Ohkawa and Rosovsky allege that the jump in Meiji land productivity was the result of exploitation of a large technological backlog which the Bakuhan system created in the advanced region of Tokugawa Japan, such as kinki, by blocking technological diffusion. This allegation is without factual substance—land productivity was probably the highest in the kinki region (prefectures of Kyoto, Osaka, Nara, Wakayama, Mie, Hyogo, and Shiga), but this region was the last place where farming technology could have been bottled up. The han governments could not set up effective artificial barriers there because their landholdings were so fragmented and so intermingled with others in kinki and also because technology-diffusion forces such as traffic, population density, and commercialization were so great. Therefore, it is the specialization of land and labor in order to produce certain crops for the market that was largely responsible for the high land productivity in kinki. Likewise, it is highly likely that the alleged rise in Meiji land productivity can be attributed chiefly to accelerated commercialization and specialization, brought about by the coming of railroads, the commutation of taxes, the great inflation (1877–1881), and general changes in demand. Autonomous and competitive han, driven by the necessity of meeting their increasing expenditures, expanded interregional trade and diffused, rather than obstructed, technology thus overcoming artificial and natural barriers.

This paper examines the role of the Hindu Epic Rāmāyaṇa in the historical and cultural contact between India and the rest of Asia. The Rama legend—rather legends—are prevalent in almost all countries of Asia, namely China, Tibet, East Turkestan, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaya, Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, and Burma. The contact was not only close but it was also general and widespread. By no means was it confined to the Brahmanical values which were upheld by Vālmīki in the Sanskrit Rāmāyaṇa and shared by the upper strata of Hindu society. The Rama legends prevalent in Asia, except those in China, do not agree in content and emphasis with the Vālmīki version. A close examination of the Rama story in India itself reveals that in addition to the Vālmīki version, a number of Rama legends, differing from the Valmiki story, were prevalent in vernacular and Jain Literature all over the country. All diese versions provided the diverse and complex source material for the Ramayanic legends of Asia. Brahmanical and non-Brahmanical elements appeared in different mixtures and emphasis. While China accepted the more orthodox ethical values, the countries of Soudieast Asia adopted Rāmāyaṇa mostly for the epic qualities of romance, adventure, and valor.

Serfdom was pervasive in Tibet and all laymen with the exception of a few hundred aristocratic families were hereditary serfs, tied to a lord through an estate. Nonetheless, the Tibetan social system was not rigid and closed. There was a significant modicum of mobility although mobility only between various serf substatuses.

The article examines the nature of the major serf sub-statuses and particularly focuses on the status of “human lease.” In a sense analagous to leasing land, the human-lease serf leased his personal freedom of movement and livelihood from his lord and was no longer obligated to work his lord's estate. But he was still a serf. He still had to pay an annual “lease” fee to his lord, and moreover, this linkage to his lord was still passed on to his offspring. The most striking feature of traditional Tibetan social structure emerges not as rigidity or flexibility but rather as the incorporation of a significant potential for mobility with a matrix of pervasive and hereditary serfdom. The institution of human lease reinforced the ideology underlying the estate system while providing the system the flexibility it needed to adapt to changing political and economic conditions.

This article concerns the Chinese law of the Ch'ing period at the trial level in one locality in China. Through use of a unique archive, namely, the Tanshui and Hsinchu archive, and through statistical studies of the materials in that archive, the article asserts the hypothesis that many prior conceptions of Chinese law of the Ch'ing period were inaccurate. Thus the article asserts that civil law matters were a substantial portion of all cases to come before the local magistrate. Furthermore, that the Chinese population was not terrified about bringing a case to court and that ordinary Chinese people litigated civil matters. Civil cases did not usually result in punishment for the offenders nor were there long delays in the processing of civil matters. Finally, the legal system of the Ch'ing period can not be differentiated from a modern legal system on the basis of its lack of rationality, but rather the significant difference between a modern and pre-modern system lies in the lack of effective institutions of control in a pre-modern society.

