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Blood Dawn
- Author
- Hans van de Ven
- Narrator
- Hans van de Ven
- Publisher
- John Murray Press
- Publish Date
- 18 June 2026
- Run Time
- 12 hours 14 minutes
- Format
- Audiobook
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What to expect
'Essential reading for understanding Asia's present' RICHARD OVERY
A momentous new history of World War II in Asia.
In the early twentieth century, from India to China, Western imperial powers dominated Asia. Then, in the 1930s, Japan began to tear down this old order in pursuit of its own imperial ambitions - first by invading China, and then by launching its assault against British, Dutch, and American outposts across Asia and the Pacific in December 1941. As Japanese forces seized vast swaths of territory and pressed toward India, the brutal fighting cost millions of lives across the continent. Simultaneously, the war's chaos and suffering supercharged anti-colonial movements from British India to Dutch Indonesia. Ultimately, it was the charismatic leaders of these movements - Mao, Nehru, Sukarno - who built the new Asia of independent nation-states that emerged in the war's bloody wake.
Drawing on deep archival research across continents, leading historian Hans van de Ven tells the dramatic story of how Asia's people mobilized to defeat both Japanese aggression and European imperialism, forging modern Asia in the process.
Blood Dawn is a landmark new account of one of the most important and overlooked episodes of the twentieth century, revealing how Asia's Second World War was central in creating the post-war order.
Critics Review
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World War II in Asia is essential context for understanding the political and economic revolution that has created the modern Asian world. Hans Van de Ven has produced a concise, stimulating, and highly readable account of how the war made that transformation possible. Essential reading for understanding Asia's present
Richard Overy, author of BLOOD AND RUINS
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Blood Dawn does something essential: it restores the missing map of Asia to the history of World War II. It recognises, fully and soberly, the endurance, sacrifice, and contribution of Asian peoples long written out of the central narrative
Xinran, author of THE GOOD WOMEN OF CHINA
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World War II is central to modern global history, and Asia is central to World War II. Yet until now, it has been hard to find a history of Asia's role in the war that combines expert judgement about the region's importance and deep research to underpin the analysis. Hans van de Ven's Blood Dawn breaks new ground with its skilled and lucid prose that brings together understanding of war, anti-imperialism and strategic analysis with research in archives and materials that spans languages and continents. A monumental and essential work
Rana Mitter, author of CHINA'S GOOD WAR
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Written with an impressive clarity of thought and prose, this is the history we so badly needed to balance the West's version of the Second World War
Antony Beevor, author of STALINGRAD
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This fascinating history will reset how many Western readers understand the second world war in Asia. With skill and verve Hans van de Ven challenges framings of the conflict as a heroic saga ending with the Allied defeat of Japan . . . The lessons could hardly be more timely today, as nationalist movements and leaders reshape a world order that is in tumult once more
David Rennie
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World War II was a global conflict, but its history, memory and lessons are still predominantly Eurocentric. Concise and erudite, well written and highly accessible, Blood Dawn offers a necessary corrective and places Asia and its transformation from Empires and colonies to nation states the at the center of the World War II history. A necessary reading for those seeking to understand World War II as a truly global war
Eugene Finkel, author of TO KILL UKRAINE
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A groundbreaking, multilingual new history, which redefines our chronology and understanding of mid-twentieth-century global conflict. Taking in the vast Asian theatre of war, Blood Dawn pivots revelatorily between individuals, battles, nations and the British, Dutch and Japanese empires to evoke the transformation of this region
Julia Lovell, author of MAOISM
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A riveting account of the defining decade that remade Asia and the world . . . With calm authority, the fluent narrative sharply and clearly conveys the harsh and violent political transformations that ended empires. An indispensable history that is instructive for understanding emerging conflicts amidst competition and expansionism today
Shruti Kapila, author of VIOLENT FRATERNITY
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A stellar contribution to the growing library on the Asia-Pacific War of 1937-1945. It is a profoundly researched, accessible, and passionately argued summons for both historians and lay readers to recast their views on the dilemmas confronting Allied policy makers. This is an essential work in any collection about World War II
Richard B. Frank, author of TOWER OF SKULLS
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Important and superlative . . . He reminds us that the war's unresolved issues, including Taiwan, Kashmir, and the Korean Peninsula, along with the rise of a newly powerful China and India, may well determine the future of this region and the map of world power
Nicholas Burns, former US Ambassador to China
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Details
- Author
- Hans van de Ven
- Narrator
- Hans van de Ven
- Duration
- 12 hours 14 minutes
- Release Date
- 18 June 2026
- ISBN
- 9781529347036
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- John Murray Press
- Genre
- History, Second World War, Politics and government
Synopsis
'This is the history we so badly needed' ANTONY BEEVOR'Essential reading for understanding Asia's present' RICHARD OVERYA momentous new history of World War II in Asia. In the early twentieth century, from India to China, Western imperial powers dominated Asia. Then, in the 1930s, Japan began to tear down this old order in pursuit of its own imperial ambitions - first by invading China, and then by launching its assault against British, Dutch, and American outposts across Asia and the Pacific in December 1941. As Japanese forces seized vast swaths of territory and pressed toward India, the brutal fighting cost millions of lives across the continent. Simultaneously, the war's chaos and suffering supercharged anti-colonial movements from British India to Dutch Indonesia. Ultimately, it was the charismatic leaders of these movements - Mao, Nehru, Sukarno - who built the new Asia of independent nation-states that emerged in the war's bloody wake. Drawing on deep archival research across continents, leading historian Hans van de Ven tells the dramatic story of how Asia's people mobilized to defeat both Japanese aggression and European imperialism, forging modern Asia in the process.Blood Dawn is a landmark new account of one of the most important and overlooked episodes of the twentieth century, revealing how Asia's Second World War was central in creating the post-war order.
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