asia

I'm reading this book for an lower division undergraduate course in East Asian History. It's better for an upper division course. The book is well indexed, however, there is no bibliography. The only extra is a section that acknowledges the illustrations, which is not very helpful for me. There is a timeline of the dynasties of each country in the back of the book, but it is so tiny it is not helpful. Anyone know of an East Asian wall chart timeline? The topics of each dynasty focus on economics, arts and literature, military, Buddhism and Confucianism, growth and development, declines and failings. East Asian history is interesting. However, there is way too much information in this one book which makes it very difficult to follow, recall, and understand. If instructors choose to use this book, please provide additional optional resources (like a timeline wall chart) because this book does not point the reader to seek other resources. A good book will have a bibliography. Since this book does not, I conclude the authors think this is the only book one needs to read, which it is not.

This is a fine book, one I have assigned for years in my introductory classes along with de Bary's Sources of Chinese Tradition Vol. 1. Now, however, there is a new edition of Sources using the newer pinyin romanization system. Reischauer still uses the old Wade-Giles system. So I can't assign it any longer - I can't expect my students to have the two basic books in the course use different romanizations. Could not Houghton-Mifflin redo Reischauer using pinyin? It could be done with no effort by using a simple replace function on a computer.

I remember buying this textbook back in the '80's for a course at Harvard taught by the professors themselves. Back then, the book cost [money]. I can't believe they now want over [money]for it. That's insane. Sure, it's full of factual information, but it's hardly unique information -- these are historical facts available anywhere, with very little opinion or perspective or even personality woven in. (Indeed, the book is as dry as the Gobi Desert.) Furthermore, they first wrote this book back in 1975. Updating it could not have required that much labor, particularly since Harvard already pays these profs to do nothing but talk about Asia. Professors are getting away with extortion knowing they have a captive audience (students) required to buy their textbook. Yes, it's a good textbook. Is it worth over [money]? Not for a Chinese minute. Here's hoping that they're donating their royalties to North Korean famine relief.