The August Revolution of 1945 constituted the most important turning-point in recent Vietnamese history.It formally marked the end of French colonialism in Vietnam and the beginning of Vietnamese national independence. It also marked the end of the Confucianist-oriented monarchy and the beginning of a Communist-oriented democratic republic. Much debate has been focused on why the Communist-dominated Viet Minh Front succeeded in seizing political power in August 1945. Anti-Communist detractors have generally attributed the Viet Minh success to an historical accident, i.e., the Viet Minh happened to be on the scene as the Japanese surrendered to the Allies. The Vietnamese Communists themselves have narcisistically attributed their success to skillful leadership in organization and propaganda. Actually the August Revolution must be explained by both the “objective material conditions” of the Vietnamese society of the time and the “subjective” predisposition of the Viet Minh. In March 1945, the Japanese occupation forces had destroyed the French colonial regime in a lightning coup d'etat. The general political confusion following the coup aggravated a severe famine which then ravaged Vietnam. Of several Vietnamese political groups, the Viet Minh emerged as the only one capable of organizing the Vietnamese people through their existing “liberation Committees.” In August 1945, following the Japanese surrender, the Viet Minh quickly seized political power and has retained it since. Thus both historical fortuity and revolutionary leadership accounted for the Viet Minh success.

In die pre-modern Chinese codes, Yoshimune (8th Tokugawa Shogun, 1716–1745) found much of use to him in his attempt to reform the administration of justice in early eighteenth century Japan. Building on an interest kindled by studies of Ming law in his native han, Wakayama, Yoshimune gathered about him a cluster of confucianists, including Ogyu Sorai and his brother Hokkei (Kan), and they in turn developed a new Chinese-based jurisprudence with new legislative concepts and roles for law generally. Hokkei did a recension of die Ming penal code supplied with diacritics, and Sorai did a commentary to the code, explaining its meaning in simple Japanese; together these two works vastly increased die accessibility of Ming law to Japanese scholars especially after these works came out in a wood-block publication.

Also, Yoshimune put several other groups of scholars to work on other Chinese legal sources—the T'ang codes, the Ch'ing codes and the eighth century T'angderivative Japanese codes (ritsuryō). At die same time the largest daimyo, Maeda Tsunanori, built up his own extensive collection of Chinese legal sources and encouraged their study in Kanazawa han. Similar studies and uses of Chinese law are found in several han later, notably Kumamoto, Wakayama, Aizu and Hirosaki. Thus a minor reception of Chinese law in Tokugawa Japan has been heretofore largely overlooked between the major eighdi century reception of T'ang law and the massive nineteenth century reception of European law a millcnium later.

This paper is primarily concerned with the institutional framework of economic policy formulation in China during the Northern Sung dynasty (960–1126). During this period there evolved a professional financial service whose members had a direct influence on economic legislation either as incumbents in fiscal offices or as members of Imperial advisory organs. The financial specialist was seen as possessing a specific body of expertise—administrative ability, talent in mathematics, a knowledge of classical Chinese monetary theory and familiarity with the history of economic policy. These attributes were tested in the civil service recruitment examinations and used as criteria for the recommendation and assignment of men to fiscal posts. The resulting consistency and predictability in legislation was a significant aspect of material progress in eleventh century China. The article is based on an extensive analysis of biographical information contained in chronicles, dynastic histories, records of conduct, and funerary inscriptions, as well as extant copies of examination questions and answers and edicts of appointment contained in the collected papers of Nordiern Sung writers.

For many reasons, including the importance of local geographic variation, twentieth century Chinese phenomena such as “warlordism” must be examined in individual sub-national cases. Szechwanese provincial militarists maintained a high degree of independence from outside control and stood aloof from central government politics from the end of the Northern Expedition until 1935. However, a combination of communist military pressure and provincial economic collapse finally induced Szechwan's leading militarist to seek Nanking's help. From early 1935, the National Government attempted to bring Szechwan within its sphere of military, economic, and political influence. In its struggle with entrenched provincial militarists, Nanking employed a complex set of reforms, at the heart of which were measures for the restricting of local administration and the extension of formal administrative control into local society. When the Sino-Japanese War Erupted in July 1937, however, Nanking had achieved only very partial success. The Nationalists' final peacetime opportunity to solve the modern dilemma of central vs. sub-national power in China had passed.

