Short reviews

Abstract

In an attempt to publish some reviews sooner after material comes out, the Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars has added this section of short reviews of individual books, movies, TV series, and so on. For more information about short reviews as well as review essays, see the introduction to the list of books to review on p. 92 of this issue.     

Notes from the field

Abstract

In an attempt to publish some reviews sooner after material comes out, the Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars has added this section of short reviews of individual books, movies, TV series, and so on. If you are interested in writing a short review, please contact Peter Zarrow (for more information, see the introduction to the list of books to review on p. 84 of this issue).

As someone who proudly served in the antiwar movement, I tend to believe we can't have too many books about the righteous struggle waged in the United States to end the Indochina wars. So on one level I welcome Tom Wells's expansion of his Berkeley Ph.D. thesis into the volume under review here. The War Within has many strengths. It mercilessly exposes the ignorant, reflexive anticommunism of such war managers as CIA director Richard Helms, White House advisor (and ideological architect of the wars in Indochina) Walt Rostow, the Nixon entourage, and others. Furthermore, Wells does what no other writer has done: narrate the interfamilial generational conflict between government officials and their children brought on by the Indochina conflicts. Offspring of Robert McNamara, Dean Rusk, Spiro Agnew, H.R. Haldeman, and John Ehrlichman joined (or as in the case of Kim Agnew, wanted to join) the movement. Daniel Ellsberg has told us how pressures from those he loved helped transform a once gung-ho Marine and prowar government policy maker into an antiwar militant, and Wells cites Ellsberg's experiences, adding horrifying details on the savage assaults mounted on him by the Nixon administration.     

The historical significance of the japanese textbook lawsuit

Abstract

In 1960, Ienaga Saburō, Professor of Japanese History at Tokyo University of Education and the author of many books on Japanese history, began a long series of court actions to have the Ministry of Education's system of certifying all textbooks used in Japanese schools declared unconstitutional. In the following essay, written exclusively for the Bulletin Professor Ienaga provides an historical background to government control of education in Japan and reviews his long struggle against government censorship of books used in Japan's schools.     

The Creation and Implementation of the ASEAN Charter

Abstract

This review article analyzes and builds on arguments presented in two prominent books, The Making of the ASEAN Charter, by Koh, Manalo, and Woon, and ASEAN: Life after the Charter by Tiwari, on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Charter. The books envision future international cooperation and even international disputes as legal issues. I claim that by doing so, these books participate in the articulation of a reality where international politics and dispute resolution in Southeast Asia are something that belongs to the legal rather than military realm. As such, both books document and represent an effort to desecuritize (move the issue area away from the realm of security) disputes within ASEAN – an undertaking that the Copenhagen School of Security Studies claims cannot be done by means of declarations and speech only.     

Harvard on China II: Logic,evidence, and ideology

Abstract

The December 1972 issue of this Bulletin contained two contributions to an ongoing debate on imperialism in Chinese history from Andrew Nathan and Joseph Esherick. This review article has the more restricted, if not more modest, aim of examining two of the most significant works cited by Nathan and Esherick, both of which have been published in the Harvard University Press's East Asian Series. The two books provide a reinforcing and complementary picture of the effects of foreign economic penetration on, respectively, the peasantry and the indigenous industrial and handicraft production of China over roughly the same time period. I will restrict myself to a critique of the internal consistency and the standards of logic and evidence in the two volumes.     

PAKISTAN (REVIEW ARTICLE)

Victoria Schofield reviews two books on Pakistan:- the third, much revised, edition of Owen Bennett Jones’ Pakistan In the Eye of the Storm and Hilary Synnott's Transforming Pakistan, Ways out of Instability. Both books are arranged thematically and are full of useful information. They underline how important it is for outsiders to understand the course of recent events. For even though the problems facing Pakistan can in the end only be resolved by Pakistanis, outsiders undoubtedly have a crucial role to play.     

Hunger

Abstract

Books about hunger and its causes are nothing new, as anyone who follows development literature is well aware. This is probably because hunger itself has been around as long as people have been writing books. Nevertheless, 1974 was the year of a “world food crisis”: the United Nations saw fit to convene a world food conference in Rome, and a spate of new books has appeared in its aftermath to discuss the problem. Why a crisis should have congealed in 1974 from the world's perennial hunger is one of the subjects ably considered by Collins and Lappe's Food First and Susan George's How the Other Half Dies. Why so much has been written about it is a subject worth considering here.     

