Popular Asian Historical Books

Find historical books written by authors from Asia for the next part of the Read Around The World Challenge. (110)

101.

Tomorrow I'm Dead : How a Seventeen-year-old Killing Field Survivor Became the Cambodian Freedom Army's Greatest Soldier by Bun Yom EN

0 Ratings
Country: Asia / Cambodia flag Cambodia
Description:
In 1975, US troops had withdrawn from Cambodia, leaving the people defenseless against Pol Pot’s army, the Khmer Rouge. As the army took over Cambodia, thousands of innocent people were ordered out of their homes. In April 1975, fourteen-year-old Bun Yom was forced at gunpoint, along with his family, to march toward the steaming jungle. After a soldier separated Yom from his family, he had no idea he would not see them again for nine years. In his account of his involuntary journey from a normal childhood to enslavement in conditions so inhumane it seemed only death could free him, Yom shares ... continue

102.

Walking Since Daybreak by Modris Eksteins EN

Rating: 5 (1 vote)
Country: Asia / Latvia flag Latvia
Description:
Part history, part autobiography, Eksteins relates the tragic story of the Baltic nations before, during, and after World War II through personal stories from his family. Photos and map.

103.

Warring Visions : Photography and Vietnam by Thy Phu EN

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Country: Asia / Vietnam flag Vietnam
Description:
Thy Phu explores photographs produced by dispersed communities throughout Vietnam and the Vietnamese diaspora, both during and after the Vietnam War, to complicate prominent narratives of conflict and memory and to expand understandings of how war is waged, experienced, and resolved.

104.

We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I : A Palestinian Memoir by Raja Shehadeh EN

Rating: 5 (1 vote)
Country: Asia / Palestine flag Palestine
Description:
Aziz Shehadeh was many things: lawyer, activist, and political detainee, he was also the father of bestselling author and activist Raja. In this new and searingly personal memoir, Raja Shehadeh unpicks the snags and complexities of their relationship. A vocal and fearless opponent, Aziz resists under the British mandatory period, then under Jordan, and, finally, under Israel. As a young man, Raja fails to recognise his father's courage and, in turn, his father does not appreciate Raja's own efforts in campaigning for Palestinian human rights. When Aziz is murdered in 1985, it changes Raja irre... continue

105.

We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies by Tsering Yangzom Lama EN

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Country: Asia / Nepal flag Nepal
Description:
"In the wake of China's invasion of Tibet throughout the 1950s, Lhamo and her younger sister, Tenkyi, arrive at a refugee camp in Nepal. They survived the dangerous journey across the Himalayas, but their parents did not. As Lhamo--haunted by the loss of her homeland and her mother, a village oracle--tries to rebuild a life amid a shattered community, hope arrives in the form of a young man named Samphel and his uncle, who brings with him the ancient statue of the Nameless Saint--a relic known to vanish and reappear in times of need. Decades later, the sisters are separated, and Tenkyi is livi... continue

106.

When Broken Glass Floats: Growing Up Under the Khmer Rouge by Chanrithy Him EN

Rating: 5 (1 vote)
Country: Asia / Cambodia flag Cambodia
Description:
A survivor of the Cambodian genocide recounts a childhood in Cambodia, where rudimentary labor camps filled with death and illness were the norm and modern technology, such as cars and electricity, no longer existed. Reprint.

107.

When Heaven and Earth Changed Places : A Vietnamese Woman's Journey from War to Peace by Le Ly Hayslip, Jay Wurts EN

0 Ratings
Country: Asia / Vietnam flag Vietnam
Description:
Le Ly recounts her childhood in Ky La and her return to Vietnam in 1986 to search for the family she had left behind.

108.

Zealot : The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth by Reza Aslan EN

Rating: 4.5 (2 votes)
Country: Asia / Iran flag Iran
Description:
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “A lucid, intelligent page-turner” (Los Angeles Times) that challenges long-held assumptions about Jesus, from the host of Believer Two thousand years ago, an itinerant Jewish preacher walked across the Galilee, gathering followers to establish what he called the “Kingdom of God.” The revolutionary movement he launched was so threatening to the established order that he was executed as a state criminal. Within decades after his death, his followers would call him God. Sifting through centuries of mythmaking, Reza Aslan sheds new light on one of history’s most eni... continue