bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Rural China in the Song
Authors: Golas Peter J.
Published: April 2006

That the late Tang and Song form a watershed in Chinese history is an idea that needs no introduction in these pages. It has won the general acceptance of scholars of the most varying historical (and political) persuasions. New political institutions, including a sophisticated bureaucracy staffed by officials chosen for their ability; a proliferation of cities and towns, as well as the markets to support them; the largest standing army seen anywhere in the world to that time; a brilliant reformulation of the Confucian tradition with profound effects not only on the elite but on the population at large: the magnitude of these and other changes is undeniable.
Early Cōla Architecture and Sculpture
Authors: Schwindler Gary J.
Published: April 2006

This work is another of Douglas Barrett's important contributions to the study of South Indian art. Dealing with temple construction and stone sculpture created during the period ca. A.D. 866–1014, this book appears to have been produced as a companion volume to the author's Early Cōla Bronzes (Bombay, 1965). However, the broader scope of Early Cōla Architecture and Sculpture provides an even greater wealth of opinion and information which supplies opportunities for endless conjecture and debate.
Bangladesh: An Unfinished Revolution?
Authors: Maniruzzaman Talukder
Published: April 2006

Revolutionary mass upheaval generally weakens the people's respect for authority, law, and discipline; and it brings in its wake social, economic, and political disorders, facilitating the establishment of an authoritarian regime. The French Revolution was based on the ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity; but the destruction of the old social and political fabric, and the failure to institutionalize the new ideas, led Frenchmen to search for “the man of genius destined at once to carry on and to abolish the revolution.” The Russian Revolution of 1917 was also followed by several years of civil war, which led to the establishment of the ruthless totalitarian regime of Stalin, itself reminiscent of the Thermidorian Reaction. In Algeria, Cuba, China, and North Vietnam, successful mass armed revolutions have been consolidated only because of their one-party dictatorships.
Intellectual Change in Early Eighteenth-Century Tokugawa Confucianism
Authors: Najita Tetsuo
Published: April 2006

When teaching Tokugawa intellectual history, I consistently encounter a question that is at once deceptively simple yet so difficult to respond to in a convincing and substantial way. Why do Japanese historians argue that Confucianism had an important impact on Tokugawa society, when geographical, political, and ethical realities in Japan were so vastly different from those in China? There is, of course, good reason to be perplexed, I reply, and offer a generalization or two. Tokugawa society clearly was not “Sinified” as is sometimes implied; but, on the other hand, the imprint of Confucianism on Tokugawa thought and culture was undeniably deep. Although the picture is sometimes overdrawn, Japanese historians constantly refer to Confucianism as the “rationalizing” force that transformed Japan from a religious and ascetic culture to a bureaucratic and secular one. The same historians continue to debate the intellectual merit of Tokugawa Confucianism in Japan's modern culture, for while the precise ramifications are still controversial, there is little doubt as to the depth of the Tokugawa intellectual engagement with Confucian thought and of the profound legacy of that engagement for the modern history of Japan. Unfortunately, these generalizations, although helpful, do not add up to convincing historical instruction, a realization that has invariably left me searching for more cogent lines of interpretation and more detailed characterizations of Tokugawa thought.
Ethnicity and Work Culture in Thailand: A Comparison of Thai and Thai-Chinese White-Collar Workers
Authors: Deyo Frederic C.
Published: April 2006

Scholarly writings on the Chinese minority in Thailand have stressed the unique cultural values that traditionally have distinguished Thai from Thai-Chinese communities. Skinner and Coughlin, among others, have argued that the Chinese have traditionally been more diligent, ambitious, and materialistic than Thais, and that—while loyal and disciplined within the bounds of kinship and other narrow primordial affiliations—they act amorally in economic and other dealings with persons outside these affiliative structures. Thais, by contrast, are reputed to be more passive and fatalistic, less materialistic, and less likely to manifest social discipline or sustained commitment to others, even within the family. These value differences are held to be responsible, along with other factors pertaining to patterns of ethnic social organization and differential historical economic and political opportunities, for the relative success of ethnic Chinese in the non-agricultural sectors of the Thai economy.
Death and Transfiguration: Liu Shaoqi's Rehabilitation and Contemporary Chinese Politics
Authors: Dittmer Lowell
Published: April 2006

Liu Shaoqi, the highest-ranking Chinese Communist leader to fall victim to China's Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was posthumously rehabilitated in spring 1980. His rehabilitation was accompanied by the publication of new materials on his life and career, enabling us to fill in various lacunae and to attempt a more comprehensive assessment of his political import. If the vindication is successful among China's still somewhat skeptical masses, Liu may come to serve as a popular symbol of the folly of spontaneous mass participation in politics and the essential continuity of China's Marxist-Leninist tradition from the 1950s to the 1980s. To China's officialdom, Liu will represent the ultimate integrity of the Party apparatus, an avatar of the self-cultivated rectitude of the “clean official.”
Tombs and Dark Houses: Ideology, Intellectuals, and Proletarians in the Study of Contemporary Indian Islam
Authors: Mayer Peter B.
Published: April 2006

