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Asian Studies

NEW
Asian Studies Online Journal Collection
Asian Studies Online Journal Collection
Brill

The 2020 Brill Online Journal Collection Asian Studies gives access to the online content available back to the year 2000 of Brill´s 2020 Asian Studies journal program.

NEW
Brill Companions Online
Brill Companions Online
Brill

Brill Companions Online is a suite of e-book collections comprising state-of-the art research companions in various subject fields within the humanities. Peer reviewed and written by experts, these handbooks offer balanced accounts at an advanced level, along with an overview of the state of scholarship and a synthesis of debate, pointing the way for future research. Designed for students and scholars, the books explain what sources there are, what methodologies and approaches are appropriate in dealing with them, what issues arise and how they have been treated, and what room there is for disagreement.

NEW
Brill's Companions to Asian Studies Online
Brill's Companions to Asian Studies Online
Brill

Brill's Companions to Asian Studies Online is an expanding e-book collection of specially commissioned research companions to various key aspects of Asian history, culture and religion. Almost all volumes are published in Brill’s prestigious series Handbook of Oriental Studies (HdO). Peer reviewed and written by experts, they offer balanced accounts at an advanced level, along with an overview of the state of scholarship and a synthesis of debate, pointing the way for future research. Designed for students and scholars, the books explain what sources there are, what methodologies and approaches are appropriate in dealing with them, what issues arise and how they have been treated, and what room there is for disagreement. All volumes are in English.

NEW
Encyclopedia of Public International Law in Asia Online
Encyclopedia of Public International Law in Asia Online
Brill

Incorporating the work of numerous leading scholars, the Encyclopedia of Public International Law in Asia provides a detailed description of the practice and implementation of international law in various Asian states. The Encyclopedia covers the introduction of Western international law and the resulting shift from the older Asian order; the development of modern international law; and the impact that all of this has had on Asian states.

NEW
Hongkong Weekly Press Online
Hongkong Weekly Press Online
Brill

The Hongkong Weekly Press was an English-language weekly newspaper published between 1890 and 1945. This online collection includes 15,000 pages from issues published in the years 1920 – 1929, available as full-text searchable scans.

The available years of this important serial through Brill cover a series of watershed incidents and periods of unrest in then-British Hongkong’s modern history. The first of these came in reaction to the infamous May 30th 1925 incident in Shanghai, and a parallel incident in Guangzhou (Canton) on June 23rd. In the first, British-commanded police opened fire on Chinese demonstrators at the British-controlled International Settlement. Nine Chinese died in the first incident, fifty in the second. Thus was the May 30th movement born, with seismic consequences for the foreign presence in China, and a ripple effect on competing imperialisms in northeast Asia.

The Hongkong News Online
The Hongkong News Online
Brill

Printed on the abandoned presses of the South China Morning Post, The Hongkong News offers scholars the undiluted voice and mindset of the Japanese administration of Occupied Hongkong. This significant Japanese Occupation holding of The Hongkong News started publication on 31st December 1941, six days after the Christmas Day surrender of the British Crown Colony, and lasted until August 17, 1945, the day that the Shōwa Emperor’s Rescript ordered Japanese forces to surrender to the Allies. The Hongkong News traces Japan’s progress from the Colony's Imperial overlord to abject surrender, through large-scale internment and assurances of certain victory.

Also included in Mobilizing East Asia Online

Trans-Pacific Online
Trans-Pacific Online
Brill

The monthly, soon weekly American-owned Trans-Pacific (1919-1940) reported from Tokyo on American commercial and political interests in East Asia.

Access World News: Research Collection
Access World News: Research Collection
NewsBank

Access World News: Research Collection is an unparalleled collection for academic libraries, featuring thousands of U.S. and global news sources, most available online exclusively through NewsBank. Designed in collaboration with academic librarians, this primary resource solution supports a wide range of academic disciplines, including political science, journalism, English, history, environmental studies, sociology, economics, education, business, health, social sciences and more.

