bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
British Financial Advisers in Siam in the Reign of King Chulalongkorn
Authors: Brown Ian
Published: November 2008

Beginning in the late 1880s King Chulalongkorn of Siam embarked on a radical reform of the structure of his administration. The existing organization of ministries, which had had its origin in the mid-fifteenth century, was abolished and replaced by a western-style governmental structure in which each ministry had clearly-defined functional responsibilities. In addition an attempt was made to introduce western administrative, accounting, audit and correspondence procedures into the operations of the Siamese bureaucracy. At the same time the Government undertook a number of major public works projects, most notably the construction of railways linking Bangkok with the most distant provinces of the Kingdom. The essential objective of these reforms was to ensure a more effective and efficient administration of the whole Kingdom by the authorities in Bangkok. In turn this was regarded as essential if Siam were to maintain her political independence in a period when all her neighbours had fallen under European colonial rule.
Peasant Politics in Cambodia: The 1916 Affair
Authors: Osborne Milton
Published: November 2008

When, more than ten years ago, Professor Harry Benda urged Southeast Asian historians to consider the significance of peasant movements, he wrote with singular perspicacity. The attention that had been paid to the peasantry as a political force in the literature published up to the middle 1960s was limited. Nevertheless, on the basis of his own research into the Samin movement in Java and a shrewd estimation that much available evidence had been neglected, he argued for both the possibility and the worth of studying peasant movements throughout colonial Southeast Asia. Like many other students, I was struck by the force of Harry Benda's arguments, and the following essay owes much to his scholarly inspiration.
The Evolution of Urban Government in Southeast Asian Cities: Kuching under the Brookes
Authors: Lockard Craig A.
Published: November 2008

Despite the important role played by urban settlements in Southeast Asia, the city in general and urban society in particular have received little attention from historians. The study of town government is a particularly neglected field, especially for the period of colonialism. Although a considerable literature devoted to the political organization and institutional development of colonial rule exists, information on the situation in urban centers remains surprisingly meager. The lacuna is more marked for the indigenous peoples than for Chinese. Nonetheless enough pertinent data do exist to suggest that some form of indirect rule was widely paracticed as a mechanism for urban administration. Since most towns and cities in colonial Southeast Asia were characterized by some degree of social and cultural pluralism, indirect rule had the effect of segregating the various ethnic groups and further segmenting urban society along ethnic lines. This essay analyzes the development of urban government during the colonial period through case study of Kuching under the Brooke Raj (1841–1941). It then attempts to define some general patterns through a brief comparative analysis of several other cities in the region.
Islam and State-Building in a Tribal Society Afghanistan: 1880—1901
Authors: Ghani Ashraf
Published: November 2008

The foundation of a State in Afghanistan by the Pashtun tribesmen in 1747 posed the question of a religious policy. The issue was not that of proselytism. Most of the Afghans did adhere to one or another form of Islam and the followers of other creeds did not even constitute one percent of the population. But the Islam adhered to by the tribesmen did not have Shari'a (Islamic Law) as its judicial basis and no religious tradition enforced allegiance to monarchs.
Another ‘Yellow Peril’: Chinese Migrants in the Russian Far East and the Russian Reaction before 1917
Authors: Siegelbaum Lewis H.
Published: November 2008

The description provided by John Foster Fraser, a British journalist wandering through Siberia and Manchuria in the autumn of 1901, is of Khabarovsk, a town of some fifteen thousand people. Such scenes were not peculiar to Khabarovsk at the turn of the century, but could be witnessed in other towns throughout the Russian Far East such as Chita, Blagoveshchensk, Nikol'sk-Ussuriiskii, and Vladivostok. Who were these ‘weak, withered-faced’ Chinese that one was likely to encounter? What were they doing within the boundaries of the Russian Empire? What were the attitudes of the Russian population towards the Chinese and what policies did the provincial and central authorities adopt with respect to them?
Ethnic Politics in Eighteenth-Century Burma
Authors: Lieberman Victor B.
Published: November 2008

We commonly find in the literature on pre-colonial mainland Southeast Asia a tendency to treat the principal ethnic groups—Burmese, Mons, Siamese, Cambodians, Vietnamese—as discrete political categories. This tendency is particularly marked in the historiography of the Irrawaddy valley, where the recurrent north—south conflicts of the eleventh to the eighteenth centuries have usually been interpreted as ‘national’ or ‘racial’ struggles between the Burmese people of the north and the Mon, or Talaing, people of the south. In writing of the last major ‘Mon—Burmese’ war, that of 1740—57, historians have characterized the 1740 uprising at the southern city of Pegu as an expression of ‘Mon nationalism’. The ensuing conflict reportedly became a struggle between Mons and Burmese each ‘fighting for the existence of their race’; and Alaùng-hpayà, said to be a champion of ‘Burmese nationalism’, allegedly made vigorous efforts to destroy the Mon culture and people once he had triumphed.
Academic Factionalism in Japan
Authors: Marshall Byron K.
Published: November 2008

