I am the Series Editor for a new list of titles to be published by Zed Books in London starting early in 2011 and called ‘Asian Arguments’. The new series follows on from Zed’s very successful ‘African Arguments’ series. The basic idea is to work with various authors, mostly non-academic and based in the Asian region, who have substantial ground level experience of the issues covered.
Asian Arguments is a series of short books about Asia today. Aimed at the growing number of students and general readers who want to know more about the region, these books intend to highlight community involvement from the ground up in issues of the day usually discussed by authors in terms of top down government policy. The aim is to better understand how ordinary Asian citizens are confronting problems such as the environment, democracy and their societies development either with or without government support. The books are scholarly but engaged, substantive as well as topical and written by authors with direct experience of their subject matter.
The series will kick of in 2011 with an excellent book on grassroots and village democracy in China from Dr Kerry Brown of Chatham House – Ballot Box China. Other titles in the series expected to follow soon after below the cover shot of Kerry’s book:
- Asia’s New Plantations: The Palm Oil Debate – the effects of the Palm Oil Industry on Communities and the Environment in Malaysia and Indonesia
- Chinese People’s Responses and Attitudes to the Environmental Crisis
- The Lives and Experiences of Burmese Migrant Workers in Thailand
- Life Inside China’s Great Firewall – Activism and the Nert in the PRC
- Red Shirt, Yellow Shirt – Thailand’s Cauldron
- The Rise of China’s Soft Power at a Local Level
- Mongolian Reactions to the Resources Curse
If you have a subject or title you think might fit well into the series and reflect the aims and objectives of Asian Arguments then do let me know – paul@accessasia.co.uk