Each upsurge of Hindu-Muslim tension in India brings in its wake scholarly and journalistic articles that highlight the frustrations of Indian Muslims and that raise serious questions about their commitment to India's secular democracy. The philosophical and empirical bases of these accounts are challenged by findings that suggest that region, poverty, illiteracy, and the working-class position of Indian Muslims are more significant in shaping their political outlook than religion. In contrast with the “orientalist” orthodoxy, this study finds the views of Indian Muslims to be diverse, complex, and well-integrated into the political perspectives of the linguistic regions in which they reside.
Misunderstanding the Chinese Economy—A Review Article
Authors: Jones Susan Mann
Published: April 2006

Four recent studies of the modern Chinese economy show how the disciplines of economics and history have produced different judgments about the economic changes of the late nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. These differences are overridden, however, by shared disciplinary concerns with problems of inequality and the growth of the modern state. Economists have demonstrated statistically that regional variations (particularly urban-rural differences), coupled with the size of the Chinese polity, continue to pose many of the same administrative problems for the modern state that they posed during the late empire and in turn have produced some similar strategies for ruling. These enduring problems are located squarely in the order of production in China's agrarian peasant communities and in the logistical problems of distributing what is produced there through an integrated political and economic system.
Organized Dependency and Cultures of Authority in Chinese Industry
Authors: Walder Andrew G.
Published: April 2006

In this article the author examines what he terms an “institutional culture of authority” that has come to characterize postrevolution Chinese industrial enterprises. This institutional culture is shaped by a pattern of organized dependency that is inherent in the economic relationship of employees to enterprises, and also in systems of reward and control that link the opportunities of employees to their behavior and attitudes. This institutional culture is manifested in widespread ritualism in political meetings, low exercise of voice by subordinates, the creation of patron-client networks linking the Party to selected employees, and the everyday cultivation of personal connections for individual gain.
Hermeneutics versus History
Authors: Kopf David
Published: April 2006

Much of the personal investment in this study derives from my awareness of being an “Oriental” as a child growing up in two British colonies. All of my education, in these colonies (Palestine and Egypt) and in the United States, has been Western, and yet that deep early awareness has persisted. In many ways my study of Orientalism has been an attempt to inventory the traces upon me, the Oriental subject, of the culture whose domination has been so powerful a factor in the life of all Orientals.
A General Review of the Study of the Revolution of 1911 in the People's Republic of China
Authors: Kaiyuan Zhang
Published: April 2006

Before Liberation, the history of the revolution of 1911 fell within the domain of Kuomintang party history. Although numerous publications appeared, some of which possessed historical value, generally speaking an orthodox point of view occupied the dominant position. Many published works were filled with prejudice and distortion and should not be regarded as genuine historical research.

Since the new China was established, research on the revolution of 1911 has gradually become a branch of modern Chinese history, which takes historical materialism as its leading principle.
Introduction
Authors: Keyes Charles F.
Published: April 2006

This introduction considers the issues raised in the debate, recently joined in the works of James Scott and Samuel Popkin and explored in the papers in this symposium, regarding the relative salience of moral and rational economic approaches to the study of the adaptation of peasantries to worlds transformed by their incorporation into modern states and into a global economy. The author offers a refiguration of theoretical assumptions, arguing that, in order to understand the variations in modes of adaptation that have been described in the symposium, it is necessary to assume that the constraints on the worlds of peasants generated by political-economic changes are made meaningful for social action not only in terms of instrumental rationality, but also with reference to culturally distinctive moral premises.
Renu's Regionalism: Language and Form
Authors: Hansen Kathryn
Published: April 2006

The modern Hindi writer Phanishwarnath Renu developed a distinctive “regional” style in his fiction, which Hindi critics have defined in terms of his focus on the way of life of a particular area, the Purnea region of northeastern Bihar. However, Renu's regionalism cannot be separated from his innovations in the language and form of fiction. He employed a variety of dialects and deviated from conventional spelling and grammar, to draw the reader into the rural universe of sound. He included indigenous genres, such as the folk song, folktale, and rural drama, within the frame of the modern novel, thereby creating a new structure for the regional novel.
World View and Peasant Rebellion: Reflections on Post-Mao Historiography
Authors: Liu Kwang-Ching
Published: April 2006

This article is based on academic journals published in the People's Republic of China (PRC) from 1978 to early 1980 and analyzes the trend in post-Mao historiography regarding peasant rebellions. Previous belief in the revolutionary nature of peasant rebellions is being reversed, and their “anti-feudal” character being questioned. The question now is whether peasant rebellions, or even class struggle itself, constitute an important motive force for progress in Chinese history. Conflicting views persist, but overall a more negative view of peasant behavior has led many PRC writers to view the small producers' “patriarchy,” which fosters hierarchy and particularism, as a source of current bureaucratic problems.
Tibet as a Stateless Society and Some Islamic Parallels
Authors: Samuel Geoffrey
Published: April 2006

