The International Politics of the Asia-Pacific

by Michael Yahuda

This second edition of Michael Yahuda's extremely successful textbook introduces students to the international politics of the Asia Pacific region since 1945. The new edition is completely updated with contemporary coverage of the economic crises and includes new chapters on:


the current role of East Asia in world affairs prospects post-2000 the strengths and weaknesses of US dominance and the challenge of other powers prospects for and implications of an East Asian economic recovery.

Genres: International Relations, Political Science, Politics, Nonfiction

372 pages, Paperback

Published December 25, 2004

Reviews

[Brian]

The International Politics of the Asia Pacific is a great overview of the post-World War II state of the Pacific Asian states and how they weathered the Cold war and Post cold war. This is the second edition which covers into the early 2000’s and looks at the pivot form a bipolar world to one of regional powers where China and Japan vie for power against the US and are not always strategically aligned. The book generally follows the major players, China, Japan, USSR, United States and ASEAN countries during the cold war and Japan, United States and China in the post cold war. There is thoughtful analysis here and while it can get repetitive when the same events are covered from a different country it does provide a great overview if you are not well versed in the area. It is sort of a classic textbook on this subject that does not get too academic and provides a lot of great information.

[Maggie]

Textbook for my Intro to Asia class. Very comprehensive history, mostly context with some (potentially inadvertent) analysis. Like other reviewers said, it's fairly repetitive, but I think it may have been structured not to be read as a whole (though we did throughout the class) but so that specific chapters could be assigned to give context on particular areas or issues. Clear writing and great history review, just incredibly long and somewhat repetitive if multiple chapters are being read at once.

[Sambhavna Biswas]

Informative book but gets really dry midway.

[Peter]

Too much try contents and quite repetitive. Otherwise good for referencing.

[Diana Frumosu]

This is the worst structured book I had to read for university. The analysis it makes is interesting, but lots of things are repeated again and again and same topics are discussed in different parts of the book in the same way, with the same words.

[Declan Ellis]

Surprisingly engaging description of historical events in the Asia-Pacific. I didn't totally agree with the author's conclusions, but I think they were well-thought-out. Yahuda keeps IR jargon to a minimum. I'd recommend it for somebody interested in the topic.

[Nanto]

perasaan berapa bab dah kebaca deh. kudu bikin rak half-read neh!