In the conventional rhetoric of Japanese social criticism, factionalism is an endemic condition caused by the lingering heritage of feudalism. Much the same kind of charges familiar in the political arena are common to discussions regarding cliques within the Japanese academic world, although there is almost no detailed research directly on the latter subject in Western languages. The following attempts to explicate one outstanding prewar example of factional strife in Japan's most prestigious university, the case of the Department of Economics at Tokyo Imperial University. It has been chosen for three reasons: (1) the Economics faculty were among the most deeply involved intellectuals in the dramatic prewar struggles over academic freedom; (2) the charge of factionalism has been raised explicitly and repeatedly by participants as well as others; and (3) the issues over which the struggle raged as well as many of the personalities have continued to be of significance in Japanese politics and within the universities down to the present. Because of its significance, there is available far more information than is common on such intramural factionalism.
Land Reform and Agrarian Change in Sri Lanka
Authors: Peiris G. H.
Published: November 2008

In 1972 a land reform programme based on the objectives of maximizing agricultural production and employment and reducing inequalities in wealth and income was initiated in Sri Lanka. It commenced with the enactment of the Land Reform Law, No. 1 of 1972 which imposed ceilings on private ownership of land and provided for the setting up of a Land Reform Commission (hereafter, LRC) vested with powers to acquire privately held land in excess of the ceilings. Three years later, the scope of the reform was extended through the Land Reform (Amendment) Law, No. 39 of 1975 under the provisions of which land held by public companies was nationalized. Both these laws provided for the payment of compensation to dispossessed owners.
Congress-Muslim League Relations 1937–39
Authors: Pandey Deepak
Published: November 2008

With the passing of the Government of India Act of 1935, the history of Indian nationalism underwent a subtle change. Though not noticeable immediately after the introduction of the Act, the provincial elections, held under its provisions in 1937, and the results thereof, made this change more apparent and clear. The Indian National Congress secured a sweeping victory in five provinces and was in a position to form coalition ministries in two other provinces—a victory which revealed the efficiency and capability of the party so far as the election machine was concerned. It proved its claim of being a ‘National Party’. The Muslim-League, on the other hand, did not fare well at all, especially in the Muslim majority provinces of the Punjab and Bengal. Although it did better in the non-Muslim provinces, yet that was not enough to enable the League to boast of being the sole representative organization of the Muslims. The success of provincial parties like the Krishak Lok Party in Bengal and the Unionist Party in the Punjab showed that the Muslim electorates still thought in terms of ‘provincial’ or ‘local’ considerations, and were not moved so much by all-India issues. What was true of the League was also true of the Congress so far as the Muslims were concerned. The latter, too, was not able to capture Muslim seats in numbers adequate enough to demonstrate its popularity amongst Muslims.
Forts and Social Control in the Maratha State
Authors: Gordon Stewart
Published: November 2008

Even without this wonderful sixteenth-century hyperbole, forts remain an impressive feature of India's landscape. A thoughtful traveller, seeing the jagged walls high above the road, might well wonder who built them, and when, and what events took place within the gates. Scholarly writing on the subject will disappoint him. Toy, in his seminal book, noted that ‘this writer has been struck with the dearth of reliable litetature on the forts of India.’
Trade and Political Dominion in South India, 1750–1790: Changing British—Indian Relationships
Authors: Arasaratnam S.
Published: November 2008

The English East India Company's Coromandel trade provided a spectacle of steady, if unspectacular, growth from its first inauguration early in the seventeenth century. It was not subject to the violent ups and downs, or the extremes of great success and utter failure that characterized the Company's trade in some other regions of India and Southeast Asia. An expanding trade on this coast was matched by an expanding presence. By the end of the century it was well-founded in two substantial Forts (St George and St David) and a number of residencies in important ports of outlet from Vizagapatnam in the north to Cuddalore in the south. By investment and enterprise, by diplomacy and force, English interests and influence on the coast grew and their settlements became nodal points of Indo-British exchange and interaction. The timely demonstration of controlled power, both when faced with threats from the ‘country’ powers of the hinterland and from European rivals on the seafront, helped in the growth of these settlements beyond mere centres of trade. Providing, as they did, not merely trade and investment, but also security of person and property, they were naturally an attraction to many groups in Indian society in the hinterland.
An Alternative to Kuomintang—Communist Collaboration: Sun Yat-sen and Hong Kong, January–June 1923
Authors: Chan F. Gilbert
Published: November 2008

