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.

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.

The idea of “mutual assistance” (gotong royong) in Indonesia has been the basis for political discourse concerning the nature of authority, the characteristics of village society, and the legitimacy of demands for labor by the state. This article traces the way in which both changing political ideologies and state-village relations have been mediated by the term gotong royong, and suggests that its multiple meanings have been central to its semantic, political, and economic roles. Local interpretations of national doctrine and reactions to state policy are examined in two cases: East Java and Gayo (Aceh). The wide variety of local strategies is perceived as depending on preexisting political traditions and power relations vis-à-vis the state.

Has the organization of commercial agriculture in the Third World been shaped primarily by external forces from the world economy? This study of sugar production in northern and western India shows that industrialists were generally unable to impose a plantation system on the local peasantry, despite the great technical and economic advantages of doing so. Control of the land, in most cases, did not pass into the hands of industrialists. The organization of crop production remained almost unchanged in the north, while in the west, despite initial progress toward a plantation system, the local cultivators responded by taking control of the industry into their own hands. Thus, contrary to experience in much of the New World, Indian villagers did not become passive victims of the sugar industry; those in the west went even further, in taking over the industry themselves. The contrast between these regions can be explained in part by the temporary existence of an “irrigation frontier” in the west.

This article is a pioneering effort to analyze the establishment and consolidation of the T'ang dynasty in processual and systemic terms. The author argues that the extension of dynastic power over the North China Plain was a much more gradual process than hitherto thought, and he reinterprets early T'ang policies in this light. He then examines the structure of the dynasty, using the analytical framework developed by Amitai Etzioni. In the final section, the author considers the mature dynasty under Hsüan-tsung and suggests comparisons with the Roman Empire.

Japan possessed a sophisticated network of institutions of higher education before World War II. There was repression on the campuses of colleges and universities, but it was less severe than that in the totalitarian countries of the time. The war placed great demands on higher education and forced it to change. New universities, colleges, and research institutes were established; more students were enrolled; and more women entered colleges. The war also spurred a great shift toward science and technology, which was to be instrumental in Japan's economic recovery in the postwar era.

Mobilization for military duty or for work made the students feel that they were responsible for the fate of their country. However, their youthful outburst of patriotism came to an end with Japan's defeat. Feelings of betrayal and disillusionment nurtured the extreme patriotism and militancy of the postwar student movement.

This article is a preliminary exploration of the impact of the world depression of the early 1930s on the rural populations of Southeast Asia. The first section of the essay considers some of the statistical evidence relating to living standards and economic welfare in rural Southeast Asia during the depression. The second section examines a number of factors—the alleged coercive power of the colonial state to secure its tax revenues and of rural capitalists to enforce debt and rent payments during a period of severe deflation—which would have had a major direct influence on levels of peasant consumption in the region in that period. The final section considers three indirect indications of changes in economic welfare in Southeast Asia during the depression: Indian immigration and repatriation rates; the import level of cotton piece goods; and mortality rates. The author advances two principal arguments: the sharp deflation of the early 1930s brought varying degrees of economic distress in the major export-oriented rural districts of Southeast Asia; but that even in those districts more severely affected by the crisis the decline in peasant welfare was markedly more modest than has hitherto been widely accepted.

The suicide rate in Sri Lanka tripled between 1955 and 1974, soaring from 6.9 to 22.1 per 100,000 population. Sharp increases were recorded for both sexes, most age groups, and all of the nation's twenty-two districts. The incidence of suicide was greatest in the age range of 15 to 29 years. High rates consistently appeared in the districts of the northeast that either contained local majorities of the Sri Lanka Tamil ethnic minority or experienced rapid population growth due to heavy in-migration. The rising suicide rate may be related to the growing competition for education and careers, high unemployment, internal migration, and the increasing age at marriage, all of which contribute to the fundamental dislocation of a once more stable and predictable society.

The development of Indonesian as a new national language is closely linked to the development of Indonesia as a new nation, but the Indonesian language has only rarely been studied as a part of larger patterns of social and cultural change. An overview of the language situation in Jakarta, Indonesia's center and capital, highlights linguistic continuities and discontinuities between that modern speech community and the traditional culture of the dominant Indonesian ethnic group, the Javanese. The speech repertoires of Jakartans do not resemble the well-known Javanese speech levels, as Benedict Anderson has suggested, but they are better described with the widely known sociolinguistic concept of diglossia. This relatively abstract characterization can be complemented by a study of patterns of borrowing into Indonesian from foreign languages, which may reflect long-standing indigenous attitudes toward power and the use of foreign linguistic codes. Different aspects of the rapidly changing linguistic situation in Jakarta may reflect on the emerging national language and culture.

