David P. Chandler, Robert Cribb & Li Narangoa (eds)
2016

Aiming to balance the focus on European events in global public discussions and reminiscences of World War II, End of Empire focuses on a brief, 100-day period at the end of the war across a broad sweep of eastern Asia – a time when the Indonesian and Vietnamese revolutions were born, the fragile wartime truce between Communists and Nationalists in China began to fray, and the first steps were made in Japan towards a new democratic order. Following a chronological order, the volume combines daily events with commentary, photographs, maps and personal accounts. More importantly, it is part of a radical, multi-faceted project to commemorate the period not just in print but also on screen and in ‘real-time broadcasts’ published day by day. Here, perhaps, is the form of scholarly publishing and learning of the future but without abandoning traditional standards.