Asia at war, World War 2 as described by USPG missionaries, 1914-1946
Asia at war, World War 2 as described by USPG missionaries, 1914-1946
British Online Archives

The outbreak of war between the Allies and Japan came at a time when the Society for The Propagation of The Gospel was very active in South East Asia. Missionaries in Japan were the first to be affected as the police came in the morning after war was declared and took most of them away to internment camps. Missionaries in Japan did report having realised that this might happen once the announcement was imminent. Missionaries in other countries had less warning of what would happen as Japan's empire spread. Some missionaries were able to flee once they heard Japan had invaded their country of residence, though their stories of escape are far from straightforward. Many missionaries did not manage tro escape and were interned in a variety of ways. These accounts cover house arrest, being held in a cell at a police station, finding a refuge of sorts in a school for the blind, and missionaries being sent to work camps. The narratives from work camps are the least detailed as writing records whilst in them appears to have been near impossible. The SPG at home faced their own challenges during this period, from the drop in donations to the loss of most of their investment when foreign buildings were either taken by the Japanese army or raised to the ground. Missionaries' locations needed to be traced as they were interned and the desire to return home after their release meant that a significant number of missionaries sought passage at the same time. The SPG Headquarters first saw many of their staff leave for the war, then had to reduce their numbers yet further, as missionary activity in South East Asia ground to a relative halt. The records from the First World War are significantly less numerous, but provide some detail not found elsewhere. Their focus is on the effect of the First World War upon the Society, with records of SPG staff fighting in the war and notes upon how the SPG's duties were continued in their absence. This collection is derived from the 'X Series' records of the USPG which are held at the Bodleian Library in Oxford.

This collection is also available in the series: The World Wars: firepower and fascism at home and abroad.

Asian Studies E-Books Online
Asian Studies E-Books Online
Brill

Brill's Asian Studies E-Books Online is the electronic version of the book publication program of Brill in the field of Asian Studies.

Brill's Encyclopedia of China Online
Brill's Encyclopedia of China Online
Brill

Brill’s Encyclopedia of China Online is based on the originally a thousand-page reference work on China with a clear focus on the modern period from the mid-nineteenth century to the 21st century. Written by the world’s top scholars, Brill’s Encyclopedia of China Online is the first place to look for reliable information on the history, geography, society, economy, politics, science, and culture of China. Originally published and warmly received in German (edited by the GIGA Institute of Asian Studies in Hamburg, published by WBG, Darmstadt, 2003), Brill’s Encyclopedia of China Online will serve both English-language students and faculty in conveniently providing a wealth of reliable and solid information on China.

This is included in the China Encyclopedic Reference.

Brill's Encyclopedia of Hinduism Online
Brill's Encyclopedia of Hinduism Online
Brill

Brill’s Encyclopedia of Hinduism presents the latest research on all the main aspects of the Hindu traditions. Its essays are original work written by the world’s foremost scholars on Hinduism. The encyclopedia presents a balanced and even-handed view of Hinduism, recognizing the divergent perspectives and methods in the academic study of a religion that is both an ancient historical tradition and a flourishing tradition today. The encyclopedia embraces the greatest possible diversity, plurality, and heterogeneity, thus emphasizing that Hinduism encompasses a variety of regional traditions as well as a global world religion. Presenting all essays and research from the heralded printed edition, Brill’s Encyclopedia of Hinduism is now available in a fully searchable, dynamic digital format. The service will include all content from the six printed volumes.

China Encyclopedic Reference
China Encyclopedic Reference
Brill

China Encyclopedic Reference offers information on scores of names and places found in Chinese texts. It is therefore the natural complement to the lexical information found in Brill’s dictionaries Le Grand Ricci online and A Student’s Dictionary of Classical and Early Medieval Chinese. Besides the overview found in Brill’s widely-acclaimed Encyclopedia of China covering the whole of China from past to present, China Encyclopedic Reference offers background to names found in early, classical and medieval Chinese texts.

