The Asians Author:Paul Thomas Welty Interest in the study of Asia at, less advanced levels, is more recent. People have come increasingly to feel that Asia is so important in the modern world that a good general education should give some knowledge of Asian societies as well as of Western societies. Consequently, courses on Asia are being started at high school and beginning col... more »lege levels. For this it is much harder to find suitable textbooks, partly because the demand has existed for a shorter time and, more important, because a textbook at this level is harder to write. It is the great merit of The Asians that it puts its main emphasis on the most important and most difficult task, while also giving the main outlines of geography, history, politics and government, for the main areas of Asia from Pakistan round to Japan. It is extremely difficult to give in clear and simple language a short account of a complex system of religion or social philosophy. However, te reader will find such accounts of Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, traditional Chinese social philosophy, and Japanese Bushido and Shinto. Students who use this book to start their study of Asia can obtain the basis of background knowledge of Asian ways of life and ways of thought which can make it possible for them to turn their knowledge into a real understanding of Asia.« less