Few would deny that one of the most important factors shaping the Chinese economy in the past hundred years or so was the economic contact between China and the West. This external economic confrontation has been widely held by the Chinese as a factor detrimental to the development of the Chinese economy. First, it is argued that foreign trade and foreign investment in China upset the Chinese economy by ruining handicraft industries and disrupting agriculture. Secondly, foreign trade and investment in China are alleged to have drained the Chinese economy of its wealth because of the secular unfavorable balance of trade of China and the large amount of income made or remitted to their home countries by Western enterprises in China. Thirdly, it is maintained that foreign enterprises in China were so effective in their competitive power or enjoyed so many advantages secured on their behalf by their respective governments that the Chinese-owned modern enterprises were hopelessly oppressed and had little chance, if any, to grow.

The dormant political atmosphere, so long characteristic of the colonial society of the Indies, was undergoing an almost imperceptible change at the dawn of the twentieth century. Apart from the official adoption of the “Ethical Policy”—the moral assumption by the Netherlands of a concern for “native” welfare—ripples indicative of a new consciousness were occurring within the indigenous society. A movement for female education and emancipation was instigated by Raden Adjeng Kartini, daughter of the Regent of Djapara. A socio-cultural organization of Javanese intellectuals named Boedi Oetomo (Splendid Endeavor) was founded in May 1908. The Sarekat Islam (United Islam), initially concerned with economic matters, had by 1912 begun to stress religious principles and was soon to gain a mass following under Hadji O. S. Tjokroaminoto. The Eurasian E. F. E. Douwes Dekker, through agitation and the establishment of a real independence party, the Indische Partij (Party of the Indies), was the first to make a major contribution in the field of political nationalism.

These recent years have brought to Japan an array of new political institutions and procedures. If judged by the contents of the statute books alone, there would appear to be small resemblance between the basic legal structure and concepts of the prewar Japanese state and those of the present. The theoretic status of the emperor has been fundamentally altered, a new constitution of highly suspect paternity has appeared, civil rights have been accorded recognition and formal protection, and a system of government noted for its centralization and authoritarianism has been subjected to decentralization and democratization. All these are the works of the Occupation or, to be more precise, of the Japanese Government acting as a result of the directives or “suggestions” of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP).

Among the cardinal weaknesses of existing studies on British land policy in Ceylon is the almost total neglect of any reference to the theoretical foundations of this policy, and the tendency to study the situation in Ceylon in isolation instead of against the background and within the wider context of a colonial land policy. These weaknesses are all the more glaring for the years from c. 1830 to 1855 when a common land policy was gradually but systematically imposed throughout the British Empire, and an institutional apparatus controlling land policy and emigration was built up. The basis of the land policy of these years was an adherence to some of the fundamental principles of the theories of Edward Gibbon Wakefield.

To make a global survey of the study of Chinese literature today would hardly be possible within the space of a single article; apart from the sheer amount of material to be covered and the linguistic competence required, it would be very difficult to discuss—in the same breath—works carried out in radically different social and cultural environments and under radically different assumptions about the nature and purpose of literary scholarship. This survey, therefore, will be limited to the study of Chinese literature in the Western world, which, however, is not to be understood in a strictly geographical sense but rather in a cultural-linguistic one. Thus, works written in or translated into a Western language, and with a predominantly “Western” orientation, may be included irrespective of the author's nationality or the place of publication—whereas works by Chinese, Japanese, Soviet, and Eastern European scholars in their own languages will not be discussed. It should also be made clear—obvious though it may be—that this survey, not being a bibliography, cannot be exhaustive; it can only concentrate on works that appear to represent significant trends. Failure to mention a work, therefore, does not necessarily imply lack of esteem, nor does mention of a work necessarily imply unreserved agreement. Chronologically, this survey will cover works completed since i960, as well as a few works in progress and planned works. Finally, we may venture to take a glance at future possibilities and problems.

