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The Renaissance of Asia brings together a series of lectures delivered in 1939 under the auspices of the Committee on International Relations at the University of California, Los Angeles, capturing the extraordinary moment when Asia’s political future stood at a crossroads on the eve of the Second World War. Though occasioned by immediate crisis, the volume reflects strikingly prescient analyses of the forces reshaping the continent—from the stirrings of Indian nationalism to the vulnerabilities of French colonial rule in Indochina, from the factional struggles within Japanese politics to the evolving ambitions of Soviet and Chinese policy.

The contributors include Frank J. Klingberg on India under the new constitution, Melvin M. Knight on Indochina’s precarious role in Southeast Asia, Kazuo Kawai on the domestic forces driving Japanese foreign policy, N. Wing Mah on Japan’s continental aims, Robert J. Kerner on Soviet Russia’s policies in Asia, and H. Arthur Steiner on the future of China. Each lecture reveals both rigorous scholarship and remarkable foresight, with diagnoses and predictions that subsequent wartime events often confirmed. As contemporary readers will recognize, these essays not only illuminate the specific conditions of Asia in 1939 but also capture the dynamics of nationalism, imperialism, and resistance that would define much of the twentieth century. Both as a historical document and as a set of penetrating inquiries into the balance of power in Asia, The Renaissance of Asia offers essential insight into the making of the modern world.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1941.