East Asia: A Cultural, Social, and Political History

Citation

Ebrey, P. B., & Walthall, A. (2014). East Asia: A Cultural, Social, and Political History (3rd ed.). Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

Chapter Summary

The third edition is a single volume of about 600 pages (xxiv + 544 pages of text, a 29-page back section and 16 pages of colour plates). Cengage also sells it in two parts, Pre-Modern East Asia: To 1800 and East Asia: From 1600, which overlap in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The chapters are arranged in six parts. Within each part the book moves between China, Korea and Japan, giving each society its own chapters in rough chronological order rather than writing a single regional narrative. The publisher describes three recurring features: primary-source documents, biographical sketches of famous and ordinary people, and "Connections" essays that set East Asia in an international context, for example the spread of Buddhism and a global view of the Second World War.

Part 1: The Foundations of East Asian Civilization in China

Five chapters on early China: China in the Bronze Age: The Shang and Western Zhou Dynasties (ca. 1500–771 B.C.E.); Philosophers and Warring States During the Eastern Zhou Period (770–256 B.C.E.); The Founding of the Bureaucratic Empire: Qin–Han China (256 B.C.E.–200 C.E.); Political Division in China and the Spread of Buddhism (200–580); and The Cosmopolitan Empires of Sui and Tang China (581–960). The part follows China from early dynasties and the classical philosophers to the unified empire, Buddhism and the Tang.

Part 2: The Emergence of East Asian Civilization

The part brings Korea and Japan in: Early Korea to 935; Early State and Society in Japan (to 794); China Among Equals: Song, Liao, Xia, and Jin; Heian Japan (794–ca. 1180); Goryeo Korea (935–1392); Kamakura Japan (1180–1333); and China Under Mongol Rule (1215–1368). The title "China Among Equals" signals that the Song is presented as one state among several rival powers.

Part 3: Meeting New Challenges (1300–1800)

Japan's Middle Ages (1330–1600); The Ming Empire in China (1368–1644); Joseon Korea (1392–1800); The Creation of the Manchu Empire (1600–1800); and Edo Japan (1603–1800). The Qing is framed as a Manchu empire, not simply another Chinese dynasty.

Part 4: The Age of Western Imperialism (1800–1900)

China in Decline (1800–1900); Japan in Turmoil (1800–1867); Meiji Transformation (1868–1900); and Korea in the Turbulent Nineteenth Century (1800–1895). The four chapters set the three countries' different responses to Western pressure side by side.

Parts 5–6: East Asia in the Modern World; Intensified Contact and Divergent Paths

Part 5 includes Rise of Modern Japan (1900–1931), Modernizing Korea and Colonial Rule (1896–1945) and Remaking China (1900–1927). Part 6 runs from War and Aftermath in Japan (1931–1965) through China Under Mao (1949–1976), Korea (1945 to the Present) and Contemporary Japan (1965 to the Present) to China Since Mao (1976 to the Present). The title of Part 6 points to the book's closing theme: the three societies became more closely linked while following different political paths.

Key Concepts

Parts 1–2: Foundations and Emergence

• Bureaucratic empire: the centralised state created under the Qin and Han, whose founding is the subject of a chapter.
• The spread of Buddhism: Buddhism's movement into China during the period of division and on to Korea and Japan, also the subject of one of the "Connections" features.
• China among equals: the Song's coexistence with the Liao, Xia and Jin states.

Parts 3–4: New Challenges and Western Imperialism

• Manchu empire: the Qing as a conquest state created by the Manchus between 1600 and 1800.
• Edo Japan and Joseon Korea: the long-lived early modern orders in Japan and Korea, each given a chapter running to 1800.
• Meiji transformation: Japan's remaking after 1868, set against China's decline and Korea's crisis in the same century.

Parts 5–6: The Modern World

• Colonial rule in Korea: Korea's modernization under Japanese rule from 1896 to 1945, treated in one chapter.
• Divergent paths: the separate postwar trajectories of Japan, Mao's and post-Mao China, and Korea from 1945.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Social and cultural history alongside politics. The publisher describes the edition as drawing on recent scholarship with special emphasis on gender and material culture, supported by colour inserts on food, clothing and art objects. Both authors work in social history: Ebrey's earlier books include studies of marriage and women's lives in the Song and of Confucian family ritual, and Walthall's include studies of social protest and peasant uprisings in Japan.
• Three countries, each with its own chapters. Korea has its own chapters in every part, from Early Korea through Goryeo and Joseon to colonial rule and Korea since 1945, so it is treated as a subject in its own right rather than only as a bridge between China and Japan.
• Built-in sources and biographies. Primary-source documents and short biographies of both prominent and ordinary people give instructors discussion material without a separate reader.
• A layout that fits a survey course. Chapters organised by country and period are easy to assign one or two a week, and the two-volume split suits courses on premodern or modern East Asia.

Limitations

• Little on Vietnam and the wider region. The chapter titles name only China, Korea and Japan; readers who want Vietnam treated as part of East Asia need another book.
• Comparison is left to the reader. Because chapters are organised country by country, the links between the societies are drawn mainly in the short "Connections" features; students must do much of the comparative work themselves.
• Ageing coverage of recent decades. The third edition carries a 2014 copyright, so the final chapters on Japan, Korea and China since Mao stop around the early 2010s.
• Long for a single term. At some 600 pages, the full volume is more than a one-semester course can cover in full, so instructors and students have to select.

Where It Fits in the Course

Ebrey and Walthall is the full-length textbook survey of China, Korea and Japan in this course. Charles Holcombe's A History of East Asia is the closest alternative: also a one-volume regional history from early civilization to the present, but it treats the region as one connected story and includes Vietnam. Students who want the regional argument can read Holcombe; those who want separate, fuller country chapters and built-in documents will find Ebrey and Walthall more useful. Rana Mitter's Modern China: A Very Short Introduction is a much shorter thematic introduction to China since the late Qing and works as a preview of Parts 4–6.

For depth, the course's longer single-country histories follow on from particular chapters: Jonathan Spence's The Search for Modern China, a narrative from the late Ming onward, after the Ming, Qing and modern China chapters; Marius Jansen's The Making of Modern Japan, which runs from the Tokugawa shogunate to the late twentieth century, after Edo Japan and the modern Japan chapters; and F. W. Mote's Imperial China 900–1800, a detailed political and cultural history that expands the Song, Mongol, Ming and Manchu chapters.

How to Use This Book

The book assumes no prior knowledge of East Asian history or languages and is written for a first university survey. A practical plan:

• Two-semester sequence: Parts 1–3 in the first term (or the Pre-Modern volume) and Parts 3–6 in the second (or the From 1600 volume); the overlap lets the second term begin with the Ming, Joseon, Qing and Edo chapters.
• One-semester survey: read the chapters for all three countries within each part, but move quickly through Part 2's medieval chapters and concentrate on Parts 1, 3, 4 and 6.
• Country-focused courses: follow one country's chapters across the parts (for Japan: Early State, Heian, Kamakura, Middle Ages, Edo, Turmoil, Meiji, Rise of Modern Japan, War and Aftermath, Contemporary Japan), reading the "Connections" features for context.
• Alongside the text: use the documents and biographies in each chapter for discussion, and build a three-column timeline (China, Korea, Japan) part by part to keep the parallel narratives aligned.