New Frontiers in the Neolithic Archaeology of Taiwan (5600–1800 BP): A Perspective of Maritime Cultural Interaction. SU-CHIU KUO. 2019. Springer, Cham, Switzerland. xvii + 224 pp. $109.99 (cloth), ISBN 978-981-329-262-8. $84.99 (e-book), ISBN 978-981-329-263-5. $79.99 (paperback), ISBN 978-981-329-2

regions from each other and from world areas. Chapter 6 focuses further on China. As a specialist in the archaeology of China, I must admit to some dismay at the superficial and sometimes sloppy treatment of much of the relevant data: a brief consideration of the Liangzhu site and culture (about which there is an ample corpus of publication) cites only aWikipedia page; a discussion of the introduction of metallurgy to East Asia references the important scholar Chen Jianli only through a talk rather than the numerous publications by him and others; an incorrect statement asserts that the sources of copper and tin for metals at Erlitou come from Central Asia; an incorrect claim is made that there is writing at the Bronze Age sites of Sanxingdui (the authors conflate the Sanxingdui materials with other, later weapons that have so-called “Ba-Shu script” in the same region) and Zhengzhou (where there are oracle bones, but these lack inscriptions); and a series of scholars writing on early East Asia in English have their names misspelled (Frachetti, Pankenier, Allan). Other parts of the chapter do much better at summarizing the ritual reforms of the Western Zhou and emphasizing the dynamism and diversity of Chinese civilization, all to set up the argument that there was a process by which Chinese civilization came to incorporate these various elements. That process is the subject of Chapter 7, which tacks between recognizing that civilization is heritage and tradition, and attempting to encapsulate Chinese civilization. In this chapter, for the first time, the authors bring up the term wenming 文明—a neologism introduced into Chinese from Japanese and translated as “civil,” “civility,” or “civilization” (see Romero Moreno, (Con)Textos 8:23–36). Although the etymological roots and nuanced meanings of wenming are not discussed (the lack of a Chinese glossary is regrettable), the chapter emphasizes rituals, beliefs, practices, and philosophies that ebb and flow within an interconnected cultural sphere and contribute to an impression of homogeneity—“a style (as Mauss called it) of varying and changing material practices and products” (p. 160). This style contributes to a “wenming rhetoric” (Romero Moreno, (Con)Textos 8:32) that places Chinese civilization (as characterized by “sage rule” and “self-cultivation” inherently connected to Confucian philosophy and urban-Han society) as “one hierarchy of moral authority and aspiration among others” (p. 181). They assert that their “recasting” of civilization seeks to escape a Eurocentric bias (p. 1), and it is true that they propose a way to bring equivalence to various contrasting modernities. But at the same time, they emphasize deep and essential continuities, particularly in food preparation and ritual practices. This emphasis casts “civilization” in contrast to chaos and, consequently, in the service of nationalisms that may not be a blessing for everyone encompassed within.