The Gordon Library has an extensive collection of books, both in print and electronic, related to East Asia. Books and e-books can provide helpful background information on your topic. Below is a sampling of those books. To find more books, type your keywords into WPI Library Search, click on Resource Type in the left column of the search results page, and then select the Books filter.
Environmental Politics in East Asia
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Through a focus on three environmental policy areas exhibiting different levels of success, this book shows how governments in China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan have been able to craft pro-environmental policy by working in collaboration with business and societal interests. This work offers both hope and caution for how we can craft pro-environmental policies in diverse political contexts.
Global Justice in East Asia
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This book presents a series of contributions reflecting upon the conditions of a greater involvement of East Asian traditions of thought in the debate on global justice. Including chapters on diverse issues such as global social inequalities, human rights practice and the functioning of international institutions, this book examines the political cultures of East Asia in order to help political theorists better appraise the distinctiveness of non-Western ideas of justice. This work brings much-needed non-Western voices to the global justice debate, ell as activists involved in the global justice movement.
The Innovation Imperative for Developing East Asia
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After a half century of significant economic success, countries in developing East Asia face an array of challenges. Slowing productivity growth, increasing fragility of the global trading system, and rapid changes in technology are threatening the region's engine of growth: export-oriented labor-intensive manufacturing. Longer-term demographic and climate change, and the current COVID-19 pandemic, are increasing economic vulnerability. Against this background, this work examines the role of innovation in fostering future economic progress in developing East Asia. The report suggests policy and institutional reforms for innovation-led growth in the region.
Navigating Prosperity and Security in East Asia
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This work discusses how East Asian countries and US allies in Asia can balance their security interests and their economic interests. And how these countries, individually and collectively, can broaden their policy options and deepen economic integration. This volume investigates the domestic and international dimensions of these questions.
The China Alternative: Changing Regional Order in the Pacific Islands
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In this collection, 17 leading scholars based in Solomon Islands, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste, Australia, New Zealand, the United States and China analyze key dimensions of the changing relationship between China and the Pacific Islands and explore the strategic, economic and diplomatic implications for regional actors. This book provides ample material for informed judgements about the ability of island leaders to maintain their agency in the changing regional order, as well as other issues of significance to the peoples of the region.
Japan
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In this work, the author provides a comprehensive comparative analysis of Japanese culture.
North Korea and Economic Integration in East Asia
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Throughout North Korea's history, it has regarded external relations with suspicion and as a potential threat to its regime. With North Korea working towards denuclearization, there is now hope for an economic opening. This book examines the external economic strategies that North Korea may consider for its reforms and development. This book shows how a new economic recovery strategy on the Korean Peninsula may be accomplished.
Redefining Multicultural Families in South Korea
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Redefining Multicultural Families in South Korea provides an in-depth look at the lives of families in Korea that include immigrants. Ten original chapters in this volume, written by scholars in multiple social science disciplines and covering different methodological approaches, aim to reinvigorate contemporary discussions about these multicultural families. Specially, the volume expands the scope of "multicultural families" by examining the diverse configurations of families with immigrants who crossed the Korean border during and after the 1990s, such as the families of undocumented migrant workers, divorced marriage immigrants, and the families of Korean women with Muslim immigrant husbands. Second, instead of looking at immigrants as newcomers, the volume takes a discursive turn, viewing them as settlers or first-generation immigrants in Korea whose post-migration lives have evolved and whose membership in Korean society has matured, by examining immigrants' identities, need for political representation, their fights through the court system, and the aspirations of second-generation immigrants.
Taiwan in Dynamic Transition
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This work provides an up-to-date assessment of contemporary Taiwan, highlighting Taiwan's emergent nationhood and its significance for world politics. Taiwan serves as a test case for nation and state building, the formation of national identity, and the emergence of democratic norms in real time.
The Hong Kong-China Nexus: A Brief History
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The Occupy Central/Umbrella Movement of 2014 and the anti-extradition protests of 2019 revealed how much Hong Kong's relationship with mainland China has deteriorated since the former British colony returned to Chinese sovereignty in July 1997. With mutual distrust and suspicion at an all-time high, many Hong Kong people have become increasingly hostile toward the Chinese government and the mainland in general, identifying themselves as Hongkongers rather than as Chinese. Yet, as John Carroll shows, for more than 150 years, colonial Hong Kong and China not only coexisted with but benefited each other, even during the anti-imperialist campaigns of the Republican and Communist eras. The porous boundary between Hong Kong and China enabled the two to use each other economically, politically, socially, and culturally. The Hong Kong-China nexus, although firmly embedded in global dynamics of colonialism, Cold War politics, and capitalist expansion, defies many common assumptions about nationalism, colonialism, and decolonization.