The importance of East Asia has grown in recent decades as a result of the sharp rise in the region's economic and military power. A similar increase in scholarship on the military history of East Asia now makes the time ripe for a handbook that will facilitate understanding of this critical aspect of its history and current state of relations. As a relatively recent field, East Asian military history is still somewhat uneven in scholarly coverage, making this handbook extremely useful for those attempting to engage the research.





This handbook covers East Asia as a region, and as individual countries. The military histories of each nation are distinct yet these peoples and states have a long history of interactions. An international team of contributors cover topics such as the People's liberation army, Japanese martial arts, the history of guns, and the Korean War. Divided into sections on Korea, China, Japan and East Asia, this handbook is an essential resource for anyone researching on East Asia's military history.