Sun Yat-sen arrived in Shanghai in August 1922 after suffering a humiliating defeat at the hands of his former ally, Ch'en Chiung-ming. In the next five months, he negotiated with Russian and Chinese Communists for their collaboration with the Kuomintang. His effort was fruitful, On January 26, 1923, he issued a joint manifesto with the Soviet emissary, Adolf Joffe, who assured the Chinese revolutionary leader—in the name of the ‘Russian people’—of their ‘warmest sympathy for China’ and their ‘willingness to lend support.’.
Entrepreneurs, Politicians and the Chinese Coal Industry, 1895—1937
Authors: Wright T.
Published: November 2008

The emergence of new groups in society willing and able to supply capital and enterprise to modern industry is one of the crucial aspects of economic development. The sources of entrepreneurship in China and the relations of those entrepreneurs with the rest of society have been insufficiently studied. Previous writers have tended to focus on outstanding individuals such as Sheng Hsuan-huai and Chang Chien, and to pay insufficient attention to their more run-of-the-mill followers. This paper surveys the changing sources of entrepreneurship in the Chinese coal industry between 1895 and 1937 and suggests reasons for the prominence or otherwise of the various groups involved. The concept of entrepreneurship used here is one much wider than the classic Schumpeterian definition, and includes the followers and adaptors who, as Redlich points out, also make a vital contribution to industrialization. Thus we take into our view all those who made a contribution to the development of modern coal mining enterprises as entrepreneurs, as managers or as stockholders—in many cases these functions overlapped. The companies covered are those owned either wholly or partly by Chinese nationals. Such companies accounted for 50–60 per cent of China's coal output of about 30 million tons in the 1930s.
Rice Cultivation in Thailand: The Development of an Export Economy by Indigenous Capital and Labor
Authors: Johnston David B.
Published: November 2008

In the middle of the nineteenth century, the three Southeast Asian societies of Thailand, Burma, and Vietnam were confronted rather suddenly with a large and growing foreign demand for their principal product, rice. Without detailing the development of this demand, we may note that during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, European countries had begun not only to consume large amounts of rice as a cheap dietary staple, but also to make use of it in the brewing industry, as a supplement to wheat in flour products, as a starch for sizing textiles, and as feed for livestock. At the start of the nineteenth century, new milling and processing techniques enabled European consumers to look abroad for their rice needs, and the Indian provinces of Bengal and Madras and portions of the southern United States became major sources of supply. Towards the middle of the century, the Indian Mutiny and the American Civil War disrupted these sources at a time when improvements in transportation were making it possible for European importers to purchase their rice in even more distant areas, primarily Southeast Asia.
Land, Labor, Capital and Sectional Interests in the National Politics of Sri Lanka
Authors: Samaraweera Vijaya
Published: November 2008

The economy which evolved during the last phase of Sri Lanka's colonial rule under the British (1796–1948) has been the subject of increasing scholarly attention in the recent years. Much of the writing which has emerged is descriptive by nature; the concern has been to lay bare the manner in which the economy took its shape and not to provide an analytical framework to explain the developments of the colonial era. This is not to say that conceptualizing has been wholly absent. Indeed, one particular conceptual treatment of the economy of British Sri Lanka has produced an interpretation which has gained wide currency and it has now acquired considerable influence over the economic literature concerned with the country.
The Political Strategy of Aurobindo Ghosh: The Utilization of Hindu Religious Symbolism and the Problem of Political Mobilization in Bengal
Authors: Southard Barbara
Published: November 2008

The nationalist rhetoric of Aurobindo Ghosh and other leaders of the political movement protesting the decision of the Government of British India to partition Bengal province in 1905 contained frequent allusions to Hindu myths and symbols. Militant political leaders primarily drew uponŚaktasymbolism, especially the imagery of the Hindu cult of Kālī worship, and they adopted philosophical justifications of nationalism which were based on modernist, Neo-Hindu interpretation of Śaṁkara'sVedāntaphilosophy. The nation was described as an incarnation of the goddess Kālī, and nationalists were considered her devotees.
Middlemen in the Politics of Rural Thailand: A Study of Articulation and Cleavage
Authors: Hall R. A.
Published: November 2008

The growth of modern nation states seems to have inevitably entailed the progressive encapsulation, incorporation and integration of local, relatively autonomous systems into a broader political and socioeconomic framework, generating in the process new pressures on local systems as they are forced to reformulate their relationship with the encompassing state. Even in the case of peasant societies where there is, by definition, a relationship between local community and an overarching political and economic structure, there has, historically, been a high degree of decentralization in many spheres, and a relatively low demand for the integration of the total society. The process of modernization, however, is generally accompanied by increasing central interference in subordinate systems, leading to new pressures, opportunities, interests and alignments.
A Christian Caste in Hindu Society: Religious Leadership and Social Conflict among the Paravas of Southern Tamilnadu
Authors: Kaufmann S. B.
Published: November 2008