 

The first full-text searchable reference works, now conveniently together in one online service, are

  • Brill's Encyclopedia of China, covering the history and culture of China past and present;

  • A Biographical Dictionary of the Qin, Former Han and Xin Periods (221 BC–AD 24), by M. Loewe;

  • A Biographical Dictionary of Later Han to the Three Kingdoms (23-220 AD), by R. de Crespigny;

  • Ancient and Early Medieval Chinese Literature, A Research Guide, Volume One, by D. Knechtges and T. Chang.

Chinese Research Perspectives Online
Chinese Research Perspectives Online
Brill

The former Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Yearbooks have become part of the Chinese Research Perspectives series. The Chinese Research Perspectives series includes four research areas: Education, the Environment, Population and Labor, and Society. The selection of contributions covers developments in China of particular interest to a Western (non-Chinese speaking) audience and occasionally differs from the Chinese-language yearbooks. The selected materials continue to provide Western readers with firsthand insights into the discussions of China’s top scholars on contemporary issues in their country.

Colonial-Period Korea Online
Colonial-Period Korea Online
Brill

Here is a unique collection of rare documents relating to the Japanese occupation of Korea, from the late nineteenth century up to 1945, representing a highly significant period in Korean history, and vital for a true understanding of many reflexes in the Koreas today. In 1876, Japan “opened” Korea to outside contact for the first time. What followed was a period of sparring with the Chinese over the right of influence in Korea, a rivalry which culminated in the Sino-Japanese war of 1894-95. Following victory, Japan steadily increased its presence and interference in Korean matters until the outright annexation of the country in 1910. Korea would remain a Japanese colony until the end of the Pacific War in 1945.

 

Drawn from the holdings of the C.V. Starr East Asian Library at Columbia University, New York, the collection includes more than 62,000 pages in Japanese language, 18,000 pages of Western (in most cases English) early impressions of Korea, and Korean texts (16,000 pages).

Compilation of Chinese Medicine Periodicals Online, 1897-1952
Compilation of Chinese Medicine Periodicals Online, 1897-1952
Brill

The Compilation of Chinese Medicine Periodicals Online, 1897-1952 is a collection of 49 periodicals on Chinese medicine published in the late Qing and Republican periods in China. This collection includes 212 books in 5 parts of more than 120,000 pages. The late Qing and Republican eras are crucial periods to the development of medicine and science in China. Considered one of the best sources for observing the changing nature of medical practice and education during the late Qing and Republican eras in China, this collection provides unique insight into not only the modern transformation of Chinese medicine, but also the larger role of medicine in Chinese society. This collection includes published documents authored by prominent figures both in support of, and opposed to, Chinese medicine. The periodicals included in this collection are among the oldest, most influential and authoritative of all scholarship on Chinese medicine from the late Qing and Republican periods. The content has important reference value and unique academic significance for research on Chinese medicine as well as Chinese culture, history and society. The periodicals included are both aged and rare. The editorial team worked with over 50 libraries to compile them all together in this work.

FBIS Daily Reports, 1974–1996 Part 1: Middle East, Africa, Near East and South Asia
FBIS Daily Reports, 1974–1996 Part 1: Middle East, Africa, Near East and South Asia
Readex

Part 1: Middle East, Africa, Near East and South Asia
This fully searchable online collection—one of eight individually available area subsets of FBIS Daily Reports, 1974-1996—consists of the following specific FBIS series: MEA (Middle East & North Africa, 1974-1980, Middle East & Africa, 1980-1987) and NES (Near East & South Asia, 1987-1996). As the indispensable source for insights into decades of turbulent regional history, these reports provide students and scholars with national and occasionally local perspectives through a wealth of original political broadcasts and newspaper coverage.

