The village S lies in the plain that is known as the rice store of West Java. Surrounded by fields on which paddy is cultivated for a large part of the year, the visitor sees S as the prototype of the agrarian settlements that fill the landscape: a small-scale concentration of houses hidden amongst trees and farmyard crops, whose inhabitants have for centuries lived in the shelter of their community and depend for their living largely or even entirely on cultivating the land in the locality. This is the classical image of peasant society as laid down in the literature, but one that is in need of revision also in this particular case.

Many cultures include in their narrative discourse tales of women who have gone to war or joined the hunt and indeed Chinese culture has produced a plethora of tales which relate the deeds of such strong and exceptional women. The general opinion from Western academics about these women is that they are rebelling against restraints imposed upon their sex by patriarchal society and ‘under the guise of patriotism or wifely devotion [find] an understandable motive for rejecting hearth and home.’ That patriarchal discourse should perpetuate through history and literature a subversive mode of thinsimply because it was duped by the invocations of patriotism an loyalty appears less than convincing. Certainly, if these are the woman warrior's motives then they have been exceptionally well disguised by the literary redactions of the deeds of the women warriors in Chinese culture. It is the intention of this article to explicate the complexity of the woman warrior in Chinese culture and reveal the multiplicity of discursive functions she fulfils by using the specific case of two mid Qing texts, Honglou meng and Jinghua yuan. The contradictions embodied in the recurring form of the woman warrior and her Amazonian sisters hold a key to understanding the complex and ambiguous signifying systems of sexual ideology in mid Qing Chinese culture. In this respect I will be invoking an Althusserian notion of the specific relationship between ideology and literature whereby the particular feelings or perceptions generated by the literature are regarded as being produced by the ideology within 'which it bathes, from which it detaches itself as art, and to which it alludes' through an internal distanciation from that very same ideology.2 In Honglou meng and Jinghuayuan this internal distanciation is made apparent by the elaborate use of myth in the former and irony in the latter.

The purpose of this study is to shed light on an aspect of seventeenth century Anglo-Dutch relations that has hitherto been virtually neglected: the rivalry over the Banda Islands. I will point out how economic antagonism between England and the Dutch Republic, a topic that as a rule is mainly regarded in a European context, also erupted in the East-Indian sphere of expansion, even in remote areas such as Banda. Unlike in Europe, in Asia conflicting economic interests immediately and repeatedly resulted in open violence. This was stopped in 1619 by a treaty of cooperation that paradoxically enabled the Dutch to establish themselves even more firmly in these islands, and in the Indonesian Archipelago as a whole, in a way detrimental to the English.

There was a time when the economic confrontation between East and West was perceived as a confrontation between Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft. ‘East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,’—thus wrote J. H. Boeke, quoting Rudyard Kipling with warm approval. The notion has since been undermined by deeper explorations into the history of the Chinese and Indian merchant bankers, and the Jews of the Islamic world. Over large parts of Java, with which Boeke was most familiar, there was indeed a sharp contrast between the local communal economy and the sophisticated capitalism of the Dutch colonists. It appeared an inevitable process of history that the Dutch corporations should subjugate the petty Javanese communities of princes, peasants and pedlars. It was also taken for granted that the phenomenon was general and that European gesellschaft did not confront and conquer such petty gemeinschaften in Java alone. But when the individual studies of the Chinese, Indian and Islamic—Jewish long-distance trade and credit networks are seen in over-all perspective, the impression that emerges is one of confrontation, at the higher level, between two gesellschaften: one of European origin, the other Eastern. Nor does it appear to be the sort of outright collision that simply resulted in the latter being broken up and relegated to a corner. The idea nevertheless persists that the ‘bazaar economy’ of the East was a debased, fragmented and marginal sector absorbed and peripheralized within the capitalist world economy of the West.

At the heart of modern social science lies the belief that if societies understand the causes of their current condition, their people will foresee what future ills may befall them unless particular public policies are implemented to avoid the undesirable consequences of previous actions. Analysis and prediction thus provides the power to alter the future, which is only inevitable if people and governments do nothing to understand the causes of their present complaints. J. S. Furnivall, arguably the most prescient foreign analyst of Burmese political and economic life this century, was a true disciple of this idea.

The peasant farmers of Taishan County in southern China's Guangdong Province have created a pattern of village settlement which, using very limited resources, has produced an agricultural landscape and village environment that is a model of ecological integration. The pattern serves both the social and functional needs of the inhabitants by taking advantage of simple microclimatic modifications and the efficient use and recycling of resources. The result is a pattern of small dense villages set in a landscape that is highly evolved both aesthetically and ecologically.

