100 books like China from Empire to Nation-State

By Wang Hui, Michael Gibbs Hill (translator),

Here are 100 books that China from Empire to Nation-State fans have personally recommended if you like China from Empire to Nation-State. Shepherd is a community of 11,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of The Great East Asian War and the Birth of the Korean Nation

Viren Murthy Author Of The Politics of Time in China and Japan: Back to the Future

From my list on profoundly understanding modern East Asian thought.

Why am I passionate about this?

I became interested in East Asia through studying Kung Fu when I was in high school. Through this I began reading translation of Chinese and Japanese philosophical texts. I initially majored in philosophy but eventually also became interested in situating ideas in broader historical contexts. For this reason, I shifted to intellectual history. However, my passion for philosophy and arguments for the validity of ideas remains. For this reason, my work combines both intellectual history and the history of philosophy. 

Viren's book list on profoundly understanding modern East Asian thought

Viren Murthy Why did Viren love this book?

JaHyun Kim Haboush passed away in 2011 and was a leading historian of Korea. Her book, The Great East Asian War was published posthumously with the help of her husband, William Haboush’s editing. Although I do not work on Korea, I found this book extremely helpful in understanding the premodern roots of Korean nationalism. Haboush argues that Koreans began to get a sense of national identity when Toyotomi Hideyoshi invaded Korea in 1592-1598. She carefully shows how this sense of nation emerged by focusing on language and other symbolism. I teach this book in my East Asian History class and students find it both informative and enlightening. In some ways, it supplements Wang Hui’s discussion of early modernity in China.

By JaHyun Kim Haboush,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Great East Asian War and the Birth of the Korean Nation as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The Imjin War (1592-1598) was a grueling conflict that wreaked havoc on the towns and villages of the Korean Peninsula. The involvement of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean forces, not to mention the regional scope of the war, was the largest the world had seen, and the memory dominated East Asian memory until World War II. Despite massive regional realignments, Korea's Choson Dynasty endured, but within its polity a new, national discourse began to emerge. Meant to inspire civilians to rise up against the Japanese army, this potent rhetoric conjured a unified Korea and intensified after the Manchu invasions of 1627…


Book cover of Overcome by Modernity: History, Culture, and Community in Interwar Japan

Viren Murthy Author Of The Politics of Time in China and Japan: Back to the Future

From my list on profoundly understanding modern East Asian thought.

Why am I passionate about this?

I became interested in East Asia through studying Kung Fu when I was in high school. Through this I began reading translation of Chinese and Japanese philosophical texts. I initially majored in philosophy but eventually also became interested in situating ideas in broader historical contexts. For this reason, I shifted to intellectual history. However, my passion for philosophy and arguments for the validity of ideas remains. For this reason, my work combines both intellectual history and the history of philosophy. 

Viren's book list on profoundly understanding modern East Asian thought

Viren Murthy Why did Viren love this book?

This book has helped me think through the relationship between capitalism, modernity, and romantic anti-capitalist movements both in East Asia and beyond. The book deals with intellectual currents in interwar Japan, (the 1920s to 1945) and shows how conservative philosophers developed a theory to “overcome modernity.” These authors, many from the so-called Kyoto School, targeted the rampant consumer culture, the overturning of ethical relations, and other structural changes. However, Harootunian contends that such critiques did not grasp the fundamental dynamic of capitalism and its relation to such cultural shifts and consequently, such philosophers were “overcome by modernity.”  This means that such critics of modernity were incorporated into the Japanese fascist military complex, which itself claimed to confront capitalist modernity. At a time, when we see right-wing attempts to confront modernity around the world (Trump, Le Pen, Modi) this book remains extremely relevant.  

By Harry D. Harootunian,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Overcome by Modernity as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In the decades between the two World Wars, Japan made a dramatic entry into the modern age, expanding its capital industries and urbanizing so quickly as to rival many long-standing Western industrial societies. How the Japanese made sense of the sudden transformation and the subsequent rise of mass culture is the focus of Harry Harootunian's fascinating inquiry into the problems of modernity. Here he examines the work of a generation of Japanese intellectuals who, like their European counterparts, saw modernity as a spectacle of ceaseless change that uprooted the dominant historical culture from its fixed values and substituted a culture…


Book cover of The Crisis of Global Modernity: Asian Traditions and a Sustainable Future

Viren Murthy Author Of The Politics of Time in China and Japan: Back to the Future

From my list on profoundly understanding modern East Asian thought.

Why am I passionate about this?

