In China, as in the West, fiction is a late development in the literary scene and serious fiction criticism is correspondingly a recent endeavor. The similarity goes further in the case of the historical novel, which critics of Chinese and Western fiction alike have either consciously avoided or customarily regarded with critical disfavor. In the Chinese case, the San-Kuo chih yen-i (The Three Kingdoms) is the only historical novel which has received constant serious attention, but many of its features are exceptions rather than rules.2 One will look in vain for anything as essential as a general survey of elements basic to works of this genre.3 For a genre so numerically significant, the unavoidable sketchiness of such a preliminary outline as the present one may be compensated for by a selective coverage. Here the main concerns are the most important themes and certain related contextual characteristics.

Whether the story about the Ch'ên Kuang-jui, the father of Tripitaka, belongs to the “original” version of the Hsi-yu chi (chapter 9 in modern editions of the novel) is a problem which has occupied the attention of scholars and editors for at least two and a half centuries. If we accept the conclusions of Professor Glen Dudbridge, who has done in recent years the most intensive and impressive examination of the novel's textual history, it would appear that the best textual support is lacking for this segment of the Hsi-yu chi to be considered authentic, as it is not found in the earliest known version of the hundred-chapter novel: the edition published by Shih-tê-t'ang of Chin-ling in 1592. The numerous clashes of details between this version and later ones, most notably the glaring inconsistency found in the later editions which put Ch‘ên Kuang-jui’s assumption of his public career in the thirteenth year of the reign of the T'ang Emperor, T'ai-tsung, the same year when Ch‘ên’s son, Hsiian-tsang, was to have been commissioned to begin his westward journey, further evidence editorial changes and faulty re-arrangements. In the judgment of Dudbridge, chapter nine of the novel may well have been introduced by the late Ming compilerfrom Canton, Chu Ting-ch'ên.

In recent years, several empirically based studies of blue collar and white collar Japanese workers—notably by Taira, Hazama, Marsh and Mannari, Cole, and Evans—have resulted in a substantial “revision” of our understanding of Japanese labor markets.2 These studies have disputed previous claims that Japanese workers commit themselves irrevocably to their employers and have shown that familiar economic and non-economic incentives affect marketplace behavior. Moreover, while these studies recognize the importance of paternalistic practices in shaping employment relations, they prove that these practices are not simple reflections of traditional values.

Madras City, founded in the mid-seventeenth century, was the earliest colonial port city established by the British in India. Like the other port cities of Asia which were the creation of European powers, Madras functioned primarily as a base for overseas trade. As it grew and developed, its morphological and spatial patterns were dictated by the presence of a western population which at first was exclusively trade-oriented, but over the centuries became involved in banking, business and administration. As the British shifted from their role as traders to rulers of the Indian Subcontinent, they added a new dimension to the cities they created—a municipal apparatus to monitor urban growth, to regulate the use of land, and to insure that certain areas, especially those where they resided, would receive adequate urban facilities. The cities they founded had certain characteristics: each contained a large indigenous populace, far outnumbering the colonial elite that was effectively in charge of urban development. The residential areas of these urban dwellers were spatially segregated from those of the Europeans, and more densely populated. Indigenous and colonial life-styles determined the nature of settlement patterns and, in turn, molded the form of the built environment.

At the time of the Revolution of 1911, as many as ten million Chinese lived abroad. The great majority were poor coolies but a minority had already moved into the business pursuits for which they are well known today. Within this group, particularly in Southeast Asia, could be found a stratum of very wealthy merchants. Because few individuals viewed their expatriation as permanent but rather sought to identify with the homeland and its culture, there had been considerable interest in the events of the late Ch'ing period. It is widely assumed that the multitude actively opposed the Manchu regime and gave its support to the reform and revolutionary movements encouraged by K'ang Yu-wei and Sun Yat-sen. This traditional conclusion is, however, unfounded. Although most overseas Chinese had lost faith in Manchu leadership by 1909, only a small percentage took political action. In fact there was a time, forgotten by some historians, when prosperous merchants abroad wanted closer relations with the Ch'ing dynasty.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Eyes turned toward India can see a new pattern emerging. Whatever other political readjustments may result from future negotiations, it appears certain that at least two main political units are to replace the area formerly known as British India. Hindustan will cover those areas predominantly Hindu; Pakistan will include those areas with Muslim majority. The differences of opinion concerning the desirability of effecting this division are now part of history, since both of the major political parties have agreed to the principle of division. Only the boundaries of the split remain to be worked out.

Recently, a group of scholars, all either students of Anil Seal or persons very much affected by his thinking, have produced a volume entitled Locality, Province and Nation: Essays on Indian Politics, 1870–1940,1 which is reprinted from Volume VII (1973) of Modern Asian Studies. Included in it are an introductory essay by eal himself entitled “Imperialism and Nationalism in India,” two essays on U.P. by C. A. Bayly and F. C. Robinson entitled “Patrons and politics in northern India” and “Municipal Government and Muslim separatism in the United Provinces, 1883 to 1916.” There is one essay by R. A. Gordon called “Non-cooperation and council entry 1919 to 1920” and one by David Washbook entitled “Country politics: Madras 1880 to 1930.” The volume ends with two essays on Bengal by Gordon Johnson and John Gallagher entitled respectively “Partition, agitation and Congress: Bengal 1904 to 1908” and “Congress in decline: Bengal 1930 to 1939.” This volume raises issues of great substance for the study and interpretation of recent Indian history. Seal, in his essay, argues that previous historians of India (in which he includes himself) have been too much concerned with policy and with the educated elite bound together by a common ideology. Instead of looking at partnerships of fellows, we should be looking at vertical alliances. After all, according to him, these alliances were mostly cross-caste and cross-religion. “Hindus worked with Muslims, Brahmins were hand in glove with non-Brahmins; and notables organized their dependents as supporters …” (p. 3).

The failure of nations to win wars they fight has a profound effect on the way their prewar history is studied and evaluated. After the traumas of a two-decade military involvement in Southeast Asia, American revisionist historians have recently unleashed a barrage of critical assessments of modern American history and its chroniclers. The revisionists' artillery has been aimed particularly at earlier historians who characterized contemporary American history in positive terms, or presumed the existence of noble and moral principles at the core of “what America has stood for.” The revisionists contend that the “objectivity” of their predecessors has been anything but objective or disinterested, and paradoxically, many have also sought to affirm the legitimacy of “subjective history.”

For Western scholars, occupied Japan remains something of an anomaly: too remote (1945–1952) for most economists and political scientists, still uncomfortably close for historians. Americanists seem intimidated by the exotic hieroglyphics on the other side, while Japan specialists shy away in fear of losing their assumed thoroughbred image should their footnotes betray too much English. Buried under a veritable mountain of grist for research, as these two recent bibliographies attest, there is as yet no single scholarly overview of the subject in English. Such neglect is unfortunate, for the problems and potential insights involved are substantial.