By Adam Clulow On February 23, 1623, a Japanese mercenary called Shichizō in the employ of the Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie or VOC) was arrested for asking questions about the defenses of one of the company’s forts on the remote island of Amboina in modern day Indonesia. When he failed to provide […]
Narcotic Culture: A History of Drugs in China, by Frank Dikötter, Lars Peter Laamann, and Zhou Xun (2004)
By Horus T’an The opium myth is one of the most important pillars of the conventional narrative of modern Chinese history. According to the myth, opium is presumed to be a highly addictive narcotic and highly harmful to its users’ health, and Great Britain used its military superiority to impost the shameful opium trade on China […]
A Historian’s Gaze: Women, Law, and the Colonial Archives of Singapore
By Sandy Chang On the eleventh floor of the National Library of Singapore, I sit with a pile of large, gray boxes stacked high on a trolley. I am hoping to be transported to the island’s past. The boxes are filled with legal documents from the British colonial era, mainly affidavits, writs of summons, bills […]
The Last Hindu Emperor
Why are some medieval kings still widely remembered today, when so many others have been forgotten?
Great Books on Women’s History: Asia
Not Even Past asked the UT Austin History faculty to recommend great books for Women’s History Month. The response was overwhelming so we will be posting their suggestions throughout the month. Here are some terrific book recommendations on women and gender in East Asia and South Asia
Mark Metzler on Post-War Japan
In the fifteen years after World War II, Japan made an astounding transition from wartime devastation to the boom known as the “Era of High-Speed Growth.” Japan’s High-Speed Growth system was an epoch-making innovation, that opened the current Asian age of world industrialization.
CIA Study: “Consequences to the US of Communist Domination of Mainland Southeast Asia,” October 13, 1950
Before 1948, the Cold War was largely confined to Europe and the Middle East, areas that both U.S. and Soviet leaders considered vital to their nations’ core foreign policy objectives after the Second World War. By 1950, however, the Cold War had spread to Asia.