I became interested in East Asia through studying Kung Fu when I was in high school. Through this I began reading translation of Chinese and Japanese philosophical texts. I initially majored in philosophy but eventually also became interested in situating ideas in broader historical contexts. For this reason, I shifted to intellectual history. However, my passion for philosophy and arguments for the validity of ideas remains. For this reason, my work combines both intellectual history and the history of philosophy. 

Viren's book list on profoundly understanding modern East Asian thought

Viren Murthy Why did Viren love this book?

I am greatly impressed by the breadth and ambition of this book. It covers China, Japan, and India and is consequently truly transnational in scope. The book also attempts to relate intellectual history or the history of philosophy to problems that we face today, such as how we can transform our practices to that we can avoid environmental disasters. Duara argues that Asian traditions, given their stress on the interdependence between human beings and nature, might be able to help in this path. Duara’s book poses an important question, namely how to connect Asian intellectual history to concrete problems related to global capitalism. 

By Prasenjit Duara,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

In this major new study, Prasenjit Duara expands his influential theoretical framework to present circulatory, transnational histories as an alternative to nationalist history. Duara argues that the present day is defined by the intersection of three global changes: the rise of non-western powers, the crisis of environmental sustainability and the loss of authoritative sources of what he terms transcendence - the ideals, principles and ethics once found in religions or political ideologies. The physical salvation of the world is becoming - and must become - the transcendent goal of our times, but this goal must transcend national sovereignty if it…


Book cover of The Taming of the Samurai: Honorific Individualism and the Making of Modern Japan

Viren Murthy Author Of The Politics of Time in China and Japan: Back to the Future

From my list on profoundly understanding modern East Asian thought.

Why am I passionate about this?

I became interested in East Asia through studying Kung Fu when I was in high school. Through this I began reading translation of Chinese and Japanese philosophical texts. I initially majored in philosophy but eventually also became interested in situating ideas in broader historical contexts. For this reason, I shifted to intellectual history. However, my passion for philosophy and arguments for the validity of ideas remains. For this reason, my work combines both intellectual history and the history of philosophy. 

Viren's book list on profoundly understanding modern East Asian thought

Viren Murthy Why did Viren love this book?

I found this book a creative addition to the books that attempt to find the origins of modernity in East Asia before contact with the West. Rather than looking at nationalism, Ikegami examines the individualism embedded in the ethics of the samurai. She then shows how starting with Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s ban on swords in the late sixteenth century and the eventual consolidation of the Tokugawa Shogunate in 1603, such individualism had to be curbed or transformed. From this perspective, early modernity in Japan was associated with the emergence of a centralized state that ruled out certain forms of spontaneous aggression, what Weber called the monopoly of violence. 

By Eiko Ikegami,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Modern Japan offers us a view of a highly developed society with its own internal logic. Eiko Ikegami makes this logic accessible to us through a sweeping investigation into the roots of Japanese organizational structures. She accomplishes this by focusing on the diverse roles that the samurai have played in Japanese history. From their rise in ancient Japan, through their dominance as warrior lords in the medieval period, and their subsequent transformation to quasi-bureaucrats at the beginning of the Tokugawa era, the samurai held center stage in Japan until their abolishment after the opening up of Japan in the mid-nineteenth…


Book cover of Confucianism in China: An Introduction

Stephen C. Angle Author Of Growing Moral: A Confucian Guide to Life

From my list on how ancient Confucianism tells us to live well now.

Why am I passionate about this?

The first time I ever had Chinese food was as a 20-year-old junior in college, on the first night of studying abroad for a semester in Nanjing, China. (Luckily, I liked it.) Confucianism was not in my upbringing, at least not explicitly or on purpose. I happened upon China as a freshman at Yale in the 1980s, immersed myself in the language, and went on to earn a PhD in Chinese philosophy. I have taught at Wesleyan University since 1994, and my favorite comment from students is that they find my classes among the most “relevant” things they take—even when we’re studying twelfth-century medieval Confucianism. 

Stephen's book list on how ancient Confucianism tells us to live well now

Stephen C. Angle Why did Stephen love this book?

Most books on the history of Confucianism are dry and concentrated on the earliest period, during and soon after Confucius lived. I’m not saying Confucius himself wasn’t important, but the greatness of Tony Swain’s book is that it manages to be both fascinating and engaging, even occasionally snarky, while also bringing the story of Confucianism all the way up to the twenty-first century. If you want to think about Confucianism as something important today, it helps to understand the evolving ways the tradition has been lived throughout the centuries. 

By Tony Swain,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

This accessible history of Confucianism, or the 'Way of the Ru', emphasizes the religious dimensions of the tradition. It clearly explains the tradition's unique and subtle philosophical ideals as well as the 'arts of the Ru' whereby seemingly simple acts such as reading, sitting quietly, good manners, and attending to family and state responsibilities, became ways of ultimate transformation.