Since the nineteenth century scholars have depicted Indian castes as timeless, fixed communities whose customs, rituals, and occupational specialities evolved at an unidentifiable point in the distant past. It has now been shown, however, that manyjatisare of relatively recent origin, and historians have been able to trace the economic, political, and religious changes which acted to form individual caste groups during the colonial period. Several recent works on south India have argued that the agglomerations of artisans and cultivators described as castes in British ethnographies and Census reports had no real cohesion and were often no more than unstable political alliances or ‘administrative fictions’. In this view it was the misconceived European notion of castes as rigid, competing corporations which stimulated the formation of many south Indian castes after 1880.
The Berlin–Tokyo Axis and Japanese Military Initiative
Authors: Boyd Carl
Published: November 2008

The initial alignment, by means of the Anti-Comintern Pact, of the Japanese government with the Third Reich in 1936 was made possible by the extraordinary activities of Ōshima Hiroshi, then military attaché to Berlin. Colonel Ōshima, whose diplomatic role far transcended his early rank and authority, moved from the rank of Colonel and position of attaché in 1934 to Lieutenant General and Ambassador by 1938. Ōshima, both daring and enterprising, had the full support of his military superiors and certain pro-Axis Japanese; thus his role in Germany proved crucial to the making of major changes in Japanese foreign policy. He both represented and expressed military and totalitarian tendencies in the Japanese army, government, and society, helping those tendencies to reach dominance in Japan by 1940.
The State and Economic Development in India 1890—1947: The Case of Oil
Authors: Jones G. G.
Published: November 2008

The role of the State in promoting Indian economic development in the nineteenth century is one of several aspects of modern Indian economic history which have been ‘re-interpreted’ in recent years. The conventional wisdom once portrayed the policy of the British government in India as one essentially geared to serving British economic interests. By means of ‘discriminatory interventionism’ in economic affairs, it was argued, the Government encouraged the development of a primary commodity export economy, with all its attendant defects, in India. However, over the last two decades the reputation of the Government of India has undergone a rather noticeable transformation. Economic imperialists became, first, benevolent nightwatchmen, and then ‘development-orientated’ officials formulating an embryonic unbalanced growth model for Indian development. Parallel with this improvement in the Government of India's reputation has been a deterioration in the economic reputations of certain other governments in nineteenth-century developing economies, governments whose performances used to be favourably compared with that of the British in India. In the cases of Japan and Tsarist Russia, for instance, both the extent and effectiveness of State intervention in the economy has been questioned, and there has been an increasing recognition of the primacy of non-governmental factors in the economic growth of those countries. Given the ideological and organizational parameters limiting the range of possible activity by any nineteenth century government in its economy, the performance of governments in other developing countries of the period, and the political constraints imposed by being a subordinate section of a world-wide Empire, it is no longer possible regard the actions of British officials in India as wicked, and many would now regard them as almost respectable.
Indian Famines and Peasant Victims: the Case of Bengal in 1943–44
Authors: Greenough Paul R.
Published: November 2008

What, in detail, do Indian peasants do when famine looms? How do they defend themselves, who succumbs and who survives? Recently several talented economic historians have given these questions a vigorous airing. Morris D. Morris in particular set off the discussion by suggesting that South Asian peasants are well prepared for periodic drought famines. He argues (I compress him almost to parody) that long experience with the monsoon's periodic failures has taught the Indian cultivator prudence: when crops begin to fail the cultivator draws upon previously stored substances—his wife's jewelry, grain, cattle, etc.—and sells them or barters them to keep up his usual level of food consumption. Thus, while his assets are cyclically depleted and replenished, he can usually stave off the most feared effect of drought, which is starvation. N. S. Jodha, however, has partially contradicted Morris by adducing evidence from Rajasthan and elsewhere which shows the peasant cultivator to be more likely to cut back his current food intake rather than risk a loss of future production by depleting his capital assets. Like Morris, Jodha sees that farmers are rational and plan for the future, the disagreement being whether they plan for crop failures in the midst of good harvests or plan for good harvests in the midst of crop failures In fact these two views, suitably softened, are not incompatible, and one can imagine both operating at different phases of a worsening episode of drought.
Mrs Gandhi's Emergency, The Indian Elections of 1977, Pluralism and Marxism: Problems with Paradigms
Authors: Blair Harry W.
Published: November 2008

Given the system of parliamentary democracy that India developed after its independence in 1947, it is understandable that pluralism came to be the major paradigm used to explain Indian politics. But just as the persistence of economic inequality was instrumental in calling pluralism into question as an appropriate model for explaining the American political system, so the continuation and even increase of inequality in India led social scientists to question the pluralist approach for India. And, as in the American case, a number of scholars turned to a Marxist class analysis to explain the Indian situation; by the mid-1970s a political economy model had begun to take shape that did offer a reason able explanation of the pervasive inequality in India. Also, Mrs Gandhi's Emergency of 1975–1977 fits very easily into this class analysis approach. But then came the elections of 1977 and the ouster of Mrs Gandhi at the polls, an event not explicable in terms of the Marxist model, but which fits very well into the pluralist framework. Which model, then, is more appropriate to employ in accounting for the Indian system ? The best answer seems to be to try to fit the pluralist approach within the Marxist one, with the latter carrying most of the explanatory load.
The Caleb Cushing Mission
Authors: Donahue William J.
Published: November 2008