Tibet is the most numerically significant society practicing Vajrayana (Tantric) Buddhism. The unusual features of religion in Tibetan society are often understood in terms of differences between Vajrayana and other forms of Buddhism. The author suggests here that Tibet is not a “typical” Vajrayana society compared to the Newars or the Balinese, and that what is special about religion in Tibet is related to structural differences between Tibetan society and Buddhist states elsewhere in Asia. Tibet historically has been a region where a centralized state was barely achievable, and Tibetan political structures have more in common with stateless societies than with states. Buddhism in Tibetan society has analogies with Islam in structurally similar Islamic societies.
Minerva and the Crane (Tsuru): Birds of a Feather? Comparative Research and Japanese Political Change—A Review Article
Authors: Benjamin Roger
Published: April 2006

Recent work on Japanese politics, as presented in five representative works reviewed here is based increasingly on comparative (cross-national) frameworks of analysis. The studies allow us to consider once again the relationship between area-based (contextual) and comparative-based knowledge. This essay argues that we are further ahead in our understanding of Japanese politics if we move toward strategies of theory construction that place Japanese and comparative research in explicit juxtaposition. Arguments both for and against area-based and comparative-based explanations form the foundations of the conclusions developed.
Post mortes on the Wars in Indo-China—A Review Article
Authors: Chandler David P.
Published: April 2006

A major shortcoming in much Western writing about recent events in Indo-China is that the inhabitants of the region are seen as objects of policy rather than as subjects of history. Focusing in this, way leaves out much of the picture and demeans the inhabitants of Indo-China who are largely responsible, after all, for defeating France and the United States. A number of the books reviewed here take a sympathetic insider's view of U.S. intervention in the region and try to approach the war objectively but still have an American focus. One book is a systematic attack on U.S. behavior in Cambodia since 1970. Finally a recently published collection of documents will be indispensable to students of the war, partly because it pays close attention to Vietnamese as well as American decisions.
The Politics of Sufism: Redefining the Saints of Pakistan
Authors: Ewing Katherine
Published: April 2006

In Pakistan Muslim shrines have traditionally been maintained by hereditary saints (pirs), who often command a large following. Leaders of Pakistan have felt that the organization of the shrines has been incompatible with their political and religious goals. This article examines how the governments of Ayub Khan and his successors not only have established an administrative policy aimed at direct control of the shrines and a diminution of the power of the hereditary saints; they have also attempted to present a coherent ideology concerning the significance of the saints, which, though drawing on the Sufi tradition, diverges sharply from many popular beliefs. Despite a basic continuity of policy toward the shrines, however, each administration has also had its own central symbols and has drawn on Islam in different ways. These differences are reflected in the changing significance of the saints from one administration to the next.
Soviet Indologists and the Institute of Oriental Studies: Works on Contemporary India in the Soviet Union
Authors: Sahai-Achuthan Nisha
Published: April 2006

In this article the author studies the main trends in the evolution of modern Soviet Indology in the context of developments in Soviet Oriental studies and examines the extent to which both these were conditioned in turn by shifts in Soviet ideology. The development of Soviet Indology is further examined within the context of the organizational growth of the Institute of Oriental Studies (IVAN) and the evolving expertise of Soviet Indologists on contemporary India (along with a study of patterns in the academic training of these scholars). The author thus investigates both the intellectual and organizational bases contributing to the growth of Soviet Indology in an integrated and interconnected manner.
Research on the Economy of the People's Republic of China: A Survey of the Field
Authors: Perkins Dwight H.
Published: April 2006

For nearly two decades, study of the Chinese economy involved constructing pictures of broad macro trends from extremely limited data painstakingly obtained. Given the quantity and quality of data available, a majority of analysts came surprisingly close to the mark in explaining what happened. A few economists attempted to deny that any economic progress had occurred, while there were others who painted a picture approaching Utopia, but these were always in the minority. When China began to open up in the late 1970s and data were once again systematically published, there were some surprises, but much of that written before the opening remained valid. If economists did a reasonably good job of explaining what happened, however, they did much less well explaining why.
Sino-Japanese Business in China: The Luda Company, 1921–1937
Authors: Wright Tim
Published: April 2006

