William Bowman et al., Imperialism in the Modern World (2007). A collection of short readings illustrating the various forms and faces of European expansion over the past several centuries.

Carter V. Finley, The Turks in World History (2004). A study placing the role of Turkish-speaking peoples in general and the Ottoman Empire in particular in a global context.

Marius B. Jansen, The Making of Modern Japan (2002). A well-regarded account of Japan since 1600 by a leading scholar.

Jonathan D. Spence, The Search for Modern China (1999). Probably the best single-volume account of Chinese history from about 1600 through the twentieth century.

E. Patricia Tsurumi, Factory Girls: Women in the Thread Mills of Meiji Japan (1990). An examination of the lives of women in Japan’s nineteenth-century textile factories.

Arthur Waley, The Opium War through Chinese Eyes (1968). An older classic that views the Opium War from various Chinese points of view.

“The Decline of the Ottoman Empire,” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-SUlb4rwls. A ten-minute video that offers an interpretation of the declining fortunes of the Ottoman Empire.

“Visualizing Cultures: Image-Driven Scholarship,” http://ocw.mit.edu/ans7870/21f/21f.027/home/index.html. A collection, provided by MIT, of thoughtful essays and stunning images dealing with China and Japan during the nineteenth century.