Captivating Narrative of the Rise of Asia

This book is a significant contribution to the rapidly swelling corpus of literature on the “Asian Century”. However, it is less prospective and more retrospective in its orientation. In other words, it forecasts little about the probable impact of rising Asia on contemporary international relations. It rather focuses more on the historical evolution of Asia as an increasingly consequential region in world politics. The book takes the second world war as the starting point and the end of the cold war as a turning point for generating a narrative of the historical rise of Asia. But what is the need for a narrative history of Asia? How can the “narrative” methodology be applied for the investigation of Asian international relations? And why is the second world war a natural starting point and the end of the cold war a crucial turning point?

Need and Methodology