The weakening of Japan's position in China following the Washington Conference led to the establishment of the Sino-Japanese Luda Company to run the Zichuan coal mines, operated by the Japanese army since 1915. The inability of the Chinese promoters to raise sufficient funds for the company, however, allowed the Japanese investors the major say in company policy. As a Sino-foreign company, Luda enjoyed special privileges which were zealously upheld by the Japanese consuls. Though these practices eroded Chinese sovereignty, they did not make the company a financial success. This failure resulted partly from the Japanese investors' greater concern with their country's long-term fuel supply than with Luda's short-term profits; but this paper also stresses both the ways in which the Chinese, in their attempts to reassert China's sovereignty, harrassed and restricted privileged foreign companies, and the overriding importance of locational and geological factors in determining a mining company's success.
“Plus ça Change …”
Authors: Miller Roy Andrew
Published: April 2006

Katō Shūichi's new history of Japanese literature will be completed with the publication of its second volume, promised by the publisher for 1980, and advertised as “tak[ing] the story from the end of the Muromachi period … to the present day”). Whatever critical response ultimately greets the project, no one is likely to complain that the author tried to keep us in the dark about the theoretical assumptions, much less the analytical approach, that he means to bring to bear upon his subject. Indeed, the entire long introduction (pp. 1–26) with which the first volume of Katō's history begins is an exposition of the author's working hypotheses, under five main subheadings. We are told that “[b]y tracing these factors and seeing how they interrelate, a clear picture of the structure of Japanese literature emerges and it becomes possible to present an orderly account of the history of that literature …” (p. 1). After giving this remarkably clear statement of his analytic work-plan, the author at once plunges into his main task, in chapters on “The Age of the Manyōshū,” “The Age of the Genji monogatari and the Konjaku monogatari,” and “The Age of Nō and Kyōgen.”
The Origins of Rice Agriculture in Korea—A Symposium: Introduction
Authors: Nelson Sarah M.
Published: April 2006

Recent developments in Korean archaeology, especially the discovery of well-preserved rice grains in clear archaeological contexts, have caused a reassessment of the timing, distribution, causes, and effects of the beginning of rice agriculture in Korea. Kim puts the rice discoveries in historical perspective, discusses details of the recent evidence, and explores possible diffusion routes based on the new data. Choe focuses on semi-lunar knives—the agricultural tools believed to be associated with rice cultivation. The typology of the knives and the distribution and chronology of the types are used to propose a diffusion route directly into Korea from North China. Nelson examines the cultural changes from the preceding Chŭlmun period when rice grains and semi-lunar knives are found. Mechanisms to explain the change are proposed as hypotheses. Comments on the papers disclose an agreement on the likelihood of a northern diffusion route, but no consensus on the cultural processes.
Discoveries of Rice in Prehistoric Sites in Korea
Authors: Kim Won-yong
Published: April 2006

Korea is a small peninsula with an area of 220,839 square kilometers. It is a mountainous land, with only one-fifth of the area available for cultivation. The peninsula belongs to the temperate zone, but the north is colder and more arid while the south is humid and hot in the summer, like the monsoon zone of southeast Asia and Japan. The south has a yearly rainfall of 800 to 1,000 millimeters, and 60 percent of the precipitation occurs in the summer months from June to early September.
Languages of the Chinese of Java—An Historical Review
Authors: Rafferty Ellen
Published: April 2006

The linguistic history of the Chinese of Java sketched here focuses on two periods of creative linguistic effort by the Chinese in the development of varieties of Malay/Indonesian. The first period is from 1880–1910, when the Peranakan Chinese—together with Dutch and Eurasians who were writing in Malay at the time—developed a literary language from Low Malay that was primarily an oral language with many regional and social variants. Soon after this period, the Dutch (and many Eurasians and some Chinese) abandoned Malay as a literary language in preference for Dutch. Only later, in the 1920s and 1930s, did Indonesian nationalists become interested in developing Malay as the national language. The second period of creative linguistic activity among the Peranakan Chinese is the period that followed Indonesian independence in 1945, which is characterized by the departure of the Dutch, the almost complete disappearance of the Dutch and Low Malay languages on Java, and the increased prominence of Javanese as the language of power and politics. During this period Peranakan of the Javanesespeaking areas of Java developed a Javanese-based mixed language (Indonesianized-Javanese) as their home language. The switch from a Malay-based to a Javanese-based language was not a radical change because the Peranakan community had been bilingual for many centuries, but it points out new social uses of languages already in their linguistic repertoire. This last period of linguistic creativity is significant because it is a break in the pattern of acceptance of another's language by the Chinese of Java, and it demonstrates their desire to create a distinctive dialect, a phenomenon reflecting the social reality of an unassimilated minority that has lived in the midst of the Javanese majority for centuries.
Development Lessons from the Korean Experience—A Review Article
Authors: Steinberg David I.
Published: April 2006

The Harvard University–Korea Development Institute eight-volume study of Korean economic development from 1945 to 1975 represents what is probably the single most comprehensive attempt to document economic change in a developing society. Although the volumes concentrate on economics, important omissions are evident, most of them because of the dearth of contributions from noneconomic social scientists and the orientations of the sponsoring institutions. Donors may be strongly tempted to view Korea as a development model, but a variety of internal and external factors make this approach inappropriate.
The Pasts of aPāḷaiyakārar: The Ethnohistory of a South Indian Little King
Authors: Dirks Nicholas B.
Published: April 2006