FBIS Daily Reports, 1974–1996 Part 2: Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia
FBIS Daily Reports, 1974–1996 Part 2: Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia
Readex

Part 2: Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia

This fully searchable online collection—one of eight individually available area subsets of FBIS Daily Reports, 1974-1996—consists of the following specific FBIS series: SSA (Sub-Saharan Africa, 1974 and 1976-1980), SAF (Sub-Saharan Africa (1975, 1976), SAS (South Asia, 1980-1987), AFR (Africa, Sub-Sahara, 1987-1988) and AFR (Sub-Saharan Africa, 1988-1996). As the indispensable source for insights into decades of turbulent regional history, these reports provide students and scholars with national and occasionally local perspectives through a wealth of original political broadcasts and newspaper coverage.

FBIS Daily Reports, 1974–1996 Part 3: China
FBIS Daily Reports, 1974–1996 Part 3: China
Readex

Part 3: China

Considered by many Sinologists to be one of the most valuable collections for the study of 20th-century China, this fully searchable online collection—one of eight individually available area subsets of FBIS Daily Reports, 1974-1996—consists of the following specific FBIS series: CHI (People’s Republic of China, 1974-1980 and China, 1981-1996). As the indispensable source for insights into decades of turbulent regional history, these reports provide students and scholars with national and occasionally local perspectives through a wealth of original political broadcasts and newspaper coverage.

FBIS Daily Reports, 1974–1996 Part 4: Asia, Pacific and East Asia
FBIS Daily Reports, 1974–1996 Part 4: Asia, Pacific and East Asia
Readex

Part 4: Asia, Pacific and East Asia

This fully searchable online collection—one of eight individually available area subsets of FBIS Daily Reports, 1974-1996—consists of the following specific FBIS series: APA (Asia & Pacific, 1974-1987) and EAS (East Asia, 1987-1996). As the indispensable source for insights into decades of turbulent regional history, these reports provide students and scholars with national and occasionally local perspectives through a wealth of original political broadcasts and newspaper coverage.

Global Oriental Special E-Book Collection, 2007-2010
Global Oriental Special E-Book Collection, 2007-2010
Brill

Global Oriental Special E-Books Online, Collection 2007-2010 is the electronic version of the book publication program of Global Oriental in 2007-2010.

History of Afghanistan Online: Fayż Muḥammad Kātib Hazārah’s Sirāj al-tawārīkh
History of Afghanistan Online: Fayż Muḥammad Kātib Hazārah’s Sirāj al-tawārīkh
Brill

The Sirāj al-tawārīkh is the essential text for any scholar wishing to understand Afghanistan’s history. It forms the core text of historical writings from within Afghanistan for the period, 1747-1919. Mystery surrounded the work for decades to how many volumes existed. After the discovery of suppressed parts of the third and missing fourth volumes, Brill can now offer this extended resource, as it was originally envisaged by its author, in an accessible English language translation.

Humanities and Social Sciences E-Books Online
Humanities and Social Sciences E-Books Online
Brill

Brill’s Humanities and Social Sciences E-Book Collections are available on Brill Online with all the advantages and features of digital publishing.The Brill E-Book package can be purchased as a whole, but is also divided into seven broad subject categories that are offered separately.

Japan Chronicle Online
Japan Chronicle Online
Brill

The English-language Japan Chronicle Weekly (1900–1940) is the newspaper of record for Japan’s engagement with modernity and its emergence, through war, political and social upheaval and seismic social change in East Asia, onto the world stage in the first half of the twentieth century. Historians of East Asia have long seen the Japan Chronicle as a uniquely valuable resource. This well-informed, controversial but always readable source of news and opinion on Japan and East Asia offers an intriguing and lively Japanese complement to the North China Herald Online. This collection includes the Kobe Weekly Chronicle (1900-1901), the predecessor of the Japan Chronicle Weekly.

KITLV Press Special E-Book Collection, 2007-2012
KITLV Press Special E-Book Collection, 2007-2012
Brill

KITLV Press Special E-Book Collection, 2007-2012 includes all scholarly titles that were published by KITLV Press (now part of Brill) in that period. This rich collection includes 27 titles that are published in Open Access and 7 in Dutch, all other titles are published in English.

