100 books like Sovereignty and Authenticity

By Prasenjit Duara,

Here are 100 books that Sovereignty and Authenticity fans have personally recommended if you like Sovereignty and Authenticity. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Intoxicating Manchuria: Alcohol, Opium, and Culture in China's Northeast

Annika A. Culver Author Of Glorify the Empire: Japanese Avant-Garde Propaganda in Manchukuo

From my list on Manchukuo (Manchuria).

Why am I passionate about this?

I began formally researching Japanese occupied northeast China in the late nineties in graduate school at Harvard University. Manchuria always fascinated me as a confluence of cultures: even prior to the 19th century, Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Russians, Eastern Europeans, Mongols, and indigenous peoples circulated within the region in China's periphery. In the 1930s until 1945, Japanese propaganda portrayed the area as a "utopia" under Confucian principles, but in the mid-1990s, the horrors of the occupation for colonized peoples as well as imperial Japan's biological weapons experimentation during the Asia-Pacific War came to light in Japan and elsewhere as former Japanese settlers as well as researchers began to tell their stories.

Annika's book list on Manchukuo (Manchuria)

Annika A. Culver Why did Annika love this book?

This excellent book illuminates the culture of intoxicants in northeast China under Japanese occupation. Smith examines Chinese literature, advertisements, and popular culture to show how liquor and opium were depicted in contemporaneous mass media and impacted local urban communities. He also investigates how popular conceptions of "health" tied in with programs initiated by the Japanese authorities to control local populations, while advertisers of patent medicines, cordials, and tonics also picked up on these themes. Some of the highlights of Intoxicating Manchuria include masterfully vivid descriptions and illustrations of cartoons revealing the uneasy relationship between law enforcement, retailers, public health practitioners, and corporations.

By Norman Smith,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Intoxicating Manchuria reveals how the powerful alcohol and opium industries in Northeast China were altered by warlord rule, Japanese occupation, political conflict, and a vigorous anti-intoxicant movement. Through the lens of the Chinese media's depictions of alcohol and opium, Norman Smith examines how intoxicants and addiction were understood in this society, the role the Japanese occupation of Manchuria played in the portrayal of intoxicants, and the efforts made to reduce opium and alcohol consumption. This is the first English-language book-length study to focus on alcohol use in modern China and the first dealing with intoxicant restrictions in the region.


Book cover of Japan's Total Empire: Manchuria and the Culture of Wartime Imperialism

Jeremy A. Yellen Author Of The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere: When Total Empire Met Total War

From my list on the Japanese Empire.

Why am I passionate about this?

Jeremy A. Yellen is a historian at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. His research focuses on modern Japan’s international, diplomatic, and political history. He maintains a strong interest in the history of international relations and international order.

Jeremy's book list on the Japanese Empire

Jeremy A. Yellen Why did Jeremy love this book?

When people ask for book recommendations on Japan’s empire, Louise Young's Japan’s Total Empire usually tops my list. Young focuses on the empire in Manchuria from 1931 to 1945, and highlights Manchuria as more than a Japanese military conquest—it was also a vast cultural project that mobilized the nation behind state intervention at home and imperial expansion abroad. To tell this story, Young focuses on much more than the army and civilian bureaucracy—she also shows how an ideal Manchukuo was imagined by multiple actors, from the mass media and business groups to intellectuals, settlers, and grassroots associations. Empire in Manchuria mobilized the Japanese state and society to an unprecedented degree, and transformed it in enduring and irrevocable ways.  

By Louise Young,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Japan's Total Empire as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In this first social and cultural history of Japan's construction of Manchuria, Louise Young offers an incisive examination of the nature of Japanese imperialism. Focusing on the domestic impact of Japan's activities in Northeast China between 1931 and 1945, Young considers "metropolitan effects" of empire building: how people at home imagined and experienced the empire they called Manchukuo. Contrary to the conventional assumption that a few army officers and bureaucrats were responsible for Japan's overseas expansion, Young finds that a variety of organizations helped to mobilize popular support for Manchukuo--the mass media, the academy, chambers of commerce, women's organizations, youth…


Book cover of Manchukuo Perspectives: Transnational Approaches to Literary Production

Annika A. Culver Author Of Glorify the Empire: Japanese Avant-Garde Propaganda in Manchukuo

From my list on Manchukuo (Manchuria).

Why am I passionate about this?