This article examines a text containing the late eighteenth-century family history of a line of South Indian “little kings,” orpāḷaiyakārars. The text provides the basis for a discussion of the Maṟavar caste of the Tirunelvēli region in southern Tamil Nāṭu and the notions held by this and other related groups concerning royal appropriateness and sovereign authority, political and social relations, and kingly privileges and gifts. Further, the text is seen as a cultural form of “history” that has an integrity of its own. Indeed, a structural analysis of the text reveals that the text can not be separated into “fanciful” and “historical” sections, and that underlying assumptions about the past are revealed by the form as well as the content of the text. The results of this analysis are seen to have significance not only for understanding how the past is viewed from within, but also for how it must be analyzed from outside the cultural context. Thus, ethnohistory is asserted to be not simply one agenda for “history” but a way of setting the actual agendaof“history.”
Old State, New Society: Indonesia's New Order in Comparative Historical Perspective
Authors: Anderson Benedict R. O'G.
Published: April 2006

The author of this article argues that the paradox of postcolonial states pursuing internal and external policies remarkably similar to those of their colonial predecessors, despite the passage from colonialism to independence, is best resolved by focusing on the distinct, long-standing, institutional interests of the state-qua-state. It is these interests that make explicable the key policies of Suharto's New Order toward economic development, the Chinese minority, participatory organizations, and internal and external security. The author analyzes the nature and growth of the Dutch colonial state, its decline and near-collapse between 1942 (Japanese invasion) and 1965 (downfall of Sukarno's Guided Democracy), and its revival under ex-colonial sergeant Suharto.
Staying On: Japanese Soldiers and Civilians in China, 1945–1949
Authors: Gillin Donald G. , Etter Charles
Published: April 2006

The authors examine the actions and motivations of the Japanese who remained in China following Japan's surrender in August 1945. A large part of the Japanese Army in China became involved in the civil war there, and it appears that both sides, but especially the Nationalists, benefited from Japanese assistance. Although frequently the victims of circumstance, the Japanese also deliberately intervened in the fighting in the hope of continuing to influence the course of events in China. Such involvement may have significantly affected Japan's subsequent relationship with both the People's Republic of China and the Chinese Nationalists on Taiwan.
Embodied Sumange' in Luwu
Authors: Errington Shelly
Published: April 2006

A creative, potent, formless energy is assumed to animate the universe in parts of island Southeast Asia. In Luwu, a former kingdom of South Sulawesi (Celebes), Indonesia, this energy is called sumange'. This paper describes how sumange' is treated within the human body, which it is said to animate, and the logic of ritual substance that it implies. Because it can be lost through shock and routine depletion, humans make efforts to care for it, retain it, and increase it. Because it is potent, concentrations of it in people and places are dangerous. Its differential distribution orders the social and natural universe.
Narratives of Peasant Uprisings in Japan
Authors: Walthall Anne
Published: April 2006

Some records of social protest written during the Tokugawa period contain more fiction than fact. Their form owes much to the structure of folktales, and their content relies heavily on the military tales of the twelfth to thirteenth centuries. Although they do not describe what peasants actually did, narratives of uprisings say a great deal about how their listeners and readers viewed themselves and their society. In them peasants became heroes—the subjects of action in a system that had defined them as the passive objects of authority. As a paradigm for behavior at times of crisis, however, the narratives came into increasing conflict with the dictates of individual self-interest by the middle of the nineteenth century. The author draws on the theories of Victor Turner to explain the function of fictionalized history for its audience and then develops a historical model to correct the lacuna of the anthropological perspective.
The Golden Age of Chinese Poetry— A Review Article
Authors: Yu Anthony C.
Published: April 2006

Unquestionably the most comprehensive single study of High T'ang poetry to have appeared in English, Stephen Owens' book surveys a crucial segment of Chinese literary history and attempts to define a period style. Copious notes and translations enhance the analysis of less well-known poets and major figures, including two lengthy chapters on Tu Fu and Li Po. The book contributes to both criticism and pedagogy.
The Hsiung-nu Imperial Confederacy: Organization and Foreign Policy
Authors: Barfield Thomas J.
Published: April 2006