This book explains the origins of the Ru and documents their impact in imperial China, before providing extensive coverage of the modern era. Confucianism in China: An Introduction shows how the long history of the Ru is vital to comprehending China…


Book cover of Smoke and Mirrors: An Experience of China

Susan K. Harris Author Of Mark Twain, the World, and Me: Following the Equator, Then and Now

From my list on blending memoir, travel, and history.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve always enjoyed books that introduce me to faraway places, cultural narratives, and the writers behind the stories. After retiring from college teaching, I decided to write one myself. I’m a Mark Twain scholar, so I followed Twain’s lecture tour through Australasia, India, and South Africa. One of my goals was to expose my research methods to my readers, and writing in the first person made that easy. What I hadn’t foreseen was how much the process would force me to confront my own past—exposing the radical differences between Mark Twain and Me. 

Susan's book list on blending memoir, travel, and history

Susan K. Harris Why did Susan love this book?

This is a first book, covering Aiyar’s years in China as a political correspondent for the Indian Express and The Hindu. Because she is Indian, Aiyar’s perspective differs from Americans’ viewpoints, which drew me, as I’ve been to both India and China. Aiyar tracks the impact of rapid growth on her informants’ sense of self and place—and then compares China’s growth to India’s. It’s a fast-paced, lively book featuring lots of interaction between Aiyar and her students, their families, and other informantsa thoughtful portrait of a culture shifting from tradition into an unknowable future, written by a journalist constantly aware of the radical differences between Indian and “new Chinese” values and sensibilities.  

By Pallavi Aiyar,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Smoke and Mirrors as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?


India and China share a 3500-km border and have interacted with each other for over 2000 years. It is remarkable then that their people know so little of each other: what they think, how they live, their language, customs and philosophy.Or even their cuisine. Pallavi Aiyar was very much the average Indian in her knowledge of China when she set out for Beijing in 2002. Over the next five years, she became a fascinated observer of a country undergoing relentless change. This book is an intimate look at a society evolving at double-digit pace. In the process, Pallavi Aiyar breaks…


Book cover of On the Universal: The Uniform, the Common and Dialogue between Cultures

Tony Fry Author Of Defuturing: A New Design Philosophy

From my list on understand the state of the world dynamics.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been a soldier, designer, educator, farmer, and remain a philosopher and writer. I defy the classification of being either practical or theoretic. I have worked on environmental issues for over thirty years, including urban, post-conflict, and climate change projects in Australia, the Americas, Asia, and Europe. I have written over twenty books on design, cities, conflict, and politics. I am driven to understand the complexity of the world in which I live and, thereafter, act based on the knowledge gained–my book list reflects this passion for knowledge, and my life evidences a commitment to act.

Tony's book list on understand the state of the world dynamics

Tony Fry Why did Tony love this book?

Working between cultures, as I do, I have been reading the Sinologist François Jullien for many years. I like how he traces the passage of an idea across cultures as they reveal tensions between the same and the different. The question Jullien poses with this book is, “Are universal values possible,” especially between the East and the West?

Although a common concept may exist, this does not mean a common meaning does. In my experience, we all communicate constantly, oscillating between understanding and misunderstanding, which is more so when cultural differences occur.

The once-read, never forgotten Wittgenstein statement: ‘The limits of my language mean the limits of my world,’ ever resonates–I believe language mediates all sensory experience, but often inadequately.

By Francois Jullien,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Francois Jullien, the leading philosopher and specialist in Chinese thought, has always aimed at building on inter-cultural relations between China and the West. In this new book he focuses on the following questions: Do universal values exist? Is dialogue between cultures possible?

To answer these questions, he retraces the history of the concept of the universal from its invention as an aspect of Roman citizenship, through its neutralization in the Christian idea of salvation, to its present day manifestations. This raises the question of whether the search for the universal is a uniquely Western preoccupation: do other cultures, like China,…


Book cover of How the World Thinks: A Global History of Philosophy

James Hannam Author Of The Globe: How the Earth Became Round

From my list on how non-western cultures think about the world.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a historian who loves to tell unexpected stories about the interactions between science, religion, and philosophy. As a Christian with a physics degree, I knew the relationship between science and religion was much more interesting than an eternal conflict. So I went back to university, gained a PhD that involved reading lots of Latin and wrote God’s Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science. Since then, I’ve been exploring how traditional ways of seeing the universe differ from modern science, and how we got from one to the other.

James' book list on how non-western cultures think about the world

James Hannam Why did James love this book?

This book makes philosophy exciting again.