I began formally researching Japanese occupied northeast China in the late nineties in graduate school at Harvard University. Manchuria always fascinated me as a confluence of cultures: even prior to the 19th century, Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Russians, Eastern Europeans, Mongols, and indigenous peoples circulated within the region in China's periphery. In the 1930s until 1945, Japanese propaganda portrayed the area as a "utopia" under Confucian principles, but in the mid-1990s, the horrors of the occupation for colonized peoples as well as imperial Japan's biological weapons experimentation during the Asia-Pacific War came to light in Japan and elsewhere as former Japanese settlers as well as researchers began to tell their stories.

Annika's book list on Manchukuo (Manchuria)

Annika A. Culver Why did Annika love this book?

In this edited volume with contributions from scholars from China, Japan, Korea, and North America, we investigate the intellectual climate of Manchukuo and interrogate how writers found both opportunity and peril in this new state under Japanese control. This study approaches Manchukuo literature from a transnational perspective, and most importantly, not all of the scholars in our collection agree with each other! We contest the "collaboration-resistance" binary that had been so persistent in much scholarship related to China under Japanese occupation by illuminating the complex choices made by cultural producers during their careers. One of our chapters features an essay by one of Manchukuo's last living writers.

By Annika A. Culver (editor), Norman Smith (editor),

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

This groundbreaking volume critically examines how writers in Japanese-occupied northeast China negotiated political and artistic freedom while engaging their craft amidst an increasing atmosphere of violent conflict and foreign control. The allegedly multiethnic utopian new state of Manchukuo (1932–1945) created by supporters of imperial Japan was intended to corral the creative energies of Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Russians, and Mongols. Yet, the twin poles of utopian promise and resistance to a contested state pulled these intellectuals into competing loyalties, selective engagement, or even exile and death―surpassing neat paradigms of collaboration or resistance. In a semicolony wrapped in the utopian vision of…


Book cover of Heaven and Hell: A Novel of a Manchukuo Childhood

Annika A. Culver Author Of Glorify the Empire: Japanese Avant-Garde Propaganda in Manchukuo

From my list on Manchukuo (Manchuria).

Why am I passionate about this?

I began formally researching Japanese occupied northeast China in the late nineties in graduate school at Harvard University. Manchuria always fascinated me as a confluence of cultures: even prior to the 19th century, Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Russians, Eastern Europeans, Mongols, and indigenous peoples circulated within the region in China's periphery. In the 1930s until 1945, Japanese propaganda portrayed the area as a "utopia" under Confucian principles, but in the mid-1990s, the horrors of the occupation for colonized peoples as well as imperial Japan's biological weapons experimentation during the Asia-Pacific War came to light in Japan and elsewhere as former Japanese settlers as well as researchers began to tell their stories.

Annika's book list on Manchukuo (Manchuria)

Annika A. Culver Why did Annika love this book?

In tandem with the "Manshû bûmu" [Manchuria Boom] in Japan from the late nineties until early aughts, numerous memoirs have appeared on the market by former Japanese settlers of Manchukuo. One of the more chilling and nuanced accounts is that of Takarabe Toriko, a celebrated Japanese poet, who was a child and preteen during the 1930s and 1940s in a family where her father served as a Kantô Army officer near Jiamusi in Japanese-occupied northeast China. She herself experienced and witnessed life under Japanese occupation, as well as the brutal revenge exacted upon Japan's overlords after defeat, where both Chinese and Russians wreaked violence upon their oppressors as the Japanese attempted to flee. As a young girl, Takarabe recounts personal memories of a horror that, ironically, had been experienced by the colonized only a short time before. This engaging memoir expertly translated by Phyllis Birnbaum is both fascinating and a…

By Toriko Takarabe, Phyllis Birnbaum (translator),

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Takarabe Toriko's autobiographical novel Heaven and Hell is a beautiful, chilling account of her childhood in Manchukuo, the puppet state established by the Japanese in northeast China in 1932. As seen through the eyes of a precocious young girl named Masuko, the frontier town of Jiamusi and its inhabitants are by turns enchanting, bemusing, and horrifying. Takarabe skillfully captures Masuko's voice with language that savors Manchukuo's lush forests and vast terrain, but violence and murder are ever present, as much a part of the scenery as the grand Sungari River.

Masuko recounts the "Heaven" of her early life in Jiamusi,…


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 Blood and Iron: The Rise and Fall of the German Empire; 1871-1918

Matthew Jefferies Author Of Contesting the German Empire, 1871 - 1918

From my list on Bismarck and Imperial Germany.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have been studying this period of German history for more than 40 years and teaching it at Manchester since 1991. I have no family connections to Germany, but I went on a school exchange to Hannover when I was 14 and became fascinated by the country and its history. I chose to do my PhD on this period because it seemed less researched than the Weimar and Nazi eras which followed. Contesting the German Empire was an attempt to show how historians’ views of Imperial Germany have changed over time, and to give a flavor of their arguments. Reading it will save you from having to digest 500 books yourself! 

