| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 108.1

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 108.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Asia

Charles Holcombe. The Genesis of East Asia: 221 B.C.—A.D. 907. (Asian Interactions and Comparisons.) Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, with the Association for Asian Studies, Honolulu. 2001. Pp. viii, 332. $24.95.

There are two general approaches to the history of early China. One considers the development of the Chinese states under the nominal Zhou dynasty, leading to the unification under Qin; the other starts with Qin and Han and studies the unified state over the following two thousand years. In each case, however, the view is in traditional Chinese terms, from the heart of the empire outward, and even the best attempts at avoiding Sinocentrism confront the fact that the overwhelming bulk of our information comes from Chinese sources, with all the prejudice that implies. 1

In the present work, Charles Holcombe looks at the development of East Asia from a slightly different perspective. His interest is with the region as a whole, and particularly with the interaction of the nascent states on the edge of the heartland to the influence of its civilizing power. Japan, Korea, and Vietnam owe much of their traditions to China, but the maritime states of the Philippines and Southeast Asia, and the inner Asian frontier lands of Mongolia and Tibet, drew from alternative sources of culture. . . .

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