To what extent are our futures likely to be determined by our traditions from the past? Asian Futures, Asian Traditions is a collection of conference papers by scholars of Asian Studies, who explore the topics of continuity and change in Asian societies through essays in history, politics, gender studies, language, literature, film, performance and music. Recurring among the themes of the book are the invention and reinvention of tradition, nostalgia, issues of national and ethnic identity, colonial heritage, nationalism, 'reform,' and the effects of globalizing economies. Both the power and the precariousness of several Asian economies are revealed in studies of the 'Asian Economic Crisis' of the late 1990s and the conversion of some communist states to 'market socialism.'

Edwina Palmer is Senior Lecturer in Japanese, teaching Japanese language and culture, at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. She has published in a wide variety of fields in Japanese Studies, including human geography, rural studies, literature, orality and mythology. Her work together with husband Geoffrey Rice on the history of the 1918 influenza pandemic in Japan is appraised as the most thorough in the subject to date. She is currently preparing a book on the eighth-century text Harima Fudoki.