Matthew's book list on Bismarck and Imperial Germany

Matthew Jefferies Why did Matthew love this book?

I have selected a non-academic title which has gained a lot of attention over the past year or so. Its author is a journalist (for titles such as The Spectator, Daily Telegraph, and The Washington Post) and podcaster (Tommies & Jerries), but her Anglo-German background, storytelling flair, and social media presence have made her an important new voice in interpreting German history for the English-speaking world. This book is a handy starting point for those who want a concise chronological narrative of the period.

By Katja Hoyer,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Blood and Iron as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Before 1871, Germany was not yet a nation but simply an idea. Otto von Bismarck had a formidable task at hand. How would he bring thirty-nine individual states under the yoke of a single Kaiser? Once united, could the young European nation wield enough power to rival the empires of Britain and France - all without destroying itself in the process? In a unique study of five decades that changed the course of modern history, Katja Hoyer tells the story of the German Empire from its violent beginnings to its calamitous defeat in the First World War. This often-startling narrative…


Book cover of Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present

David Austin Beck Author Of The Greek Prince of Afghanistan

From my list on understanding the Scythians.

Why am I passionate about this?

I'm an author who believes that history contains an endless number of stories of how our past peers dealt with and contributed to the tension, fusion, and reinvention that is human existence. When writing The Greek Prince of Afghanistan, which focuses on the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom of ancient Afghanistan, I included a Scythian character, because I felt the novel’s story, like humanity’s story, is best told through multiple perspectives. The above books helped me greatly in that effort.

David's book list on understanding the Scythians

David Austin Beck Why did David love this book?

While only one chapter of Empires of the Silk Road is dedicated to the Scythians, this book is a compelling introduction to Central Eurasian peoples throughout history. Beckwith’s work stabs right at the heart of ancient and modern writings that frame the Scythians and other nomadic peoples within a pejorative “barbarian” framework. More than that, he explores how societies such as the Scythians viewed themselves, which differs greatly from other approaches, which use them only as a foil to more sedentary peoples.

By Christopher I Beckwith,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

The first complete history of Central Eurasia from ancient times to the present day, Empires of the Silk Road represents a fundamental rethinking of the origins, history, and significance of this major world region. Christopher Beckwith describes the rise and fall of the great Central Eurasian empires, including those of the Scythians, Attila the Hun, the Turks and Tibetans, and Genghis Khan and the Mongols. In addition, he explains why the heartland of Central Eurasia led the world economically, scientifically, and artistically for many centuries despite invasions by Persians, Greeks, Arabs, Chinese, and others. In retelling the story of the…


Book cover of Governing the Market: Economic Theory and the Role of Government in East Asian Industrialization

Richard G. Lipsey Author Of Industrial Policy: The Coevolution of Public and Private Sources of Finance for Important Emerging and Evolving Technologies

From my list on how private and public sector enterprises.

Why am I passionate about this?

Over my lifetime I have been involved in myriad policy issues running from 1970s anti-inflation policies, through the creation of NAFTA in the 1980s, to dealing with climate change in the 2000s. My interest and that of my co-author in technological change and economic growth entailed involvement in innovation policy. We are particularly worried because many citizens have no realisation of the important part that public policy has played in technological changes. Ignorance of this is dangerous in that it may lead legislatures to inhibit the public sector’s future role in such developments without which we have a much-diminished chance of dealing with climate change and holding our own in international economic competition.

Richard's book list on how private and public sector enterprises

Richard G. Lipsey Why did Richard love this book?

In the original version of this book, Wade refutes the two extreme versions of the reasons for the dramatic successes of the East Asian Tigers, particularly Taiwan, in going from undeveloped to advanced economies, fully integrated into the global economy, within one generation.

One version is that the success was mainly due to the free market and the other that it is attributed mainly to government intervention. Instead, Wade shows that key decisions were divided between the private and public sectors in a way that produced a synergy between them.

The revised version extends the coverage to explain the booms and busts in the early 21st century and outlines his new agenda for national and international development policy.