Manchuria Daily News Online
Manchuria Daily News Online
Brill

The Manchuria Collection offers scholars of Japan’s modern history an unparalleled inside view of Japan’s agenda in Manchuria and its plans for domination in Asia. Founded in 1908 in the wake of Japan’s victory in the war against Russia, the Manchuria Daily News set up in Dalian (Darien) at the headquarters of the South Manchuria Railway Company (Minami Manshū Tetsudō Kabushiki-gaisha) (SMR). Lavishly funded from Tokyo, and with the full resources of the SMR Research Department behind them, the Manchuria Daily News and the associated titles offered here constitute a formidable record of Japanese policy on Manchuria and the Manchoukuo project. From 1908-1940 this compact, feisty daily and its associated titles responded to the exigencies of the day, taking requests from a variety of official and often competing propaganda bureaux. In the Manchuria Daily News and in these associated publications, the SMR presented a powerful case for the Japanese leadership of Asia, after 1932 using Manchoukuo as a showcase for Japan’s technological, cultural and political advancement. Apart from the early 1908-1912 holdings, and the October 1919 to February 1921 gap when publication was suspended, the 1912-1940 run published here is virtually complete and exclusive to Brill Primary Sources Online.

Also included in Mobilizing East Asia Online

Mobilizing East Asia Online
Mobilizing East Asia Online
Brill

Mobilizing East Asia offers a carefully selected collection of extremely rare, many times even unique English-language newspapers, magazines and pamphlets published inside Asia, following the descent into war in East and South-East Asia from the turn of the twentieth century to the 1950s. This exciting collection of newspapers and illustrated magazines, often in colour, is now available online for the first time, exclusively from Brill. The Collection offers access to unique primary source material which can be used to pursue research topics in modern history, Asian studies, politics and war studies.

North China Daily News Online
North China Daily News Online
Brill

Brill’s relaunched and expanded North-China Daily News is great news for scholars of China and East Asia from the 1860s to the mid-19th century. Except for a wartime break, 1941-45, this was the most influential and informative English-language daily in East Asia. Even though it serves as a catalogue of the sins of the West in the ‘century of national humiliation’, ca.1839-1949, it is the unwitting journal of record for China’s recovery of full nationhood as it struggled against foreign incursions, warlordism, chaos, invasion and civil war to the unification of October 1949.

North China Herald Online
North China Herald Online
Brill

The English-language North China Herald is the prime printed source in any language for the history of the foreign presence in China from around 1850 to 1940s. During this so-called ‘treaty century’ (1842-1943) the Western Powers established a strong presence in China through their protected enclaves in major cities. It was published weekly in Shanghai, at the heart of China’s encounter with the Euro-American world in a city at the forefront of developments in Chinese politics, culture, education and the economy. As the official journal for British consular notifications, and announcements of the Shanghai Municipal Council, it is the first -- and sometimes only -- point of reference for information and comment on a range of foreign and Chinese activities. Regularly it also features translations of Chinese official notifications and news.


The fully text-searchable North China Herald Online will be one of the primary resources on a period which continues to shape much of China’s world and worldview.

North China Standard Online
North China Standard Online
Brill

In Japan’s network of newspapers presenting the national case for expansion and leadership in Asia, the North China Standard (in Chinese, Huabei zheng bao) stands alongside the Japan Times & Mail as a real newspaper, distributing real news written by real journalists. Derided as a propaganda rag when it first began publication in December 1919, the Standard read better, and investigated and reported better quality news to a steadily growing readership in post-WW1 China and Japan. It was also a representative newspaper chosen for international conferences and delivered gratis to all delegates.