The basic unit for economic and social activities in rural Japan is the buraku, a cluster of houses, surrounding rice fields, and, very often, a small acreage of forest land. Although the buraku has had no legal status, since the war, it remains as the focus of loyalty and in-group feeling beyond the level of the household. It is within the buraku that the Japanese farmers cooperate with each other to meet and to solve their immediate problem. The lowest level of formal government in the farming countryside is the mura or son (village). It is at this point of contact that the Japanese farmer as a buraku inhabitant meets government in the actual administration of law. The Japanese farmer regards village administration in two ways. On the one hand, it provides him with formal machinery for the solution of the immediate and personal problems he faces in his community.

The period 1740–1800 is full of striking political and military events. Beginning with Nadir Shah's conquest, India experienced internal wars and Asian and European assaults, which overwhelmed the Mughal Empire and led to British supremacy. This essay endeavors to show the nature of the culture of India during this rather disturbed period.

Based on the articles in this “Global Asias” forum, this essay proposes that in order to build a meaningful bridge between Asian studies and Asian American studies, we must first face what needs to be critically overcome in Asian studies itself: persistent white male domination of the field, on the one hand, and historical role that the United States has played in Asia, on the other. One possibility is to adopt a transnational Asian studies approach, which advocates bringing Asian studies and Asian American studies together while also envisioning radical interdisciplinarity across Asian studies and African American studies, Latino/a studies, and Asian American studies. The key to pursuing such an approach would be to create a teaching and research environment of inclusion and collaboration.

From our present-day vantage point, the founding era of South Asian studies at Chicago looks like an age of unalloyed conceptual and political innocence. Area identities were given, disciplinary formations were unquestioned, the purposes of scholarship were self-evident, and the future was roseate. Half a century later, common sense on all these questions has vanished, and where we go from here is an entirely open question, requiring open and sustained discussion.

Based on a neo-Confucian vision that the monarch's mandate relied on listening to his people's grievances, the Chosŏn state (1392–1910) empowered subjects regardless of gender or status to address grievances to the sovereign that had not been rectified in lower courts. Contrary to the preconceived notion that women of the Chosŏn were silent subjects outside their domestic boundary, their petitioning activity shows that women, irrespective of their status, had the same legal capacity as their male counterparts to appeal grievances at local and capital levels. This article focuses on women's petitions and their linguistic practices to show how their petitioning activity complicated the gender dynamics of Confucian society. While the gender hierarchy was reinforced through women's narrative strategy as they appropriated the discourse of domesticity, I posit that women as legal agents were regendering legal identity by constructing a sense of personhood via their petitioning practice. Through articulating their gendered narratives, women struggled to defend not only themselves and their own sense of morality but also their entire family.

It is difficult to expound in any pithy fashion on the imprint that James C. Scott's work has had on writing history in the orbit of Asia. Where to start? From The Moral Economy of the Peasant all the way to Against the Grain, Scott's work has found receptive and fertile ground among his peers in Asian studies, who have often proudly pointed out to their non-Asianist colleagues that Scott is “one of their own.” This has certainly been true “internally” as well, in the ways that Southeast Asianists have spoken to their fellow professionals in the larger, allied subdisciplines of South and East Asian studies. It does not matter that Scott's books have touched on a wide variety of subjects: the central concerns with power, agency, space, and the essence of a shared humanity have all resonated with his professional interlocutors.

This article revisits our understanding of corvée labor regimes and their role and impact in the early expansion of colonialism and capitalism. Rather than remnants of feudal pasts, or in-kind taxation or revenue instruments of weak colonial powers, corvée regimes should be viewed as refined methods of colonial exploitation that provided colonial actors with more direct access to and control over the production of commercially interesting global commodities. This article explores and compares the corvée labor regimes employed and shaped by the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in the Moluccas, Sri Lanka, and Java. The article first addresses how to understand corvée and tributary relations as labor, production, and (political-)social regimes. Second, it explores and compares the organization and development of corvée labor relations in the context of the VOC in South and Southeast Asia. These corvée labor regimes reappear as crucial instruments in the expansion of (early) modern colonialism and capitalism, which could explain their widespread recurrence across the globe in the last few centuries.