Julian Baggini has travelled the world to meet thinkers to find out how different philosophical traditions understand ethics, metaphysics, and reason. He sympathetically explains ideas that can seem unusual or surprising but he isn’t afraid to be critical in his observations.

I loved the way he uncovers the unique aspects of Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Islamic, and American thought, comparing the ways they deal with questions about God, science, how to be good and how to be content.

Above all, he shows that philosophy is impoverished if it is restricted to ‘western’ thought. 

By Julian Baggini,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked How the World Thinks as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

*SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER*

'There to fill the Sapiens-size hole in your life' Observer

In this groundbreaking global overview of philosophy, Julian Baggini travels the world to provide a wide-ranging map of human thought.

One of the great unexplained wonders of human history is that written philosophy flowered entirely separately in China, India and Ancient Greece at more or less the same time. These early philosophies have had a profound impact on the development of distinctive cultures in different parts of the world. What we call 'philosophy' in the West is not even half the story.

Julian Baggini sets out to…


Book cover of Sources of Chinese Tradition: From Earliest Times to 1600

Suzanne Litrel Author Of Jackie Tempo and the Emperor's Seal

From my list on Chinese tradition, revolution, and change.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a historian, educator, and author with an abiding interest in stories that help bridge cultural divides. I first encountered tales of China as an elementary school student in Singapore. Years later, I studied Chinese and backpacked through China, after which I earned my M.A. in Asian Studies. I would go on to become a high school instructor, and this experience helped me teach AP World History ™ and IB (International Baccalaureate) History. I began writing my Jackie Tempo series as a way of providing accessible content in the classroom. Historical fiction has always helped provide deeper context for me and my students.

Suzanne's book list on Chinese tradition, revolution, and change

Suzanne Litrel Why did Suzanne love this book?

The late and renowned sinologist Wm. Theodore de Bary first published his groundbreaking, two-volume Sources of Chinese Tradition in 1960, to such favorable reception that it prompted a second edition, updated to incorporate additional sources that reflect late twentieth-century considerations, including gender and sexuality.

Volume I offers invaluable sources on Early Classical Chinese philosophy. The select writings of Confucius, Mencius, Lao Tze, for example, are excellent source material for educators looking for primary source documents and readers of Chinese antiquity (to 1644) wishing to engage in independent reading and research.

This book was one of several in “Asia through Fiction,” an undergraduate course I took which changed the course of my life in more ways than one. Not only did I meet my future husband our last year of university, but we also lived in Taiwan and backpacked around Mainland China the following year. This text helped deepen our appreciation…

By William Theodore De Bary (editor), Irene Bloom (editor), Joseph Adler (editor)

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Sources of Chinese Tradition as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A collection of seminal primary readings on the social, intellectual, and religious traditions of China, Sources of Chinese Tradition, Volume 1 has been widely used and praised for almost forty years as an authoritative resource for scholars and students and as a thorough and engaging introduction for general readers. Here at last is a completely revised and expanded edition of this classic sourcebook, compiled by noted China scholars Wm. Theodore de Bary and Irene Bloom. Updated to reflect recent scholarly developments, with extensive material on popular thought and religion, social roles, and women's education, this edition features new translations of…


Book cover of Oracle Bones: A Journey Through Time in China

Deborah Shlian Author Of Rabbit in the Moon

From my list on China's myths, religions, politics, and culture.

Why am I passionate about this?

I chose the dramatic backdrop of the Tiananmen massacre because after my first trip to China in the 1980’s I became a host family for mainland students studying at UCLA where I was Medical Director of Student Health. During those weeks in 1989 many students communicated with friends and family back in China using our fax machine. From their perspective, the conflict was a generational struggle between the very old leaders, many of whom marched with Mao and who were desperate to hang onto power (and therefore for my plot would want to get their hands on an elixir to double their lifespan), and the younger generation anxious for reforms.

Deborah's book list on China's myths, religions, politics, and culture

Deborah Shlian Why did Deborah love this book?

This is the second book by Peter Hessler that I have read (River Town was the first). Having visited China several times since the 1980s, when the country was first open to visitors from the West to my more recent trips, I have seen so much change. What I like about this book is how Hessler, a reporter who has lived and taught English in China, tries to describe and explain these changes.

By Peter Hessler,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Oracle Bones as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Peter Hessler's previous book River Town was a prize-winning, poignant and deeply compelling portrait of China. Now, in Oracle Bones, Hessler returns to the country, excavating its long history and immersing himself in the lives of young Chinese as they migrate from the traditional Chinese countryside to the booming ever-changing cities and try to cope with their society's modern transformation.


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