the Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia have been dominated by both: Indian and Chinese influences. The distinction in ideologies is important, Kumari suggests, because it’s shaped the approaches towards their liberation efforts and the means through which women mobilized to contribute to national liberation efforts. Kumari explores how the expansion of capitalism through colonisation in these societies led to the creation of a class of ‘local bourgeoise’- commission agents, allies of the settlers, traders who were unsatisfied with the terms of asymmetric trading relations and intellectuals and professionals who had studied abroad or at modern schools. The emergence of this new class of locals prompted a rise in nationalist ideas in retaliation to the occupation and economic exploitation of imperialist powers, leading to a rise in early ideas of women’s emancipation. She discusses the common strategies through which self-rule was achieved; modernization of societies, demolition of conventional structures such as the ruling monarchies and religious institutions, and lastly, imbuing masses with nationalist sentiments. Kumari illustrates how these efforts led to the abolishment of sati or widow burning in India, rapid industrialization of Japan resulting in increased economic participation of women who were a cheap form of labour, the installation of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in lieu of the Ottoman empire in Turkey- prompting secularization and a ban on the veil, issues such as concubinage and polygamy being raised in Egypt and similarly, the questioning of ‘foot-binding’ practices in China. Kumari structured the book such that detailed case studies from each country document the development of feminist consciousness by weaving tales of heroic women. In Turkey, Halide Edib (1983–1964), daughter of the one-time secretary of the Sultan, was a nationalist who was involved in Atatürk’s revolution against the Sultanate as a notable public speaker, writer and adviser in Atatürk’s army and is still remembered as the “most visible woman of the revolution” owing to the scrutiny and applaud she faced as the daughter of a notable palace official opposing the system. Huda Sharawi, founder of the Egyptian Feminist Union, cast off her veil into the sea on her return to Egypt in 1924 from the International Conference of Women in Rome- a move that caused a scandal among the nobility of Egypt as she was the wife of a prominent pasha. She launched the French journal L’Egyptienne in 1925. A decade later, she lectured on women’s oppression and their role in society and