Russian Military Intelligence on Asia Online: Archive Series, 1651–1917
Russian Military Intelligence on Asia Online: Archive Series, 1651–1917
Brill

The 19th century was a time of rapid Russian expansion in Asia. While its western borders were largely fixed in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars, the Romanov autocracy still found many outlets for its imperial energies in the East. Imperial Russia’s Asian march coincided with a revolution in intelligence. Gathering and analyzing such intelligence also became much more comprehensive, almost encyclopedic. It entailed not only the armed forces and the terrain of all potential adversaries, but also political, economic, ethnographic, and much other data. The collection Archive series, 1651-1917 contains the following parts:

1. A threat from the Far East (China, Japan, Korea)

2. The Eastern question (Turkey, Palestine, Arabia & Syria)

3. The Great Game in Central Asia (Persia (Iran), Afghanistan)

Russian Military Intelligence on Asia Online: Secret Prints, 1883–1914
Russian Military Intelligence on Asia Online: Secret Prints, 1883–1914
Brill

One of the most remarkable pre-revolutionary Orientological publications is the little-known, classified “Collection of Geographical, Topographical and Geographical Materials on Asia” (Sbornik geografi cheskikh, topografi cheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii). Issued by the Russian General Staff between 1883 and 1914 in 87 thick volumes and 9 supplements (averaging about 300 pages each), the journal’s purpose was to disseminate to senior tsarist military commanders important scholarship about the continent written by Russian and Western explorers, officers, and academics. The bulk of the Secret Prints consists of first-hand accounts composed by contemporary travelers to lesser-known reaches of Asia. Most were Russian army officers, many of whom had extensive training in geography and related disciplines. Among the more illustrious authors are Nikolai Przhevalskii, Aleksei Kuropatkin, Nikolai Ermolov, Gustav Mannerheim, Lavr Kornilov, and Andrei Snesarev. Other articles range from attaché and diplomatic dispatches to histories of tsarist plans for the invasion of India, the siege of Herat, and European campaigns against China. Together, they comprise a unique and largely untapped source for 19th-century Asia.

Spreading the word: British missionary work around the world, 1808-1967
Spreading the word: British missionary work around the world, 1808-1967
British Online Archives

The correspondence and papers of these missionary societies cover work within North America, South America, Asia, Africa, and Australasia. Most collections focus on the 18th and 19th centuries. The North American content covers both the United States and Canada. Records on Asia cover India and Sri Lanka, The Committee for Women's Work were also active in Asia. These collections feature a large amount of correspondence to and from missionaries working in these countries. The Wesleyan and Primitive Methodist periodicals reveal how the missionary work was reported to loyal subscribers who funded the missionaries.

This series includes 14 collections that may also be purchased separately.

Translations of the Peking Gazette Online
Translations of the Peking Gazette Online
Brill

Translations of the Peking Gazette Online is a comprehensive database of approximately 8,500 pages of English-language renderings of official edicts and memorials from the Qing dynasty that cover China’s long nineteenth century from the Macartney Mission in 1793 to the abdication of the last emperor in 1912.


As the mouthpiece of the government, the Peking Gazette is the authoritative source for information about the Manchu state and its Han subjects as they collectively grappled with imperial decline, re-engaged with the wider world, and began mapping the path to China’s contemporary rise. The Peking Gazette was a unique publication that allows contemporary readers to explore the contours, boundaries, and geographies of modern Chinese history. Contained within its pages are the voices of Manchu emperors, Han officials, gentry leaders, and peasant spokesmen as they discussed and debated the most important political, social, and cultural movements, trends, and events of their day. As such, the Gazette helps us understand the policies and attitudes of the emperors, the ideas and perspectives of the officials, and the mentality and worldviews of several hundred million Han, Mongol, Manchu, Muslim, and Tibetan subjects of the Great Qing Empire.

U.S. Intelligence on Asia, 1945–1991
U.S. Intelligence on Asia, 1945–1991
Brill

The purpose of this unique online collection is to provide students and researchers with the declassified documentary record about the successes and failures of the U.S. intelligence community in the Far East during the Cold War (1945-1991). Particular emphasis is given to America’s principal antagonists in Asia during the Cold War era: the People’s Republic of China, North Korea and North Vietnam. However, countries such as Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore and Australia are covered as well.

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