Talk1947
Tryst with Destiny
Jawaharlal Nehru
Declares Indian independence a redemption of a pledge made long ago, framing the new state's purpose as serving not just India but the wider cause of human freedom.
link checked 17 Sept 2026FreeEntry
Modern Asia
The century in which the centre of gravity moved.
12 topics · 11 curated works
Topics
- 01Foundations & Overviews
- 02Chinese Republican Era1
- 03The Chinese Civil War1
- 04Mao & the People's Republic1
- 05The Great Leap Forward1
- 06The Cultural Revolution1
- 07Deng's Reforms1
- 08Post-War Japan1
- 09The Asian Tigers1
- 10Modern India1
- 11Korean Division1
- 12Southeast Asian Development1
Reading in Modern Asia
11A way in
Start here
No prior grounding assumed.
Tryst with Destiny
Jawaharlal Nehru · 1947
Declares Indian independence a redemption of a pledge made long ago, framing the new state's purpose as serving not just India but the wider cause of…
Then
Assumes you know the vocabulary.
The Three Principles of the People
Sun Yat-sen · 1924
Argues China's regeneration requires nationalism, democracy and people's livelihood pursued together, laying the ideological foundation later claimed…
+6 more at this level
Go deeper
Primary sources and full treatments.
Political Reorientation of Japan, September 1945 to September 1948
Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers · 1949
The U.S. occupation authority's own retrospective, arguing that imposed constitutional, land and economic reforms had already redirected Japan toward…
+2 more at this level
11 works
Book1924
The Three Principles of the People
Sun Yat-sen
Argues China's regeneration requires nationalism, democracy and people's livelihood pursued together, laying the ideological foundation later claimed by both the Republic and its rivals.
link checked 17 Sept 2026FreeIntermediate
Essay1947
The Present Situation and Our Tasks
Mao Zedong
Declares the Nationalist offensive has been broken and the Communists have seized the strategic initiative, setting out the land-reform programme meant to complete the revolution.
link checked 17 Sept 2026FreeIntermediate
Essay1949
On the People's Democratic Dictatorship
Mao Zedong
Argues the new People's Republic must be ruled as a dictatorship of workers, peasants and their allies over 'reactionaries', explicitly modelled on the Soviet path rather than Western parliamentary democracy.
link checked 17 Sept 2026FreeIntermediate
Report1966
Decision Concerning the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution
Chinese Communist Party Central Committee
The Party's own founding decree for the Cultural Revolution, arguing that 'capitalist roaders' inside the Party itself are the main danger and must be exposed through mass mobilisation from below.
link checked 17 Sept 2026FreeIntermediate
Talk1978
Emancipate the Mind, Seek Truth from Facts and Unite as One in Looking to the Future
Deng Xiaoping
Argues China's development requires abandoning ideological rigidity in favour of pragmatic experimentation, opening the way for market reform under continued Party control.
link checked 17 Sept 2026FreeIntermediate
Report1993
The East Asian Miracle: Economic Growth and Public Policy
World Bank
Argues rapid East Asian growth resulted from a specific mix of sound macroeconomic management and selective, performance-based government intervention, not from free markets alone.
link checked 17 Sept 2026FreeIntermediate
Report2011
Asia 2050: Realizing the Asian Century
Asian Development Bank
Argues continued Asian convergence with rich-world incomes is not automatic, and identifies the middle-income trap and widening inequality as the region's chief risks to sustaining its development trajectory.
link checked 17 Sept 2026FreeIntermediate
Report1949
Political Reorientation of Japan, September 1945 to September 1948
Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers
The U.S. occupation authority's own retrospective, arguing that imposed constitutional, land and economic reforms had already redirected Japan toward parliamentary democracy within three years.
PaidAdvanced
Report1993
Soviet Aims in Korea and the Origins of the Korean War, 1945-50: New Evidence From Russian Archives
Kathryn Weathersby
Uses newly opened Soviet archives to argue Stalin approved and armed the North Korean invasion only once persuaded the risk of American intervention was low, overturning accounts that treat the war as purely a Korean civil conflict.
link checked 17 Sept 2026FreeAdvanced
Paper2010
The Institutional Causes of China's Great Famine, 1959-1961
Xin Meng, Nancy Qian and Pierre Yared
Argues from provincial procurement data that the famine's severity came from an inflexible grain procurement system that took a fixed quantity regardless of the harvest, rather than from weather alone.
link checked 17 Sept 2026FreeAdvanced
In order written
1924 – 2011- 1924The Three Principles of the PeopleSun Yat-sen
- 1947Tryst with DestinyJawaharlal Nehru
- 1947The Present Situation and Our TasksMao Zedong
- 1949On the People's Democratic DictatorshipMao Zedong
- 1949Political Reorientation of Japan, September 1945 to September 1948Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers
- 1966Decision Concerning the Great Proletarian Cultural RevolutionChinese Communist Party Central Committee
- 2010The Institutional Causes of China's Great Famine, 1959-1961Xin Meng, Nancy Qian and Pierre Yared
- 2011Asia 2050: Realizing the Asian CenturyAsian Development Bank