This crucial interdisciplinary work brings together historians and international relations specialists to re-examine fourteen events in twentieth-century East Asia that shaped world and regional politics. In a series of case studies framed by conceptual essays the authors examine key moments and their wider significance, including the Chinese Exclusion Acts in the United States; the Japanese racial equality proposal at the Versailles conference of 1919; anti-colonial movements in Southeast Asia before 1945; and the changing nature of sovereignty in the Pacific Islands. The authors decenter the Cold War in Asia away from American and European perspectives and examine how countries in the region positioned themselves given distinctive domestic coalitions. These historical examples demonstrate the unique East Asian experience of war, empire, and political independeence, shedding valuable light on contemporary international relations and the challenges faced in Asia-Pacific today.

'Haggard and Kang have done it again: this is an outstanding collection of essays that puts international relations theory into sustained conversation with the historical experience of Pacific Asia from the eve of the First World War to the Cold War. The impressive scholarship in this volume places Asia's experiences at the center of international history, and scholars of international relations will benefit from the careful, insightful contributions by regional experts and IR theorists alike.' Thomas Pepinsky, Cornell University

Stephan Haggard is Distinguished Research Professor at the School of Global Policy and Strategy, University of California, San Diego and Research Director for Democracy and Global Governance at the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation. His recent work on East Asia includes Developmental States and (with Marcus Noland) Hard Target: Sanctions, Inducements and the Case of North Korea. David C. Kang is Professor of International Relations at the University of Southern California and director of the USC Korean Studies Institute. He is the author of East Asia Before the West and co-author, with Xinru Ma, of Beyond Power Transitions. He is the co-editor with Stephan Haggard of East Asia in the World: Twelve Events that Shaped the Modern International Order.