The shift to the modern world in East Asia was accomplished in part via the experience of colonial rule in the late nineteenth century. Following imperial crisis in the 1930s and 1940s, independent nation states formed from which the political structure of East Asia is based today.

1. State-Empires and the Shift to the Modern World 2. State-Empire Systems: The Players 3. State-Empire Systems: The Logics 4. State-Empire Systems: The Fracture Lines 5. General Crisis: System Failure and Collapse 6. State-Empire Dissolution 7. After the State-Empires: Territories, States, Nations and Development 8. Powerful Regions and the Surprising Costs of Success

P.W. Preston is Professor Emeritus at the University of Birmingham, UK, and has taught comparative politics over many years at universities in Scotland, Germany, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand and China.