Explores the four civilisations of China, Japan, Korea and Vietnam from 1600 to today.

Conrad Schirokauer currently serves as Senior Scholar and Adjunct Professor at Columbia University as well as Professor Emeritus at the City University of New York. In addition to A BRIEF HISTORY OF CHINESE AND JAPANESE CIVILIZATIONS (and its separate volumes on China and Japan), he has published articles on Song intellectual history and served as co-editor (with Robert Hymes) of ORDERING THE WORLD: APPROACHES TO STATE AND SOCIETY IN SUNG DYNASTY CHINA and as translator of CHINA'S EXAMINATION HELL, by Miyazaki Ichisada.