On the muggy afternoon of July 5, 1962, an unusual symposium of some 270 scholars and students of Chinese studies from all over the country gathered in Tokyo. They were drawn by the urgent need to discuss the problems raised by the Toyo Bunko's (Oriental Library) receipt of grants from the Ford and Asia Foundations for organizing the Center for Modern Chinese Studies. The vital issue was whether it was permissible to let the Toyo Bunko accept the huge amount of American funds to organize modern Chinese studies in Japan.

In September, 1972, twenty-three scholars from the United States, Taiwan, and Canada met at Asilomar, California for a conference on “Taiwan in Chinese History.” Sponsored by the ACLS' Joint Committee on Sino-American Intellectual Cooperation in the Humanities, it was intended to stimulate interest in research on Taiwan history and show what it could contribute to the field of Chinese history as a whole.

In describing the failures of the old society, Chinese communist writers have frequently condemned the evils of bureaucratic capitalism. It is not easy to extract a clear definition of this term from their polemic literature, but I shall attempt to construct a preliminary working proposition.

Japanese poetry has for a long time been credited with truly miraculous powers of concision, suggestion, and philosophical insight by some of its Western admirers. Other Westerners, from Chamberlain and Aston on, have been less charmed, and have criticized the classical poetry of the Japanese court in particular, for excessive artificiality, and for a lack of breadth, grandeur, and sustained power.

The court poetry which was the supreme literary genre of the Heian and Kamakura periods is indeed restricted. In mode it is confined to lyricism; in form, to the 31-syllable tanka which becomes synonymous, in these periods, with waka, or Japanese poetry. Its vocabulary is circumscribed, generally limited to that employed in the KokinshŨ of 905, first of the twenty-one imperially sponsored anthologies of verse. There are some subsequent additions, primarily from the lexicon of the great early collection, the Man'yōshŨ (ca. 759), but the admissibility of such words was hotly contested.

Imperial China under the Ch'ing Administration (1664–1912) relied on a bureaucratically organized rural police system, known as the pao-chia, and other administrative institutions for the purpose of local control. The Ch'ing imperial view concerning the theoretical usefulness of this policing system is reflected in a number of edicts. In a 1799 edict, for example, Emperor Chia-ch'ing (1796–1820) said: “The method of pao-chia … as a means of detecting wicked and criminal persons and suppressing bandits at its source, is truly an excellent way to maintain local order.” In the early years of the mid-nineteenth century rebellions, at least through 1852, the imperial court retained its faith in this particular control institution.

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.

The Changsha rice riot of April 12–16, 1910 was one of the series of popular revolts that racked the Ch'ing dynasty in its closing years.1 Triggered by serious crop failures and peasant demand for relief, it involved over twenty thousand participants and the occupation of a heavily garrisoned provincial capital. Rioters put the torch to the governor's yamen, foreign property and government offices and looted over one hundred rice shops. In outlying districts secret societies made spasmodic attempts to incite a general uprising against the dynasty.

Following the collapse of the old indigenous social order, tenth-century Korea was engaged in innovative cultural borrowing of a societal scale under the influence of the brilliant and mature Chinese civilization. Among the many institutions borrowed during this period, the civil service examination system (k‘o-chü in Chinese and kwagŏ in Korean), introduced in 958 by King Kwangjong (r. 949–975) of the Koryŏ Dynasty (918–1392), constitutes perhaps the most engrossing case of institutional borrowing in traditional Korea. Aside from its long-range consequences for Korean society and culture, the significance of this particular instance of institutional transplantation lies in the wholesale manner in which the borrowing was made, adopting the system complete with its Confucian examination content as well as its Chinese system of writing. Significant too is the fact that the proposal for this institutional borrowing did not come from a Korean but the king's Chinese advisor, Shuang Chi. It was also to Shuang Chi that the youthful Korean king entrusted the role of cultural innovator in instituting the examination system. The far-reaching social and cultural implications of this undertaking and its great success as a cultural borrowing make this particular case a fascinating subject to study; that is, when fully explored, it may shed light on the problems of ongoing cultural borrowing in Korea today.

In the nineteenth century Taiwan's economy depended mainly upon agriculture, and its social customs resembled those of South China from which most of its population originated. As both population and cultivated land steadily expanded during the century, aggregate output undoubtedly increased, but whether or not per capita income improved significantly is uncertain. During the third quarter of the century the island began to trade and enter into various contacts with the West; yet, like the mainland, Taiwan did not respond to this stimulus in a sustained, positive manner. Therefore, at the end of the nineteenth century Taiwan, by any criterion, still remained an underdeveloped economy: the few small cities on the island were poorly integrated with villages by transport and markets; unsanitary health conditions prevailed; economic activities depended entirely upon an uncertain harvest. If past performance was a guide to its future, the economic outlook for Taiwan appeared to be more of the same patterns of the past. Yet, a few years after Taiwan's cession to Japan in 1895, the economy began to grow and to change, and such development continued steadily until World War II.

