This is a bilbiography of sources of general value for the study of Asia, particularly East Asia. It is a work in progress and will grow as new sources are added. Sources are organized by geographic region. Due to my academic emphasis upon China, the China section is obviously the most well-developed.

General Asia

East Asia
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• Five College Center for East Asian Studies at Smith College

http://www.smith.edu/fcceas/

• Teaching East Asia, a seminar in East Asian history and culture by Ryan Bradeen
Birch, Cyril, editor. Anthology of Chinese Literature, vol. 1 & 2. New York: Grove Press, 1972

Ebrey, Patricia, editor. Chinese Civilization: a sourcebook. New York: Free Press, 1993

Fairbank, John King. China: a new history. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1992

Gernet, Jacques. A History of Chinese Civilization. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP, 1972

Hane, Mikiso. Japan: a short history. Oxford, UK: Oneworld Publications, 2000

Keene, Donald, editor. Anthology of Japanese Literature: from the earliest era to the mid-nineteenth century. New York: Grove Press, 1955

_________, editor. Modern Japanese Literature: from 1868 to the present day. New York: Grove Press, 1956

Minear, Richard. Through Japanese Eyes. New York: Cite Books, 1994

Tanizaki, Junichiro, translated by T. Harper. In Praise of Shadows. Stony Creek, CT: Leete’s Island Books, 1977

China • top

• China Studies Reading Guide by R.Bradeen for students graduating from a full year 12th grade Asian history class.
These are the first sources for which I reach for any question about Chinese history. They form the core of any collection on China.

Fairbank, John King. China: a New History. Cambridge, M.A.: Harvard UP, 1992.

Gernet, Jacques. A History of Chinese Civilization. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge UP, 1982.

Spence, Jonathan. The Search for Modern China.

The works in this list are of narrower focus than the first list, but broader than the third list. Reading each of these works dramatically affected my understanding of Chinese history.

Barfield, Thomas. The Perilous Frontier: the Nomadic Empires and China. Cambridge, M.A.: Basil Blackfield, 1989.

Elvin, Mark. The Pattern of the Chinese Past. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1972.

Franck, Irene and David Brownstone. The Silk Road: a history. New York: Facts on File, 1990.

Haw, Stephen. Traveller’s History of China. New York: Interlink Books, 1997.

Lattimore, Owen. Studies in Frontier History. London: Oxford UP, 1962.

Meisner, Maurice. The Deng Xiaoping Era: an inquiry into Chinese socialism. New York: Hill and Wang, 1998.


This list contains those works which were essential to my graduate studies and together form a very powerful set of sources on early medieval China. Understanding this period has brought much of the remaining parts of Chinese history into focus.

Bol, Peter. “This Culture of Ours:” Intellectual Transitions in Tang and Sung China. Stanford: Stanford UP 1992.

Connery, Christopher. The Empire of the Text. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littfield, 1998.

Dien, Albert, ed. State and Society in Early Medieval China. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1990.

Ebrey, Patricia. The Aristocratic Families in Early Imperial China. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge UP, 1978.

Hartman, Charles. Han Yu and the T’ang Search for Unity. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1986.

Holcombe, Charles. In the Shadow of the Han: Literati Thought and Society at the beginning of the Southern Dynasties. Honolulu: UHawaii Press, 1994.

Johnson, David. The Medieval Chinese Oligarchy. Boulder, C.O.: Westview Press, 1977.

Twitchett, Denis, ed. Perspectives on the T’ang. New Haven, C.T.: Yale UP, 1973.









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