Nomadic states in Inner Asia were generated by external relations with state societies. Because the Hsiung-nu state could not have supported itself by exploiting the relatively undifferentiated and extensive pastoral economy, the state hierarchy was financed by exploiting the resources available from outside of the steppe. The nomads on the steppe were organized into a powerful military force that was used to systematically exploit the Chinese economy. The Hsiung-nu raided the frontier directly and then used the disruptions they caused as a tool to extort trade and subsidies from the Han court, thus maintaining a monopoly on this flow of Han goods to the steppe, which gave it great economic power and stability. The imperial level of Hsiung-nu government was therefore primarily concerned with conducting foreign affairs, organizing military campaigns, and maintaining unity on the steppe, while it ceded power in domestic affairs to indigenous tribal leaders. This created an imperial confederacy that acted as an autocratically ruled state in its dealings with China but that remained federally structured internally. This form of organization proved remarkably stable and provided the model for later empires established by nomads on the steppe.
Afghanistan: The Great Game Revisited—A Review Article
Authors: Ahmed Akbar S.
Published: April 2006

The four books reviewed are different in discipline and approach and written for widely different audiences. They are, however, linked in their articulation as a contemporary response to the larger political situation in and around Afghanistan. Certain fundamental issues are raised that relate to the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, for instance, will the Russians continue their advance to the warm waters of the Indian Ocean (as suggested by the proponents of the Great Game thesis)? An understanding of the current situation in Afghanistan will provide clues to the possible future outcome of the Russian invasion. On that outcome depends the present balance of world power. If the Russians reach the warm waters of the Gulf, they are ideally poised to threaten South Asia and the Middle East. An understanding of the situation in Afghanistan is thus of primary importance.
Bondservants in the T'ai-hu Basin During the Late Ming: A Case of Mistaken Identities
Authors: McDermott Joseph P.
Published: April 2006

This paper attempts to redefine the nature and conditions of bondservants in the late Ming, particularly in the highly productive T'ai-hu basin. It proposes that the great economic and social differences among bondservants obliges us to treat bondservitude as a legal status, not as a class. It discusses the many causes of bondservitude and its highly varied conditions. Agricultural bondservants accounted for no more than one-fifth of the rural population and usually had to pay rent and perform specific manual duties for their master. Bondservant managers are seen to have acquired far more wealth and power than their legal status would suggest and, along with other “brazen servants,” participated in the bondservant uprisings in the T'ai-hu basin during the late Ming and early Ch'ing.
New Data on Land Ownership Patterns in Ming-Ch'ing China—A Research Note
Authors: Chao Kang
Published: April 2006

The author analyzes some of the empirical data contained in the local archives of farmland in three provinces from Ming-Ch'ing times: these data have heretofore not been used by scholars. The new data show the wide dispersion of land ownership, the absence of big landlords, the high degree of land fragmentation, the slow speed of land accumulation in land-owning families, the low turnover rate of land transactions, the substantial bargaining power of tenants, the high frequency of rental defaults by tenants, the remarkable stability of land value between 1500 and 1760, and the steadily rising trend of land value thereafter. All these findings appear to be inconsistent with the traditional views based on nonempirical historical materials. In view of the new evidence, the land problems in Chinese history will have to be reexamined.
A Sampling of Japanese Economic Issues—A Review Article
Authors: Hollerman Leon
Published: April 2006

Among the various issues surrounding Japan's economy, three types are prominent in recent literature: issues concerning the magnitude and measurement of Japan's economic growth; issues concerning Japan's economic structure, behavior, and performance; and issues concerning the nature of Japan's relations with the United States. In the second and third categories, many of the issues, directly or indirectly, have to do with the liberalization of the Japanese economy—in either its internal or external sectors. With regard to policy issues, adversary positions are typically adopted. However, they also emerge in discussions of nonpolicy issues, such as those regarding quantification and measurement. The disagreements among the experts provide a useful point of departure for further research and analysis.
Traditional Chinese Corporations: Beyond Kinship
Authors: Sangren P. Steven
Published: April 2006

Emphasis on descent and kinship in analysis of traditional Chinese corporations, a legacy of structural-functional theory, mistakes the analyst's theoretical categories for native culture. In this paper, the author attempts to sort out some of the resulting conceptual muddles, and he proposes a more rigorous analytical framework for discussing the range of organizational variation in traditional Chinese corporations. Analysis of ten representative cases from Ta-ch'i, Taiwan, reveals greater flexibility of corporate form and function than structural-functional theories would predict. Close attention to the cases also reveals the absence of any compelling reason to treat the “Chinese lineage” as analytically or culturally distinct from the entire range of Chinese formal associations (hui). To understand what is uniquely Chinese in Chinese corporations, past emphasis on differences in formal group-membership requirements must be complemented by attention to the cultural values and norms of operation that transcend such differences.
The Imperial Bureaucracy and Labor Policy in Postwar Japan
Authors: Garon Sheldon M.
Published: April 2006