Political culture in India is not merely a reflection of community life-style. It is also the link between historical experiences of politics and model identities, on the one hand, and the needs of new political forms, on the other. Defined thus, it becomes not only an emergine national idiom, but also a cultural vector diat is gradually entering the community's life-style as a legitimate force of social change.

There are four historical stages in the development if the culture of Indian politics. The contemporary political culture also consists of four strands, each with its own psychological problems of adaptation and their typical cultural expressions. These strands are related, on the one hand, to the four corresponding historical stages and, on the other, to different levels of personality functioning in the model Indian. Within this framework, a new approach can be taken to the analysis of the major themes and symbols in Indian politics. It is possible, for example, to decompose some of the major themes into their stage-specific contents which, again, can be related to the larger adaptive problems faced by the community at different historical phases.

Buddhism in Thailand has been both subjected to integrative policies advanced by the Thai government and manipulated as an instrument for promoting national integration. As a result of reforms instituted at the end of the nineteenth century, several different traditions of Therevada Buddhism were united into a national religious system. In recent years, the Thai government has attempted to involve the Buddhist Sangha in efforts to promote economic development among the Thai peasantry and assimilation of tribal peoples into Thai society. While the policies designed to integrate Buddhism within Thailand were successful, the efforts to use Thai Buddhism as instrument of national policy could prove deleterious rather than advantageous to the attainment of national goals.

The Sadgapas and the Tilis, two Bengali castes broke with their parent castes. They formed themselves into new castes which gained higher social status than their parent castes in terms of the local caste hierarchy in Bangal. The emergence of the Sadgopa caste, as distinct from the Tilis, occurred at a period when none of the technological, political, and intellectual developments had yet occurred in Bengal that are generally used to characterize modernization. They were established as a caste by the second decade of the nineteenth century while the history of their growth and development goes back to the second half of the sixteenth century. On the other hand, the Tili movement took an extensive form in the second half of the nineteenth century. The Tilis receives wider social recognition as a caste during the third and fourth decades of the twentieth century. The Tili movement was accelerated by modern conditions. Apparently the external factors helping social mobility varied from the case of the Sadgopas to that of the Tilis. But there are certain common features of development in both cases. Both the Sadgopas and the Tilis had collectively abandoned their traditional occupation to switch over to comparatively more lucrative and prestigious occupations, and became landowners. Complete dissociation from the traditional occupations which identified them with lower social ranks made it easier for the Sadgopas and the Tilis to aspire for better social status. But the crucial factor in their movements for mobility was ownership of land, which enabled them to have direct control over the life of the people in their respective areas and enhance their social prestige and power. This was the source of their strength as distinct groups and die source of their collective power to bargain successfully with the rest of the society for higher status. The incentive of corporate social mobility originated, both under traditional, pre-modern circumstances and under the circumstances of modernization, from the achievement of each group of a sense of corporate solidarity, regarding internal as well as external prestige. This enabled the groups to break away from the parent castes and to form new castes with higher social status. Previous writing on the subject has made this corporate solidarity a function of response to external forces, which are identified with only factors of modernization. It is the contention of this paper that corporate solidarity could have had its genesis in prcmodern times as well and that modernization marked only its acceleration.

As historians of Southeast Asia turn to the study of rural history, they will have to resort increasingly to theoretical aids as an answer to the paucity of written records. Such theory, drawn from the other social sciences, must be shaped and tested to fit the needs of the historical discipline. For example, the work of Ester Boserup and Clifford Geertz on the relationship among population density, land usage, and socioeconomic behavior has applicability to problems of the evolution of Southeast Asian rural society under colonial impact. A comparison of Geertz' study of agricultural involution in nineteenth century Java with my own work on Pampanga Province, Philippines, provides some first steps towards a theory of rural change. Specifically, a modern cash crop economy produces more sophisticated contractual relations between tenants and landowners regardless of changes in population density per agricultural hectare. And, in the face of a scarcity of resources (e.g., land, cash, machinery, etc.) needed for modern agriculture, a given society will evolve highly complex institutions in order to share as far as possible those commodities in short supply. Specific types of institutions may develop to meet given needs, and the greater the number of shortages, the more involuted the society will become.

