Hong Kong was a key battlefield in Asia's cultural cold war. After 1948-1949, an influx of filmmakers, writers, and intellectuals from mainland China transformed British Hong Kong into a hub for mass entertainment and popular publications. Hong Kong Media and Asia's Cold War discusses how Communist China, Nationalist Taiwan, and the U.S. fought to mobilize Hong Kong cinema and print media to sway ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia and across the world. Central to this propaganda and psychological warfare was the emigre media industry. This period was the golden age of Mandarin cinema and popular ..read more

On a hot summer day, Wang Guiping attended her divorce trial at the Xiqing Peoples Tribunal. Taking an unfaithful spouse to court would, Guiping thought, help her end a hopeless relationship and actualize her lawful rights upon divorce. Later that day, Guiping would find herself betrayed not only by her husband, but by the court system and her own legal counsel. Taking this case as a point of departure, Ke Li recounts decades-long research on divorce litigation in rural China in her book Marriage Unbound. Ultimately, this talk articulates a firm belief: divorce, seemingly prosaic, offers a uni ..read more

In The Children of this Madness, Gemini Wahhaj pens a complex tale of modern Bengalis, one that illuminates the recent histories not only of Bangladesh, but America and Iraq. Told in multiple voices over successive eras, this is the story of Nasir Uddin and his daughter Beena, and the intersection of their distant, vastly different lives ..read more

There is a growing consensus that the discipline of sociology and the social sciences broadly need to engage more thoroughly with the legacy and the present day of colonialism, Indigenous/settler colonialism, imperialism, and racial capitalism in the United States and globally. In Disciplinary Futures, edited by Nadia Y. Kim and Pawan Dhingra, a cross-section of scholars comes together to engage sociology and the social sciences by way of these paradigms, particularly from the influence of disciplines of American, Ethnic, and Indigenous Studies ..read more

Asian Americans are the fastest growing group in the United States and include approximately 50 distinct ethnic groups, but their stories and experiences have often been sidelined or stereotyped. Smithsonian Asian Pacific American History, Art, and Culture in 101 Objects offers a vital window into the triumphs and tragedies, strength and ingenuity, and traditions and cultural identities of these communities. Edited by Theodore S. Gonzalves, the book invites readers to experience both well-known and untold stories through influential, controversial, and meaningful objects. Thematic chapters exp ..read more

Hyunhee Park offers the first global historical study of soju, the distinctive distilled drink of Korea. Searching for sojus origins, Park leads us into the vast, complex world of premodern Eurasia. She demonstrates how the Mongol conquests of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries wove together hemispheric flows of trade, empire, scientific and technological transfer and created the conditions for the development of a singularly Korean drink. Sojus rise in Korea marked the evolution of a new material culture through ongoing interactions between the global and local and between tradition and ..read more

C.C. Wang (19072003) is best known as a preeminent twentieth-century connoisseur and collector of pre-modern Chinese art, a reputation that often overshadows his own art. "C.C. Wang: Lines of Abstraction" recenters Wangs extraordinary career in his own artistic practice to reveal an original quest for tradition and innovation in the global twentieth century. Spanning seven decades, the catalog focuses on the artists distinctive synthesis of Chinese ink painting and American postwar abstraction ..read more

Chandra Bhan Prasad is an Indian scholar and political commentator. He is editor of Dalit Enterprise Magazine and has been widely quoted by the world press on issues of caste and the treatment of Dalits in India. Prasad is the co-author author of Defying the Odds: The Rise of Dalit Entrepreneurs (with D Shyam Babu and Devesh Kapur), Dalit Phobia: Why Do They Hate Us?, What is Ambedkarism?, and Dalit Diary, 1999-2003: Reflections on Apartheid in India ..read more

Abandoned Women and Boudoir Resentment: The Feminine Voice in Chinese Literature ..read more

The American suburb conjures an image of picturesque privilege: manicured lawns, quiet streets, andmost important to parentshigh-quality schools. These elite enclaves are also historically white, allowing many white Americans to safeguard their privileges by using public schools to help their children enter top colleges. Thats changing, however, as Asian American professionals increasingly move into wealthy suburban areas to give their kids that same leg up for their college applications and future careers.As Natasha Warikoo shows in Race at the Top, white and Asian parents alike will do anyth ..read more