For more than three decades now, scholars have been debating whether or not a “general crisis” occurred in European social, economic, and political history during the seventeenth century. The debate is far from over, but one of its happy side effects has been that students of seventeenth-century Spain, France, or England now are rarely satisfied to study their chosen countries in total isolation. Indeed, it is generally agreed that many aspects of European history during the early-modern period need to be studied from an international perspective in order to be understood fully.

The author maintains that the same is true for early-modern China and Japan. Although they had radically different economic, social, and political systems, the Ming dynasty and Tokugawa shogunate experienced a number of problems during the midseventeenth century that were at once interrelated and strikingly similar to those occurring in other parts of the world at the same time.

Pei-yu chi [Journey to the North] is a late Ming novel, which since Ch'ing dynasty times has usually been published together with three other short novels, namely Nanyu chi [Journey to the South], Tung-yu chi [Journey to the East], and Hsi-yu chi [Journey to the West], as a composite edition entitled Ssu-yu chi [The Four Journeys]. Authorship of Pei-yu chi is usually attributed to a certain Yü Hsiang-tou, but the work is popularly regarded as the mythic charter of divinity of the Emperor of the Dark Heavens (Hsüan-t'ien Shang-ti), apotheosis of the north. Arguments based on analogy with present-day religious practices on Taiwan, as well as the content and structure of Pei-yu chi, are used to support a theory that the text was originally composed as a religious tract (shan-shu) by Chinese spirit-medium cults.

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.

This article, based on newly opened archives, explores the rights of tenants in the neighborhood of Chongqing during the late-eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries. Changes in tenancy arrangements are discussed within the context of Chongqing's role as the main transshipment center for rice and goods from Southwest China to the middle and lower Yangtze. By the 1820s there was a tendency toward the collection of fixed rents in kind. Rent deposits, a major source of liquid capital for landlords, became an almost universal feature of Baxian leases. High deposits encouraged subletting and multiple tenancy, but appear to have provided little security of tenure. The large collection of lawsuits in the Baxian Archives allows an examination of the treatment of tenants in the magistrates' court and of the rights of persons who had disposed of land by means of conditional sale (dianmai).

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.

The Japanese-American partnership, so long taken for granted, is today threatened by a deep division of American opinion between the “Japanophiles” and the Japan critics. The extremism of each group stems from a sentimental attitude which grew up in the early postwar period, that Japan and America have a “special” relationship outside the normal dynamics of the international system. Reviewing the history of this relationship since the end of the Occupation, the author finds it rather to have been characterized by a bargaining process common between any two allies, in which the outcomes have been heavily influenced by the changing degree of their interdependence. This interpretation supports the forecast of a continuation of the alliance, which the author believes is vital to both countries, but only if romantic notions are given up and replaced by a more realistic appreciation of the dynamics that govern the relationship.

This paper focuses on the administration of Ferdinand Marcos, President of the Philippine Islands, 1965–1986, with particular emphasis on economic policy, fiscal abuse and monopolization during a period of martial law. The paper traces the resultant grave social consequences for the impoverished country, the consternation of the international banking community, and the eventual election to the presidency of Corazon Aquino in February, 1986.

A folktale about two sisters who make a wager on the color of a white horse has been told in India for at least three thousand years; it is recorded in the oldest Vedic texts, and it is still sung today in a Tamil oral tradition. A survey of this historical depth shows that the major variants of the tale reflect developments in Hindu religious thought. But more interesting is the relation between the embedded folktale and its frame text in classical mythology. In each case, the tale echoes the themes of the frame text but reorients them, bringing the cosmic concerns of gods and demons within the compass of human kinship, within the home, even the bedroom. These observations lead to a discussion of general relations between folklore and classical traditions in India.

This article presents a series of statistical tests of the spatial framework offered by G. W. Skinner for use in analyzing Chinese history. Skinner argues that China is best viewed as a collection of nine distinct economic regions, each composed of a core and periphery. The authors use discriminant analysis, a multivariant statistical technique, and a twentieth-century Chinese data set to test the relevance of this view empirically. Their tests show that the Skinner framework is not supported by the data, and therefore they conclude that the model's contribution to the historical analysis of China is questionable.

Rituals that accompany community celebrations in China come in two kinds: vernacular and classical. The reason why these two forms exist is not easily explained. To the two forms of liturgy correspond two kinds of specialists: the tao-shi (Taoist dignitary) and the fa-shih (Master of rites). Both are commonly called “master,” and their practices are often confused by laymen. In fact, the two traditions are opposite and rivaling, but they are also largely complementary. This article, which is mainly based on fieldwork in southern Taiwan during the 1960s, explores both traditions, but emphasizes the lesser known vernacular one. An attempt is made to assess how widespread this situation was in China, and how far back in history it can be traced. The story of Hsu Chia, Lao-tzu's illiterate servant, which is considered the origin of the vernacular tradition, is studied in detail.

The history of “area studies” as an academic discipline remains to be written. When it is, it will have to begin with a little known, historically important Japanese institution in China. That institution, Tōa Dōbun Shoin (East Asia Common Culture Academy or, after 1939, College) in Shanghai, 1900–1945, was established to train young Japanese for business and government service related to China. The author focuses upon the area studies dimensions of this pioneering institution's training and research program. After identifying five requisites of area studies training and research, he moves on to examine the origins, raison d'être, and meaning of Tōa Dōbun Shoin's program and to chart the phases of that program's development through each of the five requisites. In important ways, the center's curriculum, facilities, research, and publications equalled or surpassed the best American post–World War II language and area programs.

The conversion of the Mahars to Buddhism in October 1956 was an ambitious attempt to construct a new ideology fundamentally opposed to the traditional Hindu system of beliefs, which had been destructive for the individual psyches as well as for the collective existence of Untouchables. The conversion was intended to transform the consciousness, both individual and collective, of the Mahar-Buddhists through the creation of new institutions and new modes of social interaction. The conversion was effective in inculcating a new ideology and relationships among the Mahar-Buddhists, and it did serve to make the community more cohesive and self-confident than it had been. Yet, because of the intrusion of the reservation issue and the ambiguous constitutional status of the Buddhists, they became more isolated from Untouchable communities than they had been. The conversion also had unexpected effects that ultimately reinforced divisions and class tensions both among Untouchable communities and within wider Maharashtrian society.