A History of Western Fascination with the East

The Light of Asia

'A rich history… Harding writes with energy and insight, wearing a tremendous amount of learning lightly' - Rana Mitter, Financial Times 
 
This rich and enjoyable book by the acclaimed author of Japan Story explores the many ways in which Asia has influenced Europe and North America over centuries of tangled, dynamic encounters 
 
From the time of the ancient Greeks onwards the West's relationship with Asia consisted for the most part of outrageous tales of strange beasts and monsters, of silk and spices shipped over vast distances and an uneasy sense of unknowable empires fantastically far away. By the twentieth century much of Asia might have come under Western rule after centuries of warfare, but its intellectual, artistic and spiritual influence was fighting back. 
 
The Light of Asia is a wonderfully varied and entertaining history of the many ways in which Asia has shaped European and North American culture over centuries of tangled, dynamic encounters, and the central importance of this vexed, often confused relationship. From Marco Polo onwards Asia has been both a source of genuine fascination and equally genuine failures of comprehension. China, India and Japan were all acknowledged to be both great civilizations and in crude ways seen as superseded by the West. From Chicago to Calcutta, and from antiquity to the new millennium, this is a rich, involving story of misunderstandings and sincere connection, of inspiration and falsehood, of geniuses, adventurers and con-men. 
 
Christopher Harding's captivating gallery of people and places celebrates Asia's impact on the West in all its variety.

This beautifully written, deeply absorbing and revelatory account … offers a fresh perspective … a judicious, far-reaching exploration of how the discovery of Eastern beliefs, customs and mores helped to shape Western ideas as much as Western advancements were in turn being taken up in the East … fascinating … makes an elegant and entertaining progress from the Ancient Greeks to the “raga rock” of the Beatles’ Norwegian Wood

A rich history … Harding writes with energy and insight, wearing a tremendous amount of learning lightly

A work of remarkable breadth and erudition, that is immensely readable and filled with brilliant insights into 'the intense, even salvific allure of Asian philosophy and spirituality'

A very interesting book … I found his history fascinating. The book is a fine complement to Edward Said’s Orientalism, as Harding fills many of the gaps in Said’s famous thesis

From the time of the ancient Greeks onwards the West's relationship with Asia consisted for the most part of outrageous tales of strange beasts and monsters, of silk and spices shipped over vast distances and an uneasy sense of unknowable empires fantastically far away. By the twentieth century much of Asia might have come under Western rule after centuries of warfare, but its intellectual, artistic and spiritual influence was fighting back. 
 
The Light of Asia is a wonderfully varied and entertaining history of the many ways in which Asia has shaped European and North American culture over centuries of tangled, dynamic encounters, and the central importance of this vexed, often confused relationship. From Marco Polo onwards Asia has been both a source of genuine fascination and equally genuine failures of comprehension. China, India and Japan were all acknowledged to be both great civilizations and in crude ways seen as superseded by the West. From Chicago to Calcutta, and from antiquity to the new millennium, this is a rich, involving story of misunderstandings and sincere connection, of inspiration and falsehood, of geniuses, adventurers and con-men. 
 
Christopher Harding's captivating gallery of people and places celebrates Asia's impact on the West in all its variety.

A History in Twenty Lives

The Japanese

A SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2020 
 
'Mightily impressive ... a marvellous read' Sunday Times 
 
From the acclaimed author of Japan Story, this is the history of Japan, distilled into the stories of twenty remarkable individuals. 
 
 The vivid and entertaining portraits in Chris Harding's enormously enjoyable new book take the reader from the earliest written accounts of Japan right through to the life of the current empress, Masako. We encounter shamans and warlords, poets and revolutionaries, scientists, artists and adventurers - each offering insights of their own into this extraordinary place. 
 
 For anyone new to Japan, this book is the ideal introduction. For anyone already deeply involved with it, this is a book filled with surprises and pleasures.

Skilled, ambitious, mightily impressive ... Harding turns out to be as adept at describing the country's artistic development as he is at unpicking its brutal politics. Another of his talents is a sharp eye for the telling quote that makes these distant presences tangible ... a marvellous read, full of startling information.

Splendid ... It's an effective way of telling an unfamiliar story, leavening the course of social change with plenty of enjoyable individual details.

An enjoyable romp through the ages across the Japanese archipelago ... Harding is in his element ... A tour de force, this imaginative book may well be the "ideal introduction" for anyone new to Japan ... Vividly written, there are certainly some interesting surprises to savour along the way.

A fresh and fascinating perspective ... By shifting focus without losing the renowned figures or the sweeping trends but rather leavening them with formerly unsung individuals, Harding is able to say something new about the history of Japan and reinvigorate old stories. As such, this book can act as a primer for the archipelago's long and complex story, or as a refreshing take on familiar periods for those already well-versed in the emperors, shoguns and battlefields.

The people included in this look at the lives of 20 of Japan's most notable characters are not, it's fair to say, household names, but historian and broadcaster Christopher Harding brings them to life with warmth and insight. Together, they offer a great primer to the nation's expansive, dynamic story.

Christopher Harding is the author of the widely praised Japan Story: In Search of a Nation, described by Neil MacGregor as 'Masterly. How much I admired it, what a lot I learned from it and, above all, how very much I enjoyed it'. Harding teaches at the University of Edinburgh and frequently broadcasts on Radio 3 and Radio 4.