Studies of twentieth-century Japanese politics have largely ignored the impressive continuities between the prewar and postwar periods. Most accounts of the Occupation emphasize external American initiatives while dealing with the established Japanese leadership in rather one-dimensional terms. This article focuses on a dynamic group of prewar Japanese bureaucrats who survived the Occupation purge to play a key role in the postwar government's controversial labor policies. As higher civil servants of the Home Ministry (and the Ministry of Welfare after 1938), they had been responsible for formulating a policy toward the interwar labor union movement that mixed social reform and control. The author describes the ways in which these “social bureaucrats” perpetuated themselves and their distinctive approach to social stability in the postwar era. Their influence continues not only in the postwar Ministry of Labor but, more surprisingly, within the highest ranks of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.
The Japanese Language in the Eyes of Postwar Japan—A Review Article
Authors: Chew John J.
Published: April 2006

Japan's Modern Myth is a scathing attack on those Japanese academics who shape current attitudes toward the Japanese language. They are portrayed as ignorant of linguistic science and as incapable of producing a sound comparison of Japanese with other languages. The book also attacks the Japanese media and the Japanese government for propagating the unscientific, racist theories of these academics. The belief that Japanese is too difficult for foreigners to master and its obverse, that Japanese must pay a heavy psychological price to master a foreign language, are only the most serious of the various notions attacked in Japan's Modern Myth.
The Political Uses of Crisis: The Bihar Famine of 1966–1967
Authors: Brass Paul R.
Published: April 2006

In the summer of 1966, Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh provinces in India experienced one of the worst and most widespread droughts and crop failures in the history of the region during the twentieth century. Massive local, national, and international relief efforts were provided to prevent death by starvation on an immense scale. Nevertheless, the seriousness of the situation was only gradually and reluctantly accepted by the agencies, institutions, and governments that were ultimately involved in the relief effort. In order to convey the seriousness of the situation to those in a position to help the people of Bihar, local, state, and national politicians adopted a rhetoric that involved defining the situation as a “crisis” of unprecedented proportions. The Bihar Famine of 1966–1967 illustrates the importance of rhetoric and political definitions in distinguishing crises from “normal” situations and in defining the quantity, timing, and recipients of relief.
The Other Side of the 1945 Vietnamese Revolution: The Empire of Viet-Nam (March–August 1945)
Authors: Chieu Vu Ngu
Published: April 2006

On March 9, 1945, the Japanese terminated French rule in Indochina and gave Viet-Nam its first “independent” government. As an accident of history, and although composed chiefly of technicians and professionals, the government of Tran Trong Kim unexpectedly carried out a partial revolution from above—characterized by the Vietnamization (Viet Nam hoa) of nearly all French-imposed institutions—and regained territorial unification for Viet-Nam, only to see the fruits reaped by Ho Chi Minh in August 1945. Kim's Empire of Viet-Nam was one side of the Vietnamese nationalist revolutionary coin; the reverse was Ho's Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam.
The Cult of Mount Atago and the Atago Confraternities
Authors: Bouchy Anne-Marie
Published: April 2006

Abstracts

Mount Atago lies northwest of the ancient capital of Kyoto. Because of its long history and the cult that has been associated with it from early times, the mountain provides a typical example of Japanese religion. Like all sacred mountains in Japan, a cult of ancestors was originally attached to Mount Atago. During successive centuries this cult served as a base for other cults: of fire, the tengu, the Bodhisattva Jizō, and Shōgun Jizō. It also served as the base for a large popular cult with branches all over the country, which still exists. The complex structure of the popular cult contains a harmonious blend of elements of archaic religion, Shinto, and Buddhism. From early times until the Meiji period, its organization was directed by a group of the mountain ascetics known as yamabushi, who lived on the mountain itself. A sad consequence of the Meiji Restoration was the dispersion and disappearance of this group as well as most of the documents concerning Mount Atago. In an effort to reconstruct the history of the cult, the writer has consulted the few documents that still remain, which are found among local chronicles and classical texts. The study also discusses the religious and social characteristics of the Atago confraternities (kō), which are found in towns and villages even today, and their position in relation to the general phenomenon of confraternities in Japan.
The South Anhui Incident
Authors: Benton Gregor
Published: April 2006

In January 1941 Guomindang forces crushed a New Fourth Army (NFA) column under Xiang Ying and Ye Ting, which had just missed a deadline to get north of the Yangzi River. The Guomindang and the Communist center in Yan'an both wanted Xiang in the north, each for its own reasons. However, Xiang put off leaving until the last moment for he was loath to give up his independent base in south Anhui. Xiang favored closer cooperation with the Guomindang than did Communists elsewhere in China. Ironically, Xiang's resistance to Yan'an's pressure to cross the river brought him into conflict with Chiang Kai-shek. Loyalist NFA units that did go north routed Guomindang armies there, and partly in retaliation, Chiang Kai-shek suppressed Xiang as a “mutineer.” Yan'an leaders called the Incident an act of fratricide, and afterward they radicalized their idea of the united front—always wider than one of mere collaboration with the Guomindang—still further. In Yan'an, Xiang was blamed for hesitating to expand northward and for entering a trap when he eventually did leave. However, Yan'an bore some responsibility, never acknowledged, for choosing Xiang's route to disaster.
Democracy and the Founding of Japanese Public Radio
Authors: Kasza Gregory J.
Published: April 2006