This two-volume study of a great Vedic sacrifice, the Agnicayana, or “piling of the fire altar,” accomplishes two ends. First, the work is detailed ethnographic coverage of the twelve-day Agnicayana performed by the Nambudiri Brahmin community in Panjal, Kerala, South India, in April 1975. Parts 2, 4, and 5 include episodic mantraby-mantra outlines of the ritual with translations of key texts, color photographs, line drawings, and maps; a glossary and bibliography are appended. Second, parts 1 and 3 together provide a mini-encyclopedia of current information about the context of Vedic ritual in general. Twenty-two articles take up essential aspects of South Asian prehistory, ancient history, architecture, art, symbolism, and music, as well as hermeneutical studies of Vedic tradition and the Agnicayana in particular. The volumes are aesthetically stunning, and they provide a benchmark for the interdisciplinary, multifaceted study of an historic religious phenomenon.

In 1981 Bangladesh celebrated its first decade of independence. This milestone was marked by a sharp increase in publications about the new nation. Authors are fascinated and not a little surprised that the “international basketcase” of 1971 has survived a vast array of economic, social, and political afflictions. The authors are also concerned about the continuing survival of Bangladesh. Current writing is concentrated on either its political history or problems of economic development and represents a major contribution to filling gaps in our knowledge of Bangladesh. Unfortunately, although most contemporary authors have limited experience in Bangladesh, they do have well-developed theoretical perspectives that guide their constructions of Bangladeshi reality. Current writing proffers Weberian, neoclassical economic, and Marxist interpretations of Bangladesh. Little fresh, in-depth, culturally sensitive, representative reporting of Bangladeshis' own interpretations of the present and aspirations for the future is being done. Academia is failing the majority of Bangladeshis by not taking seriously their ideas, aspirations, and abilities.

Several studies of health and population dynamics in India are reviewed. The perspectives of the various authors include anthropology, public health, demography, and economics. The review focuses on how the studies contribute to the understanding of two areas of inquiry: the major social factors leading to continued ill health and high rates of population growth in India, and the major social factors constraining the use of available health and population programs. The argument presented in the conclusion is that, without simultaneous attention to social and gender inequality in relation to population and health, neither full understanding of their dynamics nor workable policies will eventuate.

Frits Staal's massive two-volume book details the backgrounds to, and the performance of, a “Vedic ritual,” the Agnicayana, in Panjal, Kerala, in 1975. In its own terms the book is a success. Staal has set down, or told the reader where to find, every word of the twelve-day Agnicayana; he has described every ritual event; he has included many superb photographs (by Adelaide de Menil); he has collected essays on the various aspects of the Agnicayana, including comparisons with rituals of Tibet, Bali, and Java and discussions of pre-Vedic ritual. The book falls short in considering the multiple and ambivalent aspects of Agnicayana 1975: How much was Agnicayana the creation of the scholars who wanted to discover an intact Vedic ritual? To what degree did the very filming of Agnicayana transform it into a media event? What can be said about scholarship based on hybrid events such as Agnicayana 1975?

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.

Precious Metals in the Later Medieval and Early Modern Worlds, edited by J. F. Richards, is a courageous attempt to survey late medieval and early modern monetary history on an appropriately global scale, while simultaneously representing the fragmentation of the present state of knowledge on the subject. Asian history has been particularly subject to an a priori compartmentalization that has hindered comparison and prevented appreciation of the elaborate connections and dependencies developing among different regions during this period; Moreover, the various ways in which flows of precious metals have been explained merely confirm this compartmentalization, both by neglecting other, central aspects of monetary history and by ignoring the wider historical questions to which it is inseparably linked. By supplementing the approach to precious metals with a parallel focus on the vigorous trades in less precious monetary media, it becomes possible to rephrase the problem in terms of infrastructural societal conditions in different regions, which in the first place permitted trade flows to take place. In this respect, we need to dissolve the hard frontiers separating the conventional units of discussion and to see international commerce, and a wide range of different regional developments, as part and parcel of an increasingly complex, many-levelled web of interactive stimuli, which now needs to be reconstructed, debated, and researched.