Chris Harding's enormously enjoyable new book distils Japan's long, complex and fascinating history into the stories of twenty remarkable individuals. These vivid and entertaining portraits take the reader from the earliest written accounts of Japan right through to the life of the current empress, Masako. We encounter shamans and warlords, poets and revolutionaries, scientists, artists and adventurers - each offering insights of their own into this extraordinary place. 
 
 For anyone new to Japan, this book is the ideal introduction. For anyone already deeply involved with it, this is a book filled with surprises and pleasures.

In Search of a Nation, 1850 to the Present

Japan Story

This is a fresh and surprising account of Japan's culture from the 'opening up' of the country in the mid-nineteenth century to the present. 
 
'How much I admired it, what a lot I learned from it and, above all, how very much I enjoyed it ... Masterly.' Neil MacGregor 
 
It is told through the eyes of people who greeted this change not with the confidence and grasping ambition of Japan's modernizers and nationalists, but with resistance, conflict, distress. 
 
We encounter writers of dramas, ghost stories and crime novels where modernity itself is the tragedy, the ghoul and the bad guy; surrealist and avant-garde artists sketching their escape; rebel kamikaze pilots and the put-upon urban poor; hypnotists and gangsters; men in desperate search of the eternal feminine and feminists in search of something more than state-sanctioned subservience; Buddhists without morals; Marxist terror groups; couches full to bursting with the psychological fall-out of breakneck modernization. These people all sprang from the soil of modern Japan, but their personalities and projects failed to fit. They were 'dark blossoms': both East-West hybrids and home-grown varieties that wreathed, probed and sometimes penetrated the new structures of mainstream Japan.

How much I admired it, what a lot I learned from it and, above all, how very much I enjoyed it. 
 
Although the broad outlines of the story were familiar (as they will be to every reader) almost all the more detailed information was new to me. I thought the book was masterly in the intermeshing of the personal and the political, the quotidian and the spiritual, the psycho-analytic with the journalistic, the long-historical with the contemporary, and everywhere finding and highlighting the poetic and the aesthetic.

Elegantly written and compelling history of Japan's past century and a half

Lucid and lyrical ... delivered with his flair for storytelling ... one of the best accounts I've 
ever read of what happens - for better and worse - when a country's relationship with the world is abruptly renegotiated.

Richly embroidered, well-written text ... you will profit considerably from reading Japan Story.

A fresh, detailed, intimate, witty, and captivating tour across the evolving landscape of Japan over the past hundred and fifty years ... told with compassion and with a storyteller's wit and wisdom.

Christopher Harding teaches at the University of Edinburgh and frequently broadcasts on BBC Radio 3 and Radio 4.

Japan Story is a fascinating, surprising account of Japan's culture, from the 'opening up' of the country in the mid 19th century to the present, through the eyes of people who always had their doubts about modernity - who greeted it not with the confidence and grasping ambition of Japan's familiar modernizers and nationalists, but with resistance, conflict, distress. 
 
We encounter writers of dramas, ghost stories and crime novels where modernity itself is the tragedy, the ghoul and the bad guy; surrealist and avant-garde artists sketching their escape; rebel kamikaze pilots and the put-upon urban poor; hypnotists and gangsters; men in desperate search of the eternal feminine and feminists in search of something more than state-sanctioned subservience; Buddhists without morals; Marxist terror groups; couches full to bursting with the psychological fall-out of breakneck modernization. These people all sprang from the soil of modern Japan, but their personalities and projects failed to fit. They were 'dark blossoms': both East-West hybrids and home-grown varieties that wreathed, probed and sometimes penetrated the new masonry and mortar of mainstream Japan.

Christopher Harding

A history that somehow manages to be at once succinct and sweeping: essential reading for anyone interested in this most fascinating of countries

The perfect introduction to [Japan's] intriguing society is Christopher Harding’s lively new A Short History of Japan. Starting with prehistory, Harding explores the importance of Buddhism, the path to modernisation and, in particular, the role of cultural and material history, including the Japanese traditions of theatre and ceramics. The book is short, yes – but its scope is long, deep and rich

History Extra, Best History Books of 2025

In this enormously enjoyable introduction to a remarkable country, Christopher Harding traces Japan's rich history over several millennia. Beginning with its earliest coastal communities through to the spread of Buddhism, the rise of the warlords, the promise and menace of the West and Japan's own empire-building, Harding explores how a distinctly Japanese society and culture was forged. 
 
Drawing on the latest scholarship, A Short History of Japan moves beyond traditional tourist-board clichés to consider Japan's own view of its past, values and culture, from ceramics and theatre to food and architecture. The result is a sensory, tactile history conveying to the reader much about Japan’s special nature. Harding skilfully shows how these everyday details are intimately bound up with the bigger historical picture, as an expression of the values that have been extraordinarily successful in helping the country to cope with centuries of radical change.

Christopher Harding

Praise for A Short History of Japan

A history that somehow manages to be at once succinct and sweeping: essential reading for anyone interested in this most fascinating of countries

The perfect introduction to [Japan's] intriguing society is Christopher Harding’s lively new A Short History of Japan. Starting with prehistory, Harding explores the importance of Buddhism, the path to modern ...

Books by Christopher Harding

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter