Abstract
In may, 1942, The Far Eastern Quarterly published an article on Outstanding books on the Far East published in 1941. This article indicated twelve books of unusual value published during that year and gave comments on many others which for one reason or another seemed worthy of notice. Since Pearl Harbor, American interest in Asia and the Pacific has greatly increased and American publications about the Far East have become much more numerous. However, increase in quantity has not necessarily meant increase in quality. Many of those who might normally have produced reliable popular works or thorough research studies have been called on to do special war work and have had little time or opportunity for writing, while pseudo-experts and eye-witnesses without real background have burst into print. The layman who wishes to learn about Eastern Asia, as every American should and must, sorely needs a touchstone with which to tell gold from dross in the pile of recent publications on the Far East which confronts him. The editors of The Far Eastern Quarterly have therefore felt that an attempt to select the outstanding books published since the beginning of 1942 is decidedly in order.