American trade with China was ushered in by the voyage of the Empress of China to Canton in 1784. Within a few years commerce had become so profitable that the United States appointed Major Samuel Shaw to act as the American Consul in China. Very quickly the United States became the number two trader with China and the most serious rival to England. However, American ships were neither as large nor as numerous as those of the British East Indies Company and American merchants possessed neither the financial backing nor the prestige of their British counterpart. The United States was still a weak naval power and traders could not depend on any significant protection from the fleet. Furthermore, the Washington government was unable to exert any appreciable influence on Chinese authorities and they settled into a well-patterned position of following the British lead in the Far East.
Political Mobilization and the Underground Literature of the Quit India Movement, 1942–44
Authors: Greenough Paul R.
Published: November 2008

For nearly 100 years the Indian Congress organization has flourished in and through the press. Of the 72 representatives who gathered in Bombay at the first Congress meeting in 1885, more than a dozen were professional journalists. Not only did the early and subsequent nationalist leaders collect news for, editorialize in, or own outright, important vernacular and English-language newspapers—one thinks of, among others, Tilak's Kesari, Surendranath Banerjea's Bengalee, Motilal Nehru's Leader and Mahatma Gandhi's Young India and Harijan—but they readily submitted themselves to the curious, often naive probings of foreign correspondents from Europe and America. It was Gandhi who taught the Congress both how to spin its cotton and how, when it served a purpose, to wash its linen in public. Jawaharlal Nehru, when prime minister, brought to a high art the interview granted to the favored Indian or foreign correspondent.
Merchants and Society in Tokugawa Japan
Authors: Sheldon Charles D.
Published: November 2008

Merchants in the Tokugawa period were placed at the bottom of the shinōkōshōhierarchy of samurai-peasants-artisans-merchants. This social hierarchy was produced by a combination of social reality at the time Japan was unified in the late sixteenth century and an ancient Chinese physiocratic theory, never taken very seriously, in practical ways, in China. Once the country was unified, the social mobility of the previous years, of a kind which permitted men of ability to climb from the lowest ranks to join the military nobility—Hideyoshi is the prime example of this mobility—was viewed, by Hideyoshi above all others, as a cause of prolonged chaos and internecine warfare. With the argument that war had been abolished and common people therefore no longer needed weapons, Hideyoshi carried out his ‘sword-hunt’. He thus established the most fundamental of the class distinctions, between the samurai, the ruling class, who now enjoyed a monopoly of bearing arms, and the common people, who were henceforth expected simply to produce the food and other necessities of life, and to pay their taxes, which remained high even though warfare was supposedly ended.
State Formation Reconsidered
Authors: Perlin Frank
Published: November 2008

Thispaper is exclusively concerned with developing broader conceptions of state and state-formation in pre-colonial India, and thus with problems of synthesizing diverse elements separately discussed and researched in the literature. It seeks to argue that certain critical aspects of the development of state and society in the long term have been neglected with serious consequences for overall conceptions and expectations.
Transition from Indian to British Indian Systems of Money and Banking 1800–1850
Authors: Bagchi Amiya Kumar
Published: November 2008

In 1800, British India was emphatically a multi-region economy, with political and physical boundaries separating the different parts. The British were on the eve of bringing the whole of India (except Sind and the kingdom of Ranjit Singh in the North-West) under their political control. But political control did not at once bring a real unification of currency or banking that serviced long-distance or external trade, let alone the network of cash or credit transactions that kept the locally centred economic activities going.
Industrialization in India before 1947: Conventional Approaches and Alternative Perspectives
Authors: Chandavarkar Rajnarayan
Published: November 2008

Models of industrialization and social change, whether Marxist or functionalist, have been derived largely from the historical experience of Western Europe and, especially, of Britain. Social theories came to be constructed upon a specific reading of a particular, and in some respects, unique, historical development. These theories or models, now deepseated in our historiographical consciousness, increasingly offer yardsticks against which industrial development elsewhere in the world is measured. On closer examination, universal postulates thus derived have appeared to generate a large number of special cases. Vast expanses of the globe are seemingly littered with cases of arrested development or examples of frustrated bourgeois revolutions.
Race and Resistance in Burma, 1942–1945
Authors: Selth Andrew
Published: November 2008

The President of the United States of America and the Prime Minister, Mr Churchill, representing His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom … respect the right of all people to choose the form of government under which they will live, and they wish to see sovereign rights restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of them.
Pan-Islam and the Making of the Early Indian Muslim Socialists
Authors: Ansari K. H.
Published: November 2008

