The sheer amount of American children's and young adult literature, boasting an outpouring of 5,000 titles every year, often amazes a person who is new to this field. Not only is a large proportion of these books of high printing and binding quality, but, at a quick glance, among them is also a pleasant diversity of genre, format, targeted age…

On March 1-2, 2008, FPRI's Wachman Center presented a weekend of discussion on "China's Encounter with the West" for 45 teachers from 21 states across the country, held at and co-sponsored by the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Asia Program. Sessions included: (1) China's Early Encounters with the West: A History in Reverse…

Ji-li Jiang's extraordinary memoir "Red Scarf Girl" transports readers to a tumultuous time in Chinese history--the first two years of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Caught between conflicting forces--joining the Revolution's call for rebellion, protecting her family, and fitting in with her peers--Jiang describes how her…

Ever since War Department propaganda films set the mold, historians have pretty much followed: the road to Pearl Harbor began in 1931 with Japanese aggression in Manchuria. Any "revision" regarding the War in the Pacific has its own set of problems--engendering controversy, often running up against patriotic sentiments and the tendency…

In this article, the author provides a brief history of Hmong and traces the origin of Hmong story cloths. The Hmong, a nomadic and agrarian people, may date back 5000 years. Today they live in China, Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos, where during the Vietnam War and its aftermath, many Hmong were killed or persecuted for siding with the American…

In the nearly 30 years since Edward Said published the hugely influential Orientalism, his indictment of racism and imperialism in Western scholarship on the Orient has had its share of plaudits and condemnations. Now Robert Irwin, the Middle East editor of The Times Literary Supplement, has reignited the controversy with his broadside against the…

Developing national identity is a goal of schools around the world. Historically this goal has been especially important for nations coming out of colonization as new governments seek to unify their nations and promote national identities. From 1842 to 1997, Hong Kong was a British colony whose excellent harbor made it a linchpin of British…

Although the Vietnam War ended more than thirty years ago, historians remain as divided on what happened as the American people were during the war. Mark Moyar maps the ongoing battle between "orthodox" and "revisionist" Vietnam War historians: the first group, those who depict Vietnam as a bad war that the United States should…

The book is entitled History Wars in the Classroom: Global Perspectives and examines how ten separate countries have experienced debates and disputes over the contested nature of the subject, for example the "Black Armband" and "Whitewash" factions in Australia who adopt opposingly celebratory or denigratory views of Australian…

The author lives in a place filled with opportunities for girls like her. She is fortunate to attend school and enjoy activities like other young ladies. Her third- and fourth-generation parents encouraged her to attend Japanese Cultural School to learn about her heritage and to be proud of being Japanese-American. Her life has been filled with…

The paper analyzes five historical fictions for children in the Batang Historyador (Young Historian) series which detail five periods in Philippine history. The books discuss the issues of child labor in precolonial Philippines, child labor and the right to education regardless of gender during the Spanish colonial period, child labor during the…

This bibliography presents publications from 1990-2002 on Asians in Latin America. It is organized by the broader Asian categories, then alphabetically by ethnic group, and within each group it is organized alphabetically by country or region. Categories include: Asians (and works on more than one group); Chinese; East Indians; Japanese; Javanese…

This article examines the representation of Chinese identity in museums in the People's Republic of China, comparing this briefly with the portrayal of local and national identities in Hong Kong and Taiwan. In particular, the article looks at the implications for museums of the shift in emphasis within state ideology from socialism to…

It is not yet well known that there has been a selective bias in writing the "world" history of higher education. Western hegemony prevails in this academic endeavour. To recover one of the many lost traditions of higher education, this paper will make a historical comparison of the two distinctive academic traditions representing the…

On October 21-22, 2006, FPRI's Marvin Wachman Fund for International Education hosted 46 teachers from 26 states across the country for a weekend of discussion on teaching about China. Sessions included: (1) Classical Chinese Thought and Culture and Early Chinese History (Victor Mair); (2) State and Society in Late Imperial China (Matthew Sommer);…