Vietnamese historians in North and South Vietnam have, in writings since 1954, given considerable attention to the problem of reassessing and interpreting developments during the nineteenth century. For historians in Hanoi the test of Vietnamese nationalism has been whether or not an individual resisted the French. Saigon historians have not applied such a restrictive standard of judgement. The approach of the two schools of history is exemplified in dieir respective treatment of two notable nineteenth century figures; the linguist and journalist Truong Vinh Ky, and the mandarin Phan Thanh Gian. Both these men are condemned by Hanoi historians for their failure to work against the French. Saigon historians are more ready to consider sympathetically the factors which led to these men acting as they did. Resistance-oriented scholarship along the Hanoi model presents a grave risk of distortion. In the case of Truong Vinh Ky it tends to disguise the extent to which his views on Vietnam's future development were echoed in the twentieth century. For Phan Thanh Gian condemnation of his failure to fight to the death against the French diverts attention from the extent to which his decision represented an important reflection of a widespread attitude among many members of the mandarinate.

Differing both in structure and operation from its parent Mughal model, the political system which came to be known as Hyderabad State developed in the Deccan in the second half of the eighteenth century. The major structural difference lay in the great power of two hereditary daftardars, the keepers of the central revenue records—these men could usurp the Diwan's (Chief Minister's) traditional control of government finances. Without overemphasizing contrasts with the Mughal model, for few behavioral studies have been made of Mughal administration, other apparent differences lay in Hyderabad's complete reliance on private contractors for revenue collection, the customary treatment of jagirs (land grants) as inheritable, and clear functional distinctions within the mansabdari system. Loosely structured patron-client relationships and the use of vakils or intermediaries characterized the operation of the system. The participants—nobles, local rulers, military men, bankers, record-keepers—were of diverse origins. The recruitment and composition of the Hyderabad nobility reflected the flexibility of the political system, as illustrated by an examination of the career patterns of the acknowledged “ten leading families” of the Hyderabad nobility.

A unique feature of traditional Chinese law was the provision by statute that an offender who voluntarily surrendered and confessed before discovery and who made full restitution was entitled to remsision of punishment. Offenders who physically harmed their victims or offended against die state itself by commiting treason or escaping across borders were not entitled to remission, but could receive a reduction of punishment. Under the Republic this provision, known as tzu-shou, was continued in name but materially changed in substance under the influence of Western law as introduced through Japan. In general, the rewards for voluntary surrender and confession were reduced to mere reduction of punishment, but the scope was broadened to include crimes such as homicide, for which restitution was impossible. When the Chinese Communists first began developing a legal system in the 1930's, they too adopted tzu-shou. However, under them it became primarily an instrument of political control and social and ideological reform. It has remained an important aspect of Communist law even to the present though its application has ceased to have any strict legal significance.

Historians have continued to view the Indian Civil Service (i.e., the British Indian bureaucracy or the “Covenanted Civil Service”) of the late nineteenth century as a highly popular and exclusive career for university-trained men in England. This is one specific aspect of the I.C.S. mydiology which views the nineteenth century British administrators in India as a superior body of highly efficient administrators. The sources, however, do not support the notions of exdusiveness and popularity. Even in the early years of the competition system, inaugurated in 1855, the caliber and educational background of the candidates failed to reach the high expectations of the Civil Service Commissioners. In the years between 1855 and 1874, both the number of nonuniversity candidates and nonuniversity recruits increased steadily. By 1874, nonuniversity men constituted over 74 percent of the competition candidates and approximately 55 percent of the selected recruits. In the same period, the representation of the Great English universities (Oxford and Cambridge) in the competition fell dramatically. Oxbridge students took 60 percent of the available positions in 1858, but only 18 percent of those offered in 1871. A disappointed British aristocracy (i.e., ruling class) became increasingly critical and apprehensive as to the future of the service. The secretary of state for India instituted a new system of recruitment in 1876, lowering the age limit for examination to 19 in hopes that the best students from the public schools would seek admittance. According to eminent spokesmen, such as Benjamin Jowett and Lord Ripon, the Viceroy Salisbury's reforms proved unsuccessful. The better students did not enter die competition, and a majority of the candidates came from unpretentious social and educational backgrounds. Authorities introduced other devices diroughout the remainder of the century to improve recruitment, but none achieved any improvement.