One of the paradoxes of the history of Islam in the twentieth century is that many of the first Muslim socialists were men who at earlier stages in their lives had been devout Muslims, often passionately involved in the fate of Islam throughout the world. In Russia, socialists emerged from various silsila of the Naqshbandi sufi order, most notably the Vaisites of Kazan who fought alongside workers and soldiers in 1917 and 1918. In Indonesia, many sufi shaikhs became Communist party activitsts in the midst of the Sarekat Islam's great pan-Islamic protest of the early 1920S.In India, Muslim socialists came from those who, concerned to defend Islam wherever it was threatened and in particular the institution of the Khilafat, had come to oppose their British masters. These champions of Islam sought help against the British from Muslims outside India; they supported Britain's enemies. A few actually left India in order to join other Muslims in their fight against the British. Their experiences in Afghanistan and Central Asia brought disillusionment. They discovered that others did not share their faith in the brotherhood of Islam; they began to consider other ideologies. Some were convinced by the Bolsheviks, who supported Muslim peoples and opposed the imperialism of the West, that socialism might offer the key to success in their struggle against the British. In the process they discovered similarities between Islamic and Bolshevik ideology, which eased their transition to socialism.
Keeping the Foochow Navy Yard Afloat: Government Finance and China's Early Modern Defence Industry, 1866–75
Authors: Pong David
Published: November 2008

The Foochow Navy Yard was founded in 1866 by Tso Tsung-t'ang with the assistance of two French naval officers. In their opinion, they had provided ample funding for the enterprise, which was to construct a modern naval dockyard and academy, to build sixteen gunboats, and to train the Chinese in all aspects of naval construction, marine engineering, navigation and command of the small squadron, all within a five-year period. By a liberal interpretation of the contract, Tso managed to commit the government to funding the project for a total of seven years, up to early 1874. Since the objectives were by and large attained by that date, one could say that the Navy Yard was a success.
Urban Mass Movement: The May Thirtieth Movement in Shanghai
Authors: Ku Hung-Ting
Published: November 2008

The May Thirtieth Incident which occurred in Shanghai during 1925 has been regarded by the Chinese as one of the most important events in modern Chinese history, and the incident has been called ‘Wu-san Ch'an-an’ (the May 30th Tragedy) ever since 1925. Yet only a few studies in the Western languages deal with such an important event. Among those few studies, two of them concentrate on the role of labor in the movement, and the other after collecting a lot of source materials decides to add a subtitle, ‘an outline’, to recognize the vastness and complexity of the subject without making much effort to analyze or discuss the movement.
The Seavoyage Controversy and the Kayasthas of North India, 1901—1909
Authors: Carroll Lucy
Published: November 2008

Seavoyage was a social reform issue of some concern to the Hindus of Upper India in the latter part of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century. Clearly there were compelling incentives for seavoyage; equally clearly there was a convention which prohibited such travel in the belief that it contravened the law laid down in ancient texts. But social conflict is seldom as one-dimensional as these statements imply.
Homo Hierarchicus, Homo Equalis
Authors: Béteille André
Published: November 2008

I should like to pay my tribute to the memory of Kingsley Martin by calling in question a part of the conventional wisdom of what passes for comparative sociology. I hope I shall not appear unduly contentious in doing so. I should not like to speak badly of comparative sociology. At the same time, it has to be admitted that a truly comparative sociology exists less in the work that scholars actually do than in the ideals they profess. The principal obstacle to its growth is, in my opinion, neither lack of wit nor lack of words: it is prejudice.
India's Military Intervention in East Pakistan, 1971–1972
Authors: Marwah Onkar
Published: November 2008

India's military intervention in East Pakistan was an instance of the clear use of force for the achievement of limited political and security objectives. Indian policymakers' responses to the events in Pakistan were spread over a specific period of time and their decisions can be viewed in a series of distinct phases. The totality of actions involved diplomatic maneuvering in global, regional, and subcontinental geopolitical contexts. There were, in Indian perceptions, easily identified internal and external dimensions to the situation within East Pakistan such as to create potential threats to the Indian state, its territoriality, self-images, and international status in real and symbolic terms. The eventual settlement indicated a flexibility for action and achievement not ordinarily attributed to Indian capability.
The Japanese Protestants in Korea, Part Two
Authors: Matsuo Takayoshi , Takiguchi S.
Published: November 2008

This essay is the sequal to ‘The Missionary Activity of the Japan Congregational Church in Korea’. In the first part, I showed that the Congregational Church's missionary activity which started in 1911 was actually supported by the Government-General of Korea, and also mentioned a number of conscientious Christians such as Uchimura Kanzō and Kashiwagi Gien who not only opposed the Church's missionary activity in Korea but even went so far as to criticize the Japanese imperialist rule of Korea itself.
Education and Assimilation in Taiwan under Japanese Rule, 1895—1945
Authors: Tsurumi E. Patricia
Published: November 2008