Introduction to “two languages,two souls”

Abstract

Morisaki Kazue is a poet, essayist, and chronicler of the lives and histories of Japan's minorities. One of her recent books, Karayuki-san (Asahi Shimbun, 1976), an oral history of the lives of the prostitutes who followed the Japanese armed forces during World War II, became a widely praised bestseller. The article that follows describes what must be understood as the central experience in Ms. Morisaki's life: her birth and childhood in Korea and the permanent influence this had on the structure of her life and thought.     

Myths and Realities

Abstract

Frances Fitzgerald has seen a lot and read a lot, and Fire in the Lake has the double merit of being at the same time a vivid report and a well-documented historical study. It is certainly one of the most interesting books ever written on Viet Nam.     

Domestic politics of Chinese foreign policy: where will Xi Jinping bring China?

ABSTRACT

Xi Jinping has concentrated his power since he acceded to the Chinese presidency. Where will Xi bring China? In this review essay I discuss four single-authored books – one in English and three in Japanese – to explore security implications of Xi’s reform and foreign policies. In her recent book, Elizabeth Economy is critical of Xi, arguing that he is turning away from Deng Xiaoping’s reform and internationalist policies. The three Japanese China specialists concur, and further highlight the interconnectedness of domestic politics and international relations. In sum, the four books show that Xi has struggled to commit to the state-owned enterprise reform and to cooperative foreign policy due to Chinese domestic politics, and as a result, has threatened regional security in the Asia-Pacific.     

Les conseils generaux du royaume de Naples pendant la decennie française 1806–1815

Summary

Spanish parliamentary history for the Habsburg era has undergone an historiographical revolution during the past decade. The revolution has centred primarily on the history of the Castilian Cortes. Traditionally considered to have been the least developed of the several Spanish Cortes, it is now being depicted as the most progressive and politically influential.

The scope and significance of this historiographical revolution is highlighted by two recently published books: José Ignacio Fortea Pérez, Monarquía y Cortes en la Corona de Castilla: Las Ciudades ante la Política Fiscal de Felipe II (Salamanca, 1990) and Luis González Antón, Las Cortes en la España del Antiguo Régimen (Madrid, 1989). When reviewed together, these two books underline the fact that early‐modern Spanish parliaments existed within a dynamic political context. To generalize about them as if they conformed to some particular variant of fixed parliamentary typology, as González Antón does, is becoming less justifiable the more we learn about the constantly changing character of Spanish parliamentary politics. Thanks to the growing number of exhaustively researched and archivally based monographic studies of Spanish parliaments, of which Fortea's Monarquía y Cortes is a model, we are beginning to understand better the complexity of parliamentary politics in early‐modern Spain.     

Review

Abstract

Although several books and articles have already appeared on the Naxalbari Movement, the book under review by Sumanta Banerjee carries a distinctive appeal which sets it apart from other works on the subject. Not only does this book merit attention because it is written by a person who was intimately involved in the CPI(ML) movement, but also because it recaptures the spirit of the rebellious sixties when the ideological crisis was deepened by the impasse at which established political structures had arrived.     

Jews in the Japanese Mind: The History and Uses of a Cultural Stereotype,by David Goodman and Masanori Miyazawa

Abstract

The virulent anti-Semitism that characterizes many of the books found in the “Jewish” corner in Japanese bookstores bewilders the casual browser. Instead of dismissing these texts as hallucinogenic ravings, however, David Goodman and Masanori Miyazawa offer a welcome historical analysis of the ways in which Jews have figured in Japanese ideology. As the authors emphasize, their work “is not about Jews or about the Jewish experiences in the Far Fast; nor, while it touches on them, is it a history of actual Japanese-Jewish relations.     

