Synopses & Reviews
From one of the world's leading historians?a comprehensive narrative of the 3,000 years that have formed Asia's people, culture, and global destinyTracing its origins in Mesopotamia to its modern role on the global geopolitical stage, historian Arthur Cotterell offers a compelling, lively, and readable account of one of the most culturally diverse, and often misunderstood, parts of the world. Beginning with the emergence of the world's earliest civilization in 3000 BC, Asia: A Concise History provides a fascinating look at the global convulsions?like the rise and fall of Assyria and Persia, the medieval states that flourished after the advent of Islam, and the modern transformations triggered by the lightning conquests of imperial Japan?that have shaped the continent.
- Covers the great events and figures of Asian history, along with a look at the monumental remains that bear witness to those times: the ziggurats of Iraq, the Taj Mahal, the Great Wall of China, the temple of Angkor Wat
- Includes fascinating slices of history, including funeral arrangements for Qin Shi Huangdi in 210 BC; an extract from Lord Macartney's journal of his 1793 diplomatic mission to the Qing emperor Qian Long; and Toyotomi Hideyoshi's edict of 1587 banning firearms in Japan
- Features boxed inserts of special interest?like a Babylonian recipe for lamb stew circa 1500 BC
- Contains over 100 illustrations, maps, and photos
- Other books by Cotterell: The Minoan World, The First Emperor of China, The Encyclopedia of Mythology, and Chariot
Destined to become a reference staple for history buffs and students of Asian history, Asia: A Concise History offers readers a breathtaking narrative and wealth of detail that make the formative periods, key events, and personalities from this once remote part of the world come alive.
Review
November 2012
Book by Chia-Hui Francis Lin, PhD, The University of Melbourne, Australia, first published by East Asia Integration Studies:
http://asianintegration.org/index.php?option=com_joomlib&task=view&id=88&Itemid=75
About the Author
Arthur Cotterell, currently residing in England, was a former Principal of Kingston College in London. He has spent many years combining senior educational management with historical research. Arthur currently spends most of his time on writing, and travels extensively throughout Asia.
Arthur is the respected author of more than thirty books. His most recent publications include, The Imperial Capitals of China, Leadership and Chariot.
Table of Contents
Asia: A Concise History has three main sections besides an overarching introduction which indicates the scope of the history as well as the key themes of each section: the world’s earliest civilizations; the cultural diversity of the medieval states; and the rapid development of the recent past.
The first main section, entitled Ancient Asia, starts with a discussion of the world’s first civilizations in Mesopotamia. After briefly considering the Neolithic transformation of mobile hunter-gatherers into village societies and farmers, the narrative focus is the beginnings of city-based life from 3000 BC onwards. These initial urban-dwellers, the Sumerians, arrived from the East and cultivated the rich, alluvial plain laid down by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Even though another civilization in the fertile Nile valley was starting to develop at the same time, it was the Sumerian legacy which would shape much of the world’s outlook, and not just Asia. The story of the Flood is perhaps Sumer’s best known myth, although in the original version the cause of the disaster was the din of mankind, preventing the gods from getting a decent night’s sleep.
The evolution of the Sumerian cities into the larger state systems created by Akkad, Babylon and Assyria brings Asian history down to 612 BC, when Nineveh was destroyed. This formative period saw the publication of the first law codes (Hammurapi about 1790 BC ), the growth of literature (the Gilgamesh epic), the construction of great temples (the ziggurats), and the coalescence of deities into supreme gods (Marduk of Babylon). This city’s hanging gardens were so famous because they represented a previously unimagined urban sophistication. Much of what is often considered unique to Europe through the experience of the ancient Greeks actually had its origins in Mesopotamia. After the incorporation of West Asia and indeed Egypt in the Persian empire, the first major confrontation between European and Asian power took place. In response, the Macedonians advanced as far as India in 326 BC, and even after Alexander’s death held on to large areas for a couple of centuries. The rollback of European dominion, and especially the struggle between a revived Persia and Rome effectively ended the ancient phase in Western Asia.
There were of course other ancient civilizations of note: to mention but a few, Illium (the Trojan War), Hatti (the earliest Indo-European speakers), Lydia (coinage), Israel (religion), Phoenicia ( the alphabet), and Mitanni (mobile warfare).