Education and assimilation were key components of Japanese colonial policy in Taiwan: assimilation of the island's native Taiwanese population (native islanders of Chinese ancestry) was an important goal; education was an instrument for attainment of this goal. When during their fifty years of rule (1895–1945) Taiwan's administrators altered their interpretation or definition of assimilation, they modified educational policies accordingly. From beginning to end of the Japanese period in Taiwan its government intended education for native islanders to be a major tool of its assimilation policy, which although a consistent policy was not a static one.
The Rise and Fall of the Fengtien Dollar, 1917—1928: Currency Reform in Warlord China
Authors: Suleski Ronald
Published: November 2008

Financial chaos was the rule during China's warlord period from 1916 to 1928. The Central Government in Peking was often short of funds because the warlords who controlled the provinces refused to forward tax receipts to the capital. The effectiveness of the financial administrative machinery in each province varied greatly, and if careful accounts were kept by the provincial governments, they have not been made public. Most confusing of all was the assortment of currencies circulating in the provinces. A bewildering variety of coins and paper notes, generally issued by local banks and money-changing shops, were used in each province, though they would probably not be accepted at face value in the neighbouring province. In some areas foreign currency, such as Mexican silver dollars or Japanese gold yen notes, could also be found in the key market towns. So many currencies were in use that local chambers of commerce met daily to calculate the relative values of the currencies traded in their immediate area.
Nationalisms and the Crisis of Empire, 1919–1922
Authors: Gallagher John
Published: November 2008

Once the British Empire became world-wide, the sun never set upon its crises. The historian who studies any of these crises in isolation does so at his peril, for their consequences tended to interlock. In the astounding geometry which the British Government constructed across the map of tropical Africa, many of the lines they drew were guided by pressures far away, in Ireland, in Egypt and in India. During the years between 1919 and 1922 a new and more elaborate set of crises marched indefatigably on through the body politic of Empire, like gout through the enfeebled frame of a toper. By this time Britain was threatened by the rolling up of her old interests in East Asia as well as by the phasing out of her new interests in West Asia; while in the classical centres of disaffection Zaghul Pasha, Gandhi and Mr de Valera pursued the old aims by new methods. No analysis of any of these crises will be complete without establishing its interplay with the others. Each joined in the rataplan which frayed the minds and the nerves of the policy-makers. But at a deeper level, each of them was part of a general problem; and there is much to be said for studying problems, not regions. In the case of underdeveloped subjects, such as African or Indian history, it is important not to study them as though they were merely the annals of the parish.
Business and Politics in the 1930s Lancashire and the Making of the Indo-British Trade Agreement, 1939
Authors: Chatterji B.
Published: November 2008

During the inter-war years there were significant developments in Indo-British economic and political relations. It is in the context of these developments that this paper will seek to study the complex relationships between the different fractions of businessmen, British and Indian, the Government of India, the Home Government and the Indian National Congress. The major theme of this paper is the attempts made in the 1930s by governments and businessmen to reorganize the economic relations between Britain and India to take account of changes wrought by the first world war, the world depression, and the ascent of Indian nationalism. One question which dominated these negotiations was the long-standing issue of duties on cotton goods imported into India. This issue served to bring into sharp focus the different views of the imperial rulers, British businessmen in India, Indian businessmen of different sorts, and nationalist politicians, on the immediate future of the economic link between Britain and India. The question of cotton duties dogged the talks on economic cooperation from the tariff negotiations of the early 1930s, through the period of the Ottawa agreement and Lees-Mody pact, to the Indo-British Trade Agreement of 1939.
The Nature of Social Change in Rural Gujarat: The Kheda District, 1818–1918
Authors: Bates Crispin N.
Published: November 2008

The Kheda (or Kaira) district has lately attracted great interest among Indian historians, not only because it was the area in which Gandhi chose to launch the very first peasant ‘satyagraha’ in resistance to government revenue demands, but also because it harboured a highly progressive class of peasant farmers, known as the Patidars, who to this day rank among the wealthiest cultivators in Western India.
Urban Chinese at the Sinitic Frontier: Social Organizations in United States’ Chinatowns, 1849–1898
Authors: Armentrout-Ma Eve
Published: November 2008

To call Chinese nationals who have emigrated abroad ‘overseas Chinese’ seems very natural, especially since most joined together to form communities of fellow nationals outside of China. (It is not always appropriate to include the children and grandchildren of these emigrants, however.) The term implies a uniformity to the communities that Crissman made explicit in a model which proposed to tie them together and link them to cities in China.
Urban Class and Communal Consciousness in Colonial Punjab: The Genesis of India's Intermediate Regime
Authors: Fox Richard G.
Published: November 2008