Father,son, and holy ghost: Pye,Solomon, and the ‘spirit of Chinese politics’

Abstract

Mao's Revolution and the Chinese Political Culture structurally is two books. The first (parts I and II pp. 1-159) is a discussion of Chinese psychological characteristics based on the author's 1966 dissertation for MIT, The Chinese Revolution and the Politics of Dependency: The Struggle for Change in a Traditional Political Culture. The second (parts III and IV pp. 160-526) is a competent if somewhat narrow think-tank piece written in 1969 on the Hundred Flowers, the Great Leap, and the early phase of the Cultural Revolution.     

Turkey’s Southeastern Anatolia Project (GAP): a qualitative review of the literature

ABSTRACT

The Southeastern Anatolia Project (Güneydo?u Anadolu Projesi, GAP) is one of the largest regional development projects ever implemented in the Middle East. Launched officially in the 1970s to develop the water and land resources of southeastern Turkey, GAP has over time evolved from a predominantly technical, largely state-led and mainly infrastructural and economic development-oriented project into a primarily social, largely market-friendly and chiefly sustainable and human development-oriented project. Parallel to this evolution, GAP has grown more visible in political and public discourses. The implications of the project, for instance, on the ecology and cultural heritages, on the Kurdish Question, and on water issue among Turkey, Syria and Iraq have become clearer. However, despite growing academic and policy interest on GAP, there has been no attempt to provide a literature review on the project. Even more than 40 years after GAP was begun, a bird’s eye view of researched and under-researched topics in the literature has not been introduced yet. This article seeks to present a qualitative review of GAP-related literature. In this way, it seeks to constitute an initial step to establish a base for more expansive reviews and to provide guidance to interested and involved researchers, practitioners and policymakers.     

Highly recommended secondary classroom materials on China

Abstract

The units and books on this list are among those we most highly recommend for classroom use. These materials focus on China's socio-political history.     

Intercepting Disgrace: Lacuna and “Letter to John Coetzee”

ABSTRACT

This review article examines two palimpsest rewritings of J. M.Coetzee’s canonical but controversial novel, Disgrace (1999). Both rewritings are by women: Lacuna, a novel published in 2019, is by a white South African woman, Fiona Snyckers, and “Letter to John Coetzee” takes the form of a short story by Michelle Cahill, a woman of color living in Australia, published in Cahill’s collection Letter to Pessoa (2016). The article uses Cahill’s coinage of “interceptionality” to discuss how dominant narratives may be disrupted and subverted, particularly when it comes to representing gender-based violence in the arts. It concludes with a discussion of South African artist Gabrielle Goliath’s exhibition, “This song is for … ” (2019).     

The North Korea Problem: Perspectives on the Nuclear Debate,Economic Reforms and Beyond

ABSTRACT

Despite a plethora of research on North Korea, understanding and managing the challenges posed by the country have long been complicated with no simple solution to put an end to this decades-long security and economic predicament on the Korean Peninsula. With the potential for international conflict, attention must be given to the converging messages emerging from the scholarly works reviewed in this article: Glyn Ford, Talking to North Korea: Ending the Nuclear Standoff, Van Jackson, On the Brink: Trump, Kim, and the Threat of Nuclear War and William Overholt’s collection North Korea: Peace? Nuclear War? These works speak to the need to: take seriously the risk of nuclear war; consider the connectedness of the North’s decades-long security and economic reform dilemmas; and to acknowledge that the mistrust that is deeply rooted on all sides must be mitigated to bring peace. These books are published at a critical juncture of increased tensions following a highly publicised but remarkably short-lived effort at a breakthrough on the Korean nuclear issue, Pyongyang’s rapidly evolving security posture and its perennial domestic challenges. Each of these volumes provides valuable insights on these challenges for North Korea and internationally.     

China's troubled culture

Abstract

China has spent the twentieth century at repeated efforts, in Ezra Pound's phrase, to “make it new.” But it has repeatedly fallen back on tightly controlled political power and organization as the only means it knows—in the process always discouraging individual initiative and forestalling free expression of ideas, qualities perceived by those in power as twin threats to the order of the state. The use of military force against Chinese citizens on 4 June 1989 is only the most recent example that China has seldom allowed itself to experience the creative chaos that might arise from a true “hundred flowers” era, a protected arena of competing voices. This, at least, is the theme that tugs at the cuff of each of the books grouped here—two cultural studies, three memoirs, and a manifesto.