Writing on South and Southeast Asia, Barbara N. Ramusack surveys both the prescriptive roles and lived experiences of women as well as the construction of gender from the period of the early states to the 1990s. Although both east and southeast Asia are home to the Hindu, Buddhist, and Muslim religious traditions, and had extended trade relations, they reveal striking differences in the status and roles of women and the processes of cultural adaptation. Sharon Sievers presents an overview of women's participation in the histories of China, Japan, and Korea from prehistory to the modern period that provides a framework for incorporating women into world history classrooms. It offers analyses on major issues derived from recent research and discusses such stereotypical cultural practices as footbinding (long seen as "exotic" in the west) in the context of women's lives.