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Lead book review

What, if anything, unites Asia as a continent?

Is it merely a European construct – and what, if anything, do its diverse peoples have in common, wonders Peter Frankopan

18 February 2023

9:00 AM

18 February 2023

9:00 AM

How Asia Found Herself: A Story of Intercultural Understanding Nile Green

Yale, pp.464, 25

‘Asia is one’, wrote Okakura Kakuzo, the Japanese art historian, at the start of his The Ideals of the East in 1901. Nile Green disagrees in this sparky and impressive book. There is no reason why ‘Buddhism, Confucianism or Shinto should be more intelligible to a “fellow Asian” from the Middle East or India than to a European’.

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