A cornerstone of Wallerstein's (1974) theory of the capitalist world system is that economic development occurs in certain (core) regions of the world system at the expense of development in other (peripheral) regions. This thesis, accepted in one form or another by scholars following a dependency, neo-Marxist, or unequal exchange conception of economic development (as, for example, Amin 1976 or Laclau 1971; see discussion in Foster-Carter 1973 and Kahn 1980: 203ff) provides the foundation for their avowal of the ‘development of underdevelopment.’ The development of the core industrial capitalist nations required, so they argue, the distorted and repressed economic development of the third world.
The Changing Fortunes of the Bengali Gentry under Colonial Rule—Pal Chaudhuris of Mahesganj, 1800–1950
Authors: Ray Ratnalekha
Published: November 2008

Between 1800 and 1950, the Bengali gentry experienced—over five or six generations—dramatic changes in fortune. The broad outline of the story of landed society in Bengal is well known. There emerged, in the first generation, families from widely varying background who owed their fortunes to the Permanent Settlement. In the next two generations they successfully integrated themselves into the rural world as an influential class of gentry with a well-marked-out life style. The fixity of revenue demand, the extension of cultivation and the perfected machinery of legal coercion contributed towards the development of high landlordism by the mid-nineteenth century. The end of the century, however, brought with it a gradual crumbling of the basis of landed society which gathered momentum with the Great Depression and the second world war, forcing an increasing number among the last two generations to seek supplementary or alternative means of livelihood.
The Great Depression and Indian Industry: Changing Interpretations and Changing Perceptions
Authors: Simmons Colin
Published: November 2008

To what extent was the underdeveloped world caught up in the vortex of the Great Depression? Did the crisis of 1929–33 leave a particular imprint upon the course of the economic history of the Third World during the inter-war period? Can the years spanning this quinquennium be fairly regarded as constituting a distinctive phase within the broader perspective of much longer-run trends? These questions, together with a whole host of related issues concerning the experience of particular areas, communities and industries, have recently been brought into much sharper focus than has hitherto been so. Although this reawakening of concern can be partly put down to the usual workings of the ‘scholarly cycle’, a far more satisfactory explanation may be found in relating it to the current round of public and academic discussion on the impact of the present-day depression. It is surely no coincidence that since the late 1970s there has been a considerable upsurge of interest in the events of that time; indeed it would not be too much of an exaggeration to say that the subject is forcing its way up the agenda of research priorities at a rate that would have been unthinkable even a decade ago. Over the last few years an increasing number of scholars have been busily engaged in the twin task of purposively re-examiningand reassessing a segment of intellectual territory that was once taken very much for granted and virtually shunted off to the sidelines. Thus by the end of 1986 at least three major international conferences will have been convened on the subject, and no less than fifty separate papers will have been presented.
Indian Missions in Russia in the Late Nineteenth Century and British Historiography of International Relations in Asia
Authors: Khalfin N. A.
Published: November 2008

The British Empire's colonial possession of India for many decades of the nineteenth century and in the first half of the twentieth century largely determined the Empire's economic and political pattern. Numerous books and articles on this subject have been written and still more speeches have been delivered, but the most clear-cut and all-round assessment of the significance for Britain of all-out exploitation of the Indian subcontinent and its population was given by Lord Curzon.
Trade and State Formation: Siam in the Early Bangkok Period
Authors: Evers Hans-Dieter
Published: November 2008

Though local and international trade is a main point on the agenda of any government and though economists build elaborate models around trade statistics, the social consequences of trade have hardly ever been explored in full by social scientists. This is particularly the case in Thailand where only a few studies of limited scope exist on traders, businessmen and markets. There is a reason for this lack of attention to trade. The series of post-war village studies, carried out mainly by anthropologists in isolated villages, stressed intra-village relations and neglected as a consequence larger networks of trade. The most important study on trade during that time was probably the work of Skinner (1962, 1967) on the Bangkok Chinese in which, however, ethnic relations rather than trade and business constituted the main theme of the study.
Colonial Records History: British Malaya
Authors: Milner A. C.
Published: November 2008

Although often well-written and carefully researched, many recent studies of the political history of Colonial Malaya seem dated. This is not to say that they are generally pro-British; nevertheless, when considered alongside historical work on many other areas of Southeast Asia, the ‘British Malayan’ histories appear ‘colonial’ in their preoccupations and perspectives. Why does so much Malayan history have this character? One cannot point to a lack of talent.
The Chinese Nationalists and the Unequal Treaties 1924–1931
Authors: Fung Edmund S. K.
Published: November 2008

The movement to abolish the unequal treaties was thecause célèbreof Chinese nationalism after the First World War. It was an extension of the late Qing movement to retrieve the rights and interests (shouhui liquan yundong) that had been lost to the powers over the decades. Whereas the quintessence of the late Qing campaign was economic nationalism and the means it employed peaceful, the post-war drive was highly political and at times accompanied by a degree of violence. The Chinese determination, strengthened by Germany's and Austria's relinquishment of their treaty status, was a bond that united the whole nation from Beijing to Guangzhou (Canton) despite their domestic political differences.