The reasons for the relative unpopularity of the I.C.S. careers were legion and included a complex mixture of the following factors: arrogant criticism voiced by the aristocracy concerning alleged low social origins of the civilian recruits; the general stigma attached to any close connection with India among the British aristocracy; the several and increasing grievances of the civilians, which the aristocratic ruling class did little to ameliorate; the pressures of Indian educated elements for employment in the I.C.S.; the declining value of the rupee; the widening spheres of professional employment in England; and what may be called the “natural” disadvantages of an Indian career.

This paper examines the benefits and the liabilities in Gandhi's exploitation of his own Gujarate regional and bania caste heritages in mobilizing political support.

From his father, a prime minister in a small, princely state in Kathiawad, Gujarat, Gandhi learned of methods of nonviolent political protest including the fast, passive resistance by sitting dharna, and organized disobedience to law. Later he employed these Kathiawadi techniques, designed for local struggles, in his national program. Recognizing the political potential of bania financiers, Gandhi chose in middle life to work in Ahmedabad, the business capital of Gujarat, and won the community's support for the Congress. In turn, Gandhi's swadeshi campaigns, proclaimed to encourage cottage industry, also stimulated Ahmedabad's textile industry. Gandhi also found organizational support in Gujarat: a nascent labor union; a press; efficient, nationalistic civic leadership; and caste-based agrarian groups chafing under British land policies.

Gandhi's innovative use of various Gujarati and bania heritages won many supporters across India, but is also alienated important groups: many Bengalis favored violence; Marxists called Gandhi a capitalist stooge; princes and landowners feared his mass-organizations; and Muslims found his Hinduism unsympathetic.

In 1910, a group or army officers led by Tanaka Giichi founded die Imperial Military Reserve Association in order to integrate Japanese society around military values. The founders, mostly proteges of Yamagata Aritomo, die chief Meiji period spokesman for unity to increase national wealdi and power, established die organization in 1910 because the already existing unity was under attack. Labor organizations and the influx of morally degenerate and subversive Western ideas caused Tanaka to fear army-civilian alienation and national divisiveness. Thus, to achieve integration, the reserve association disseminated the “soldier's ethos,” military ideals, such as obedience, frugality, bravery, cooperation, social stratification, anti-individualism, and diligence, all unified by a belief in a divine emperor, established branches in every community, 14,000 in all, and carried out activities which reinforced both the values and local social structure. The three million volunteer members, half of whom had no military experience, achieved their leaders' goals by performing public services and patriotic activities. They demonstrated to local residents die ethos in action and benefitted the community as well. By the 1930's, bodi die organization and die members had become the backbone of rural Japan.

The article describes the types of written records available to scholars of late Yi dynasty Korea, in particular, daily chronicles compiled under official auspices. Koreans were indebted to the Chinese for the chronological format of compilation, the Confucian moralistic purpose for historical writing, the respect for bare fact, and the necessity for truthful reporting. These objectives were often violated, however, because the recorders were also active bureaucrats involved in political disputes.

For the modern historian, these sources have certain advantages and disadvantages. They are good for institutional and administrative history, and they provide raw data for political history. On the other hand, they reflect the biases of the recorders, they do not reveal the really private thoughts of kings and officials, they are confined to the formal apparatus of the official communication and the court conference, and they are comprised over much of moralistic exhortation and general preachment, rather than with concrete discussion of the problems of economy, society, and policy. They do, however, represent an enormous body of material hitherto neglected by Western scholars.

The Sino-Indian boundary dispute provides an interesting test case to determine the willingness of mainland China, a revolutionary regime, to argue its position within the framework of traditional international law. Judging by Peking's official rationale for its claims in that dispute, one must conclude that its leaders demonstrated an awareness of the law's uses and limitations, and a willingness to rely upon it as an important support for its position. Thus, though the issue was viewed as a political question, Peking chose to argue that the correct answers to it should rest upon such legal or quasilegal considerations as: (1) the boundary had never been delimited through a process recognized by international law and (2) Chinese claims to contested territory were based upon historical evidence such as administrative control and official records. At the same time, China's diplomate skillfully interspersed nonlegal theses, e.g., that India was seeking to gain by the imperialist activities of the British, and underlined all of their propositions with a show of military strength on her southern frontier.