth century, their changing relations in peace and war, in isolation, cooperation and confrontation have steadily assumed a greater importance in world politics and become increasingly important to the stability of international relations.


Book cover of The Cambridge History of China: Volume 10, Late Ch'ing 1800–1911, Part 1

S.C.M. Paine Why did I love this book?

The Qing dynasty is covered in both volumes 10 and 11 of this wonderful series. Volume 10 contains essays that earlier in my career I would always go back to—not for the riveting prose but for the solid information. John K. Fairbank (1907-1991), the father of U.S. Sinology and longtime professor at Harvard University, invited the finest Sinologists to contribute to these volumes. Pick and choose from among the excellent chapters including: Joseph Fletcher (Inner Asia and Sino-Russian relations), John K. Fairbank (the treaty port system), Philip A. Kuhn (the Taiping Rebellion) in volume 10; and Immanuel C. Y. Hsu (foreign relations), Marius Jansen (Japan and the 1911 Revolution) in volume 11. Beware that the two volumes are very much scholarly works—in both the positive and negative meanings of the word, scholarly.

By John K. Fairbank,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Cambridge History of China as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This is the first of two volumes in this major Cambridge history dealing with the decline of the Ch'ing empire. It opens with a survey of the Ch'ing empire in China and Inner Asia at its height, in about 1800. Contributors study the complex interplay of foreign invasion, domestic rebellion and Ch'ing decline and restoration. Special reference is made to the Peking administration, the Canton trade and the early treaty system, the Taiping, Nien and other rebellions, and the dynasty's survival in uneasy cooperation with the British, Russian, French, American and other invaders. Each chapter is written by a specialist…


Explore my book 😀

The Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895: Perceptions, Power, and Primacy

By S.C.M. Paine,

Book cover of The Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895: Perceptions, Power, and Primacy

What is my book about?

The Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 reversed the Asian balance of power, yielding the unprecedented outcome of Japan not China on top, an outcome China has been striving to reverse ever since. Although this war, not the Opium Wars, constitutes the divide between China’s traditional and modern eras, it remains virtually ignored in Western literature. Not so in the East, where this reversal in the traditional power balance fractured the previous international harmony within the Confucian world and left an aftershock of enduring territorial and political fault lines that continue to embroil China, Japan, Korea, Russia, and Taiwan.

As the tectonic plates shift back to China on top, it is worth understanding what happened during the last time of portentous seismic changes.

Book cover of The Meiji Restoration
Book cover of Modern Chinese Warfare, 1795-1989
Book cover of Japan and the Wider World: From the Mid-Nineteenth Century to the Present

Share your top 3 reads of 2024!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,365

readers submitted
so far, will you?

You might also like...

No Average Day: The 24 Hours of October 24, 1944

By Rona Simmons,

Book cover of No Average Day: The 24 Hours of October 24, 1944

Rona Simmons Author Of No Average Day: The 24 Hours of October 24, 1944

New book alert!

Why am I passionate about this?

I come by my interest in history and the years before, during, and after the Second World War honestly. For one thing, both my father and my father-in-law served as pilots in the war, my father a P-38 pilot in North Africa and my father-in-law a B-17 bomber pilot in England. Their histories connect me with a period I think we can still almost reach with our fingertips and one that has had a momentous impact on our lives today. I have taken that interest and passion to discover and write true life stories of the war—focusing on the untold and unheard stories often of the “Average Joe.”

Rona's book list on World War II featuring the average Joe

What is my book about?

October 24, 1944, is not a day of national remembrance. Yet, more Americans serving in World War II perished on that day than on any other single day of the war.

The narrative of No Average Day proceeds hour by hour and incident by incident while focusing its attention on ordinary individuals—clerks, radio operators, cooks, sailors, machinist mates, riflemen, and pilots and their air crews. All were men who chose to serve their country and soon found themselves in a terrifying and otherworldly place.

No Average Day reveals the vastness of the war as it reaches past the beaches in…

No Average Day: The 24 Hours of October 24, 1944

By Rona Simmons,

What is this book about?

October 24, 1944, is not a day of national remembrance. Yet, more Americans serving in World War II perished on that day than on December 7, 1941, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, or on June 6, 1944, when the Allies stormed the beaches of Normandy, or on any other single day of the war. In its telling of the events of October 24, No Average Day proceeds hour by hour and incident by incident. The book begins with Army Private First-Class Paul Miller's pre-dawn demise in the Sendai #6B Japanese prisoner of war camp. It concludes with the death…


5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in China, Japan, and the Qing dynasty?

China 656 books
Japan 516 books
The Qing Dynasty 29 books