Three thousand years of Chinese history in an accessible and authoritative single volume.Despite the recent rise of China to a position of dominance on the world economic stage, Chinese history remains an elusive subject. Yet it is this vast narrative of appalling loss, superhuman endeavour and incredible invention that has made China the superpower it is today. From the dawn of legend to the succession of great dynasties, from Confucius to Chairman Mao and from the clamour of revo...

The most authoritative and highly regarded single-volume history of India – from ancient time to the modern day. Five millennia of the sub-continent’s social, economic, political and cultural history are interpreted by one of our finest writers on India and the Far East.India’s history begins with a highly advanced urban civilisation in the Indus valley, regressing to a tribal and pastoral nomadism, and then evolving into a uniquely stratified society. The pattern ...

An authoritative account of five thousand years of Chinese history.**"Exquisitely written." —**GuardianMany nations define themselves in terms of territory or people; China defines itself in terms of history. Taking into account the country's unrivaled, voluminous tradition of history writing, John Keay has composed a vital and illuminating overview of the nation's complex and vivid past.Keay's authoritative history examine...

The first modern history of all South Asia’s peoples.If British India had not been partitioned in 1947, its population would today be the world’s largest. At c1.5 billion, Midnight’s Descendants (the offspring of those affected by ‘the midnight hour’ Partition) already outnumber Europeans and Chinese; and they are growing faster than either. They comprise all the peoples of what is now called ‘South Asia’ (the preferred term for the partitioned subcontinent of modern India, Pakista...

The story of both a dramatic journey retracing the historic voyage of France’s greatest 19th-century explorer up the mysterious Mekong river, and a portrait of the river and its peoples today.Any notion of sailing up the Mekong in homage to Francis Garnier has been unthinkable until now. From its delta in Vietnam up through Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Burma and on into China, the Mekong has been a no-go river, its turbulent waters fouled by ideological barriers as formidable as its n...

In a lively and uniquely comprehensive narrative of Kashmir’s past and current predicament, the book reinstates the cultural and political centrality of one of Asia’s most cherished but maligned states.What is it about this place that makes it so sought after, and fought over? Is it just an accident of geography that lends it such strategic importance? Or is it more to do with the observation of Emperor Jehangir: ‘If there is a paradise on Earth, this is it, this i...

Two hundred years ago, India was seen as a place with little history and less culture.Today it is revered for a notable prehistory, a magnificent classical age and a cultural tradition unique in both character and continuity. How this extraordinary change in perception came about is the subject of this fascinating book.The story, here reconstructed for the first time, is one of painstaking scholarship primed by a succession of sensational discoveries. The excitement of unearthing a...

**'**John Keay is the master storyteller and historian. This grand narrative of Himalaya is as epic as the mountains and peoples he describes' Dan Snow'Adds the human element to the hard rock. And what a rich vein it is' Michael PalinHistory has not been kind to Himalaya. Empires have collided here, cultures have clashed. Buddhist India claimed it from the south, Islam put down roots in its western approaches, Mongols and Manchus rode in fr...

A vivid description of one of the most ambitious scientific projects undertaken in the 19th century, and the men who undertook the measurement of the Himalayas and the mapping of the Indian subcontinent: William Lambton and George Everest.The graphic story of the measurement of a meridian, or longitudinal, arc extending from the tip of the Indian subcontinent to the mountains of the Himalayas.Much the longest such measurement hitherto made, it posed horrendous technical dif...

A history of the English East India company.During 200 years the East India Company grew from a loose association of Elizabethan tradesmen into "the grandest society of merchants in the universe". As a commercial enterprise it came to control half the world's trade and as a political entity it administered an embryonic empire. Without it there would have been no British India and no British Empire. In a tapestry ranging from Southern Africa to north-west America, and from the reign...

Alarms amongst the Uzbeks - Alexander BurnesOf all the "forbidden" cities (Timbuktu, Mecca, Lhasa, Riyadh and so on) none enjoyed a more fearsome reputation that Bukhara in Uzbekistan. The first British Indian expedition, that of William Moorcroft in 1819-26, had never returned. Moorcroft's disappearance, like that of Livingstone or Franklin, posed a challenge in itself and preyed on the minds of his immediate successors. Heavily disguised and in an atmosph...

Among the Sudanese - James BruceBruce reached the source of the Blue Nile in 1771, a century before the search for the source of the White Nile became headline news. His descriptions of the cruelties and orgies at Gondar, the Ethiopian capital, were greeted with disbelief; so was his account of the Sudanese rulers, and their queens, at Sennar. He was later shown to be an accurate observer as well as the eighteenth century's most intrepid traveller.