Asian Cities
About the Book Series
The Asian Cities Series explores urban cultures, societies and developments from the ancient to the contemporary city, from West Asia and the Near East to East Asia and the Pacific. The series focuses on three avenues of inquiry: evolving and competing ideas of the city across time and space; urban residents and their interactions in the production, shaping and contestation of the city; and urban challenges of the future as they relate to human well-being, the environment, heritage and public life.
River Cities in Asia: Waterways in Urban Development and History
1st Edition
Edited
By Rita Padawangi, Paul Rabé, Adrian Perkasa
January 10, 2026
River Cities in Asia uncovers the intimate relationship between rivers and cities in Asia from a multi-disciplinary perspective in the humanities and the social sciences. As rivers have shaped human settlement patterns, economies, culture and rituals, so too have humans impacted the flow and health...
Chiang Mai between Empire and Modern Thailand: A City in the Colonial Margins
1st Edition
By Taylor M. Easum
January 09, 2026
Urban histories tend to be dominated by large, global cities. But what does the history of the modern, colonial era look like from the perspective of smaller cities? By shifting the focus from the metropolis to the secondary city of Chiang Mai, this study provides an alternative narrative of the ...
Cities in Asia by and for the People
1st Edition
Edited
By Yves Cabannes, Mike Douglass, Rita Padawangi
January 09, 2026
This book examines the active role of urban citizens in constructing alternative urban spaces as tangible resistance towards capitalist production of urban spaces that continue to encroach various neighborhoods, lanes, commons, public land and other spaces of community life and livelihoods. The ...
Ancient and Modern Practices of Citizenship in Asia and the West: Care of the Self
1st Edition
Edited
By Gregory Bracken
December 01, 2025
What does it mean to be a good citizen today? What are practices of citizenship? And what can we learn from the past about these practices to better engage in city life in the twenty-first century? Ancient and Modern Practices of Citizenship in Asia and the West: Care of the Self is a collection of...
Asian Alleyways: An Urban Vernacular in Times of Globalization
1st Edition
Edited
By Marie Gibert-Flutre, Heide Imai
December 01, 2025
Asian Alleyways: An Urban Vernacular in Times of Globalization critically explores Global Asia and the metropolization process, specifically from its alleyways, which are understood as ordinary neighbourhood landscapes providing the setting for everyday urban life and place-based identities being ...
Asian Cities: Colonial to Global
1st Edition
Edited
By Gregory Bracken
December 01, 2025
When people look at success stories among postcolonial nations, the focus almost always turns to Asia, where many cities in former colonies have become key locations of international commerce and culture. This book brings together a stellar group of scholars from a number of disciplines to explore ...
Colonizing, Decolonizing, and Globalizing Kolkata: From a Colonial to a Post-Marxist City
1st Edition
By Siddhartha Sen
December 01, 2025
Colonizing, Decolonizing, and Globalizing Kolkata offers an extended analysis of the architecture and urban planning of Kolkata from the earliest days of colonialism through independence and on into the twenty-first century, all set in the larger context of Indian cities' architecture and urban ...
Constructing Kanchi: City of Infinite Temples
1st Edition
By Emma Natalya Stein
December 01, 2025
Constructing Kanchi: City of Infinite Temples traces the emergence of the South Indian city of Kanchi as a major royal capital and multireligious pilgrimage destination during the era of the Pallava and Chola dynasties (ca. seventh through thirteenth centuries). The book presents the first-ever ...
Contemporary Practices of Citizenship in Asia and the West: Care of the Self
1st Edition
Edited
By Gregory Bracken
December 01, 2025
Contemporary Practices of Citizenship in Asia and the West: Care of the Self examines urban communities and societies in Asia and the West to shed much-needed light on issues that have emerged as the world experiences its new urban turn. An urbanized world should be an improving place, one that is ...
Emerging Civic Urbanisms in Asia: Hong Kong, Seoul, Singapore, and Taipei beyond Developmental Urbanization
1st Edition
Edited
By Im Sik Cho, Blaz KRIZNIK, Jeffrey Hou
December 01, 2025
In parts of Asia, citizens are increasingly involved in shaping their neighbourhoods and cities, representing a significant departure from earlier state-led or market-driven urban development. These emerging civic urbanisms are a result of an evolving relationship between the state and civil ...
Future Challenges of Cities in Asia
1st Edition
Edited
By Gregory Bracken, Paul Rabé, R. Parthasarathy, Neha Sami, Bing Zhang
December 01, 2025
The ten essays in Future Challenges of Cities in Asia engage with some of the most critical urban questions of the near future across Asia. These comprise socio-economic and cultural transitions as a result of urbanization; environmental challenges, especially questions of climate change, natural ...
Ideas of the City in Asian Settings
1st Edition
Edited
By Henco Bekkering, Adèle Esposito, Charles Goldblum
December 01, 2025
At a time when intense dynamics of urban development of Asian cities puzzle and disorient, Ideas of the City in Asian Settings offers knowledge about the concepts, representations, and ideas that lie beneath the historical and contemporary production of cities in Asia, in order to deepen our ...