By Robert Wade,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Published originally in 1990 to critical acclaim, Robert Wade's Governing the Market quickly established itself as a standard in contemporary political economy. In it, Wade challenged claims both of those who saw the East Asian story as a vindication of free market principles and of those who attributed the success of Taiwan and other countries to government intervention. Instead, Wade turned attention to the way allocation decisions were divided between markets and public administration and the synergy between them. Now, in a new introduction to this paperback edition, Wade reviews the debate about industrial policy in East and Southeast Asia…


Book cover of Foreign Devil: Thirty Years of Reporting from the Far East

Bill Emmott Author Of Deterrence, Diplomacy and the Risk of Conflict Over Taiwan

From my list on how to avoid WWIII starting in Asia.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have been addicted to Asia ever since serving in Tokyo for three marvelous years as The Economist’s correspondent in 1983-86 and since watching the rise of China, India, and South-East Asia from my privileged perch as editor-in-chief of The Economist in 1993-2006. For much of those years I have been writing about politics and economics rather than war and peace, but two key events recently convinced me to study something new. These were Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and then my beloved Japan’s decision to shake off its post-war shackles and build up its own defense forces in order to help prevent something like that from happening in Asia, too. 

Bill's book list on how to avoid WWIII starting in Asia

Bill Emmott Why did Bill love this book?

This was one of the first books I read when I was sent out to Japan in 1983 as a young reporter for The Economist.

Richard Hughes was a veteran Australian foreign correspondent in Asia during the Second World War and well beyond, and his very lively memoir brought out for me the mixture of great stories, tangled views of history, cultural incomprehension, and, above all, variety that I was to discover during my own by now 40 years of writing about what we now call the Indo-Pacific but was then, in a very Euro-centric way, known even to Australians as “the Far East.”

By Richard Hughes,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Celebrated journalist, probable spy, possible double agent, Hughes recounts his years reporting from the Far East. From a base in Hong Kong he documents revolutions, politics and murders from Singapore to Korea. His shrewd assessment of events, particularly in China, presages issues affecting the world today. Hughes provides a wealth of first-hand information and interviews with spies from Richard Sorges to Burgess and Maclean, whose defection led to the exposure of Kim Philby.


Book cover of East Asia, Latin America, and the Decolonization of Transpacific Studies

Ignacio López-Calvo Author Of The Mexican Transpacific: Nikkei Writing, Visual Arts, and Performance

From my list on Asian-Latin American exchanges.

Why am I passionate about this?

Extensive research on cultural production by Latin American authors of Asian ancestry has given me a comprehensive understanding of the development of Transpacific studies. For the last decade, my research has focused, for the most part, on South-South intercultural exchanges and cultural production by and about Latin American authors of Asian descent. I have written five books dealing with these topics: 2008 Imaging the Chinese in Cuban Literature and Culture (2009), The Affinity of the Eye: Writing Nikkei in Peru (2013), Dragons in the Land of the Condor: Writing Tusán in Peru (2014), Japanese Brazilian Saudades: Diasporic Identities and Cultural Production (2019), and The Mexican Transpacific: Nikkei Writing, Visual Arts, Performance (forthcoming).  

Ignacio's book list on Asian-Latin American exchanges

Ignacio López-Calvo Why did Ignacio love this book?

This book uses a transpacific, decolonial, and interdisciplinary approach to study the connections between Latin America and East Asia, concentrating on contemporary commodity extraction and exchanges. The book explores South-South exchanges without Global North metropolitan mediations, thus recentering East Asia-Latin America as an epistemological lens through which to consider these sophisticated networks and produce new knowledge. In my view, the originality of this book resides first in the interdisciplinary connection it makes between the decolonial project and transpacific studies, and secondly, in the two-pronged approach from two unfortunately often disconnected academic perspectives: Latin American and East Asian Studies. 

By Chiara Olivieri (editor), Jordi Serrano-Muñoz (editor),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked East Asia, Latin America, and the Decolonization of Transpacific Studies as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In this collective work, researchers from different disciplines reflect upon the challenges and opportunities of decolonizing transpacific studies through the lens of a few paradigmatic case-studies that deal with connections between East Asia and Latin America. The present book offers a productive problematization of the idea of the transpacific as a concept and a space that is not restricted to a single definition. We defend that the transpacific can instead promote an understanding of agents and experiences that share many common traits that have been generally overlooked by a hegemonic interpretation of knowledge and the relationship between regions.By fostering an…


Book cover of Intoxicating Manchuria: Alcohol, Opium, and Culture in China's Northeast
Book cover of Japan's Total Empire: Manchuria and the Culture of Wartime Imperialism
Book cover of Manchukuo Perspectives: Transnational Approaches to Literary Production

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