For thirty-five years a major scholarly dialogue, (which often spilled over into abrasive debate) has enlivened the study of comparative Indo-European religions and mythology. At the center of this academic storm is Georges Dumézil, whose brilliant insights into the nature of early Indo-European cosmology, myths, rites, deities and social structure, have sent dozens of historians of religion, philologists and linguists to the texts in efforts to either corroborate or disprove his theories. The extent of Dumézil's influence may be seen in the number of scholars who have developed and amplified his ideas in their own research. Another, equally significant measure of his influence may be found in the number of well-informed critics which the French scholar has attracted. Dumézil's central theory, concerning the tripartite ideology of the Indo-Europeans, has proven to be suggestive and stimulating for scholars in Germanic, Roman, Celtic, Scandinavian and Indie studies. Certainly, Dumézil ranks alongside other great contemporary French scholars such as Braudel and Lévi-Strauss. Like them, his work has had an incalculable effect upon his discipline and upon the world of scholarship.

Patrimonial politics and administration in princely India from the middle of the nineteenth to the middle of the twentieth century are the subjects of this essay. The bureaucratic lineage, exemplified here by three related families, is our unit of analysis for understanding elite formation and conflict. The period of the lineage's historical ascendency, a century spanning four generations, is sufficiently long to capture processes of conflict and change as well as more visible and easily accessible features of integration and stability.

Georges Dumézil's research on the myths, legends, rites, and social structures—in short, what he calls the “ideology”—of the Indo-Europeans has had, for the most part, considerable impact upon recent scholarly interpretation of the various Indo-European traditions. This holds not only for articles and monographs on specific matters. Better measure might be taken by noting the favorable discussion of his views and results in works whose intent is introductory or popular: Proinsias Mac Cana's Celtic Mythology (London, 1970), E. O. G. Turville-Petre's Myth and Religion of the North (New York, 1964), H. R. Ellis Davidson's Gods and Myths of Northern Europe (Penguin Books, 1964) and Scandinavian Mythology (London, 1969)—of whom none of the above are to be associated with Dumézil's “school”— and in responses pro and con by Iranicists. What one misses is a similar impact upon studies in two areas: Rome and India. And this is a remarkable and ironic fact, for it is Dumézil's work on these two pillars that, if one may say so, has fashioned the entrance to his edifice. It is not my intent to talk about Rome, but it is my impression that the situation is comparable to what one finds in the recent introductory and panoramic works on Hinduism: either no recognition of Dumézil's contribution at all (Thomas J. Hopkins, The Hindu Religious Tradition [Encino, Cal., 1971], Veronica Ions, Indian Mythology [London, 1967]), or facile dismissals (Robert C. Zaehner, Hinduism [London, 1966]).

The progressive shift of formerly subject peoples from political acquiescence to participatory citizenship has been the focus of numerous diverse studies of modernization in India and elsewhere. As modernization proceeds, such studies inform us, this transformation is reflected in new attitudes and new social relationships. At the same time, there is not a complete break with the past, but rather an adaptation of traditional structures and relationships to meet modern needs.

In a long series of important and stimulating publications Georges Dumézil has for almost half a century not only re-established a complex of theories with regard to the comparative study of ancient Indo-European mythology, but also applied a modernized comparative method. In investigating the foundations of the Indo-European socio-religious conceptions he bases his arguments and conclusions, it is true, to a certain extent on linguistic data, but these are always amplified and corroborated by a thorough consideration of the social structure, religious beliefs and ritual institutions of the ancient Indians, Romans, Germans, Celts and Greeks. Especially these last thirty-five years his work is of great originality in that he has founded and developed the theory of the trois fonctions, of the “three fundamental activities which the groups of priests, warriors and producers must fulfil and assure in order to maintain their community”. In this theory it is not the tripartite social organization of the prehistoric Indo-Europeans that is emphasized, but the principle of classification, the ideology to which, in Dumézil's opinion, this organization has given rise. Being reflected in the groupings of, and mutual relations between, the divine powers and in the very structure of Indo-European mythology and view of the world it is here again the ideological rather than the strictly sociological aspects that invite the reader's attention.

This essay is an attempt to reassess the role played by Wu San-kuei during the crucial year of 1644.1 Traditionally ignored by historians or relegated to a minor role, the conventional wisdom has instead preserved the following now well established account of Wu's place in the Manchu conquest of China. When the rebel Li Tzu-ch'eng was marching eastward and advancing toward Peking, Emperor Ch'ung chen finally realized the danger of the threat. In early April he conferred upon Wu San-kuei and other able generals the title of earl; Wu was designated P'ing-hsi po (Earl who Pacified the West). The emperor further ordered Wu both to abandon the land east of the Shan-hai pass and to move the troops back to Peking to meet the threat posed by Li's advance toward Peking. Nevertheless, Wu temporarily ignored the order and delayed his march. When his troops eventually marched halfway to Feng-jun, on the 26th of April, Peking had already fallen into the hands of the rebels. Consequently, he marched back to the Shan-hai-kuan, a vital strategic town located at a pass at the east end of the Great Wall, to contemplate the next move. Meanwhile, Li Tzu-ch'eng sent a delegate to demand Wu's surrender, holding his father, the retired commander Wu Hsiang, as hostage. Wu considered complying with the demand but changed his mind upon learning that his favorite concubine, Ch'en Yüan-yüan, had also been seized. Outraged, he surrendered to the Manchus and invited them to suppress the rebellion.