Elsewhere in India and China, the other cradles of Asian civilization, there arose two quite distinct traditions. The Indus civilization (after 2900 BC) had trading links with Mesopotamia, but India was only drawn westwards through the Aryan invasion around 1500 BC. As Purandara, “the fort-destroyer”, warlike Indra, king of the Indo-Aryan gods, set back civilization there for more than half a millennium, although cities had recovered sufficiently by the lifetime of the Buddha for him to consider his mission an urban one. The Buddha died in the same year as Confucius, 479 BC: both of these profound thinkers tried to enlighten their contemporaries, but with very different messages. Whereas the Buddha was interested in the spirit, Confucius’ concern was the reform of society. For China had already evolved a singular approach to the good life, a secular-oriented morality based on the family, and largely independent of supernatural sanction.
Following the collapse of Macedonian authority in India, centralised empires took over control of the northern part of the subcontinent: in Asoka the Mauryan dynasty produced the first ever Buddhist ruler, while the Guptas later witnessed the revival of Hinduism. In China, however, a this-wordly tendency brought about political unification in 221 BC, notwithstanding the colossal superstition of Qin Shi Huangdi, the first emperor. It was the Qin unification which laid the foundation of the Chinese empire, the world’s most enduring polity. Not until 1912 did it cease to exist. This incredible longevity informs the outlook of the present-day Chinese. Central and Southeast Asia will also receive attention: both were profoundly influenced by Chinese and Indian cultural traditions, so that Indochina, the name given by the French to their colonies of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, was an accurate description of mainland Southeast Asia.
Medieval times comprise the second main section, which runs from the eighth to the eighteenth centuries. In West Asia the most obvious alteration is evident in religion. Even before Mohammed’s mission, there were religious overtones to the bitter wars fought by the Byzantines, the inheritors of Rome’s mandate in the eastern Mediterranean, and the Sassanians, the resurgent Persians. The climax of their struggle from AD 622 to 629 could be termed “the first crusade”, since Christian hatred spilled over into attacks on Zoroastrian fire temples in revenge for the Sassanian desecration of Jerusalem. Not so peculiar then were the Islam-inspired campaigns of the Arabs, which ended the Buddhist era in Central Asia and spread the new faith to India and beyond. The Ottoman Turks, who eventually came to dominate the Arab lands, can in a sense be said to have repaid Europe for its crusades during the Middle Ages by advancing as far west as Vienna. But it was the Arabs who ensured that large areas of Asia are today Moslem. Early in the second millennium Indian converts went as traders to Southeast Asia, where the sultan of Malacca embraced Islam just before the great Chinese admiral Zheng He paid his fourth visit in 1413. By this date China had recovered from Mongol rule. The series of conquests which Genghiz Khan had launched in the early thirteenth century represented the most serious Asian challenge ever to the security of Europe: brief though it was in duration, the Mongol imperium straddled the Old World. However, there was a tremendous range of medium-sized states before and after this violent period. And their surviving monuments still impress the tourist today in places as far apart as Isfahan, Delhi, Beijing, Angkor and Java.
The third and last section deals with modern Asia and concentrates on the transformation wrought by Western power in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The driving-force was an imperialism which relied upon advanced technology and the profits derived from international trade. The narrative relates how the Japanese responded to growing pressure from European countries as well as the United States and ended not only their colonial empires but also started off the modernisation process in Asia. Of special interest are the ways in which different parts of Asia met the onrush of modern times. Japan modernised, China revolutionised, India split, Indonesia secularised along with Turkey, and the Arab states capitalised: other countries came to terms with the global economy by a variety of methods. Singapore’s success is a case in point. In 1967 Lee Kuan Yew said that the future of the island depended upon three things: a stable society which would encourage investment; the capacity of the population to adapt; and the level of promised British aid. But he added how “it would be foolish to believe that others can do for us what we as a people and organised as a representative government must do for ourselves”. Though he had his detractors, Lee was correct in this analysis, stranded as Singapore was in the midst of the Malay world. What went unsaid was his personal appreciation of the tap-root of his fellow citizens’ strength, the Chinese work ethic.
In the last section, entitled Modern Asia, all the historical threads will thus be drawn together in order to elucidate the Asian continent today. Even though Asia is fast becoming the richest and most powerful continent, North America and Europe will not cease to be world players but, for the first occasion since the Mongol empire, there is a new centre of authority that they need to accommodate in both economic and political affairs. For it does look as if Asia will be the cockpit of events in the early years of this century.