Party governments in Japan during the period from 1924 to 1932 joined a majority of the European democracies in imposing rigid state controls over the new medium of radio. Over the years many elected governments have restricted political expression over radio despite the strong logical connection between free elections and free speech, and this article examines the Japanese case in a comparative perspective. It analyzes the decision-making process that produced Nihon Hōsō Kyōkai (NHK), the public-interest radio monopoly, in Japan in 1926, as well as the exercise of state controls over broadcasting until the last prewar party cabinet fell in 1932. Various definitions of the public interest that are consistent with democratic values may nonetheless call for close state supervision of broadcasting. In Japan, the rationale for the control of radio resembled the rationales of many contemporary democracies. The Japanese experience suggests that, although broadcasting controls may not have contradicted democratic principles, the development of a strong democratic regime would have been better served by a liberal policy toward the new electronic medium.
Diverse Cultures and Recurrent Themes in Recent Melanesian Ethnography—A Review Article
Authors: Blythe Jennifer M.
Published: April 2006

Melanesia is an area of cultural and ecological variety that has attracted anthropologists with diverse theoretical interests. However, the diversity of the region is tempered by recurrent patterns that represent local elaborations of common cultural themes. Investigation of these themes by ethnographers gives an underlying unity to Melanesian studies. The recent publications reviewed here recapitulate the history of ethnography in Melanesia. Books written by two missionaries follow a tradition of amateur ethnography that began in Melanesia during the last century. Contributions by professional anthropologists discuss topics considered in the 1950s and 1960s when the New Guinea Highlands were first studied intensively. These include cultural ecology, problems of social structure, and gender relations. Several of the studies make use of or refer to theoretical frameworks common at that time, while others approach familiar subject matter from new perspectives.
Chinese Language, Chinese Philosophy, and “Truth”
Authors: Hansen Chad
Published: April 2006

Pre-Han philosophical tradition did not address issues for which the concept of truth was central. Classical Chinese philosophy had virtually no metaphysical theory. The theory of language was mainly pragmatic. The semantic doctrines that were developed focused on terms rather than sentences or sententials. The Chinese theory of knowledge was primarily a theory of know-how and was not based on contrast between knowledge and belief. Chinese philosophy of mind treated heart-mind as a cluster of dispositional attitudes to make distinctions and to act upon, not as a repository of cognitive content about the world. Discussions of inference and semantic paradoxes used explicitly pragmatic terms rather than semantic ones. These differences can be partially explained by features of classical Chinese language in which compositional sentencehood is not important or syntactically obvious, and in which the counterparts of propositional attitudes take terms rather than sentences as objects.
Criticizing and Evaluating the Visual Arts in India: Preliminary Example
Authors: Williams Joanna
Published: April 2006

By what standards should we judge works of art from another culture or era? We are generally used to the idea that understanding the meaning of an image requires consideration of its distinctive context—literary, religious, social, and so on. Evaluating the quality of a work of art is another specific case of this broad dilemma of understanding. Do we evaluate good and bad images by the “proper” criteria and in the way that is appropriate to them?
Science and Medicine in Imperial China—The State of the Field
Authors: Sivin Nathan
Published: April 2006

Sinology and the history of science have changed practically beyond recognition in the past half-century. Both have become academic specialisms, with their own departments, journals, and professional societies. Both have moved off in new directions, drawing on the tools and insights of several disciplines. Although some sinologists still honor no ambition beyond explicating primary texts, on many of the field's frontiers philology is no more than a tool. Similarly, many technical historians now explore issues for which anthropology or systems analysis is as indispensable as traditional historiography.
A Coincidence of Metaphors: Notes on Two Modes of Text Building in the Indonesian Novel “Surabaya”
Authors: Dreyfuss Jeff
Published: April 2006

This article suggests that two distinct modes of text-building constraints co-incide in the Indonesian novel “Surabaya.” The first set of constraints consists of narrative functions that shape sentence-level grammar within the story; the second level of text-building constraints shapes the thematic structure of the story. The author argues that, unlike its narrative structure, which is bound by the linearity of time, the thematic structure, of “Surabaya” is denned by a hierarchy of “heavier” and “lighter” themes, the “heavier” themes being evoked more often than are the “lighter” themes. He suggests that heaviness of theme is a strategy of text building found in classical Malaysian (Hikayat) texts, gamelan orchestra musical organization, and in calendric reckoning in much of Indonesia. He argues, in sum, for a method of writing that encourages grammatical description from two or more perspectives. “Binocular vision,” to use Gregory Bateson's words, is necessary in writing to provide a more honest, richer description of a text than a single mode of grammatical description can provide; it makes available to readers more than one means of access to the text.