Christopher Harding

This rich and enjoyable book recounts the tangled, dynamic encounters through which Asia has influenced Europe and North America over centuries'A rich history… Harding writes with energy and insight, wearing a tremendous amount of learning lightly' - Rana Mitter, Financial TimesThis rich and enjoyable book by the acclaimed author of Japan Story explores the many ways in which Asia has influenced Europe and North America over centuries of tangled, dynamic encountersFrom the time of the ancient Greeks onwards the West's relationship with Asia consisted for the most part of outrageous tales of strange beasts and monsters, of silk and spices shipped over vast distances and an uneasy sense of unknowable empires fantastically far away. By the twentieth century much of Asia might have come under Western rule after centuries of warfare, but its intellectual, artistic and spiritual influence was fighting back.The Light of Asia is a wonderfully varied and entertaining history of the many ways in

A SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2020'Mightily impressive ... a marvellous read' Sunday TimesFrom the acclaimed author of Japan Story, this is the history of Japan, distilled into the stories of twenty remarkable individuals. The vivid and entertaining portraits in Chris Harding's enormously enjoyable new book take the reader from the earliest written accounts of Japan right through to the life of the current empress, Masako.We encounter shamans and warlords, poets and revolutionaries, scientists, artists and adventurers - each offering insights of their own into this extraordinary place. For anyone new to Japan, this book is the ideal introduction. For anyone already deeply involved with it, this is a book filled with surprises and pleasures.

This is a fresh and surprising account of Japan's culture from the 'opening up' of the country in the mid-nineteenth century to the present.'How much I admired it, what a lot I learned from it and, ab

This is a fresh and surprising account of Japan's culture from the 'opening up' of the country in the mid-nineteenth century to the present. 'How much I admired it, what a lot I learned from it and, a

In the last decades of the nineteenth century, urgent and unprecedented demands among oppressed peoples in colonial India drove what came to be called 'mass conversion movements' towards a range of Ch