Asia

Professor Kent Deng says there are no grounds for Eurocentricism in explaining the world history of economic growth. Intensive growth of the modern type was first recorded in Song dynasty China

It's hard to understand what's going on in the Xinjiang region of China and the nationalism of the Uyghurs who live there without reading some history. Here Professor Michael Dillon, a historian at King's College London, suggests books to read on the Uyghurs, focusing in particular on scholars and diplomats whose work gives insight into the period before the Chinese Communist takeover in 1949.

The novelist reveals amongst his book selection that Minnesota has the highest number of Korean adoptees in the US (14,000), and that one in every 250 Korean births is adopted by an American family

David Chandler, one of the foremost western scholars on Cambodian history—and author of the first study of S-21, the Khmer Rouge interrogation centre—recommends the best books on Cambodia.

To fully understand unrest in China today you have to go back to the 1930s and the circumstances which led to the Chinese Communist Party taking power, says Harvard political scientist Elizabeth Perry. She recommends the best books on popular protest in China.

In one of the saddest interviews on our site, Sri Lankan activist Ahilan Kadirgamar talks us through the books he hopes will be a source of inspiration to the next generation.  He picks the best books on Sri Lanka and its tragic civil war.

North Korea expert, Andrei Lankov, says that although North Korea is a brutal dictatorship, many people nonetheless manage to lead relatively normal lives. He recommends the best books on North Korea. (NB You can buy all our expert recommendations on North Korea by clicking here.)