2020 Reviewing Asian Studies

Robin Jeffrey reflects on the new ASAA report, Australia’s Asia Education Imperative, co-authored by Melissa Crouch and Edward Aspinall. Professor Jeffrey was an editor-author of Maximizing Australia’s Asia Knowledge (with John Fitzgerald, Kama Maclean and Tessa Morris-Suzuki), the ASAA’s 2002 report on the condition of Asian studies. Australia’s Asia Education Imperative reflects the scholarly passion

Asian studies and Asian library collections have developed relatively recently in Australia. Prior to World War II, Asian studies were restricted to one department at the University of Sydney which taught the Japanese language and Asian history. There were no significant collections of Asian publications and no Australian library was regularly collecting current publications from