The development of Chinese, Mongolian, and Tibetan Studies in the West since World War II has been accompanied by a dramatic growth in the number of doctoral degrees awarded for research concerned with the countries and civilizations of East Asia. In many cases, the dissertations written for these degrees offer a wealth of specialized information and reflect changing trends in scholarship. And, as China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan have become increasingly important on the world scene economically and politically, these dissertations have likewise become more significant to researchers. This bibliography includes annotated entries for over 10,000 dissertations on China, Hong Kong, Macao, Mongolia, Taiwan, Tibet, and the overseas Chinese, Mongolian, and Tibetan communities completed between 1976 and 1990, with more than half of these not cited in
Dissertation Abstracts International.
The volume provides a broad picture of doctoral research on China and Inner Asia, with coverage of dissertations in the social and natural sciences, the arts and humanities, education, theology, and the major professions, including law, medicine, and architecture.
While nearly half of the dissertations cited have been submitted to educational institutions in the United States more than 5000 entries represent research completed in 39 other countries. Slightly more than 70% of the dissertations focus almost entirely on China, the Chinese, or Inner Asia. But every effort has also been made to include those works which examine China and Inner Asia more broadly in relation to other regions and cultures. Each entry provides full bibliographic information, citations to one or two of the author's published thesis abstracts, and an indication of the availability of copies. This material is accompanied by a brief descriptive annotation of the scope, contents, objective, and relevance of the dissertation. The entries are classified and grouped together in topical chapters, and the volume includes a detailed table of contents, thousands of cross-references, and three extensive indexes to facilitate its use. Since many of the dissertations are unavailable from UMI, an appendix provides a detailed guide for obtaining copies of these works.