Three Tigers, One Mountain
A Journey Through the Bitter History and Current Conflicts of China, Korea, and Japan

In order to effectively convey the conflict-heavy past and present of China, Korea and Japan, British travel journalist Michael Booth roamed the three nations (including Hong Kong and Taiwan), visiting historic sights and talking to experts and average residents alike. The result is a text that (con......more

Great title. Everyone who lives in this part of the world is aware of the judgmental relationships Asians have with one another, yet this is the first book I've seen that has tried to explain the reasons behind some of them from a non-academic point of view. (In my experience, it is usually the acad......more

Part travelogue, part investigative journalism, I had very high hopes for this narrative exploration of East Asia past and present. Booth visited Japan, South Korea, China, and Taiwan and interspersed goofy travel anecdotes with museum visits and interviews, bookended by historical analysis for cont......more

Perhaps the biggest issue with this book is that the author isn't clear what he wants this book to be - and who the target audience is. For people with no prior knowledge of this region, perhaps there is some benefit (although the author's bias is clear) but for anyone with some level of knowledge -......more

Wow! Where to start? On the plus side, if you have no real knowledge about modern East Asian history, this does provide a good overview of the major events in the 20th Century. However, that's pretty much the only positive of the book. The author clearly has a massive bias towards Japan and therefore......more