Vanishing Asia
Three Volume Set: West, Central, and East
This is a 3-volume set of oversize books that span the continent of Asia. Ancient and beautiful traditions in Asia that are rapidly disappearing are recorded here in 9,000 images on 1,000 pages. The author has visited 35 countries in Asia and has travelled to the end of the road in its most remote places to capture the costumes, architecture, festivals, and lifestyles that are vanishing. The diverse cultures range from Turkey in the west to Japan in the east, from Siberia in the north to Indonesia in the south, and everything in between. Volume 1 covers West Asia, Volume 2 Central Asia, and Volume 3 East Asia. Every one of its 1,000 pages is uniquely designed, and every one of its 9,000 images is captioned. This is an ambitious and extreme passion project that the author/photographer has worked on for 49 years. Many of the scenes depicted in the book are now gone from the world, and others are becoming rarer by the day. There is no other book like it.
Kevin Kelly is Senior Maverick at Wired magazine. He co-founded Wired in 1993, and served as its Executive Editor for its first 7 years. In addition to his day job he has travelled in 35 Asian countries photographing the disappearing cultures. His most recent book on technology, The Inevitable, is a New York Times bestseller. His other books include New Rules for the New Economy, and his classic book about decentralisation, Out of Control. Kelly's theory of technology was featured in What Technology Wants. From 1984-1990 Kelly was publisher and editor of the Whole Earth Catalogs. He co-founded the Hackers' Conference in 1984, and was involved with the launch of the WELL, a pioneering online service started in 1985. He also founded the popular Cool Tools website in 2003, which has published a cool tool every day for past 18 years. He is co-chair of the Long Now Foundation which is building a clock in Texas that will tick for 10,000 years. Kelly resides in Pacifica, CA.