A figure who walks larger than life through the pages of eighteenthcentury south-Indian history is Tipu Sultan Fath Ali Khan, who held power in Mysore from 1782 until his death at the hands of the British in 1799. In general, scholars of his reign have taken a mainly Eurocentric approach, essentially concentrating on his external relationships and activities, particularly with regard to the French and the British, while more recently there has been some examination of his economy and administration. Recent research into both kingship and religion in south India raises issues which suggest that it is time this ruler was reassessed in his own terms, from the point of view of the cultural environment in which he was operating.3 Little attempt so far has been made to do this.4 One matter which merits closer attention is his use of symbols, particularly in connection with the symbolic expression of kingship. Given Tipu's somewhat ambiguous status as a parvenu, whose legitimacy as ruler was questionable, this would appear to be a fruitful area for research.5 His most famous symbol was the tiger, yet while it has captured the imagination of scholars in other disciplines,6 it has not exercised the minds of historians to any extent.7 It is the aim of this paper to restore the balance by looking at this symbol in the light of the work of Susan Bayly, who has underlined the strongly syncretic nature of religion in south India. Drawing upon both written and oral material, Bayly has described the interaction which has taken place between Muslim, Hindu and Christian traditions, the result of which is a borrowing of symbols and ideas, a frequently shared vocabulary, and an interweaving of motifs within a common sacred landscape, at the centre of which is the imagery associated with the ammans or goddesses of the region.8 It is my contention that an examination of Tipu's tiger symbol will reveal that it is firmly rooted in this syncretic religious environment and that this should emphasize to us the importance of placing the Mysore ruler within his cultural context in order to understand his actions, particularly from the point of view of kingship.

Until 1971, when Alexander Woodside published his ground- breaking study, Vietnam and the Chinese Model, western scholarship on late traditional Vietnam was still locked within the narrow confines of French colonial understanding. Woodside's work, which drew extensively on Vietnamese historical sources, became an instant classic. So thoroughly did it dominate the field that two decades later it remains today the sole detailed discussion in English of the first half of the nineteenth century. Such is its stature that no-one has ever seriously questioned its findings, or challenged the author's vision of early nineteenth-century Vietnam. However, such a critique is long overdue. Despite the breadth of Woodside's scholarship, his conceptual framework assumes a continuity in Vietnamese history, culture, and politics from the Le to the early Nguyen that distorts the historical dynamic of the nineteenth cen tury, as well as contradicting some of his own evidence. His image of the nineteenth-century political elite provides a case in point. Like every scholar before or since, Woodside's conclusions about elite composition are extrapolated from the Sinic structures of its mandarinal organization, buttressed by anecdotal evidence and generalized impressions. But these are poor substitutes for quantification when enough readily-available biographical data exist to profile elite composition statistically. This article presents such an analysis. Its results contradict venerable French colonial views and Woodside's ideas alike; and do so in a way that suggests our present historical understanding of the late pre-colonial Vietnam needs serious revision.

The present day economy of Sarawak is characterized by a small but rapidly growing, largely rural population engaged in low productivity, semi-subsistence agriculture; a dependence on the export of a few primary commodities; the relative absence of modern transportation linkages, and a small industrial sector. In many respects, therefore, Sarawak represents a microcosm of the underdeveloped world. Yet for about a hundred years Sarawak was ruled by the white Brooke dynasty and was touted as a true frontier for western expansion and an ideal setting for the exploitation of its natural resources. There was very little development during this period because Brooke rule was inimical to economic progress—the Brookes gave little or no financial assistance to the natives, undertook few developmental initiatives, and expected foreign entrepreneurs and missionaries to provide the rudiments of physical and social infrastructures. The Brookes believed that change, particularly far-reaching or rapid change, would be harmful to the natives. Consequently, when Brooke rule ended, the problems of economic development seemed more intractable while the supposed benefits of ‘white’ rule appeared less tangible.

Following its annexation by the British in 1847 the Punjab province witnessed several significant developments—individualization of property rights in land, fixation and rigorous collection of land revenue in cash, introduction of a new legal-administrative system, construction of a road and railway network, canal-building activities and a colonization programme, commercialization of agriculture and increased monetization of economic transactions. These developments created a situation which, in turn, gave rise to two related problems –agricultural indebtedness and land transfer.1 These problems were not entirely unknown in the province in the earlier period, but during the last quarter of the nineteenth century indebtedness became so widespread and land transfer increased to such an extent that these became a matter of concern and embarrassment to many officials. For the magnitude of these problems seemed to contradict the colonial government's claimthat under its paternal care the province was enjoying agricultural prosperity, and the land revenue rates were moderate. Simultaneously some officials warned that there was a political danger in the situation. For a substantial part of the land sold and mortgaged by the cultivators was going to the moneylenders, and this meant the dispossession of the peasant proprietors. If no remedial steps were taken, it was argued, the animosity of the peasant population towards the moneylenders (sahukar) would ultimately be direted against the government.2 Initially the government refused to take any steps, arguing that the facts were insufficient 'to warrant interference by legislature to restrict the transfer of land'.3 But ultimately the contention that the problem posed a political danger gained ground and the Punjab Land Alienation Act was passed in1900 (and came into effect in 1901).4

A social problem in one country may often be held up as an example to others, but it is rare for it to bring forth an internationally coordinated response with a world-wide application. One of these rarities is the campaign against ‘hard’ drugs. While liquor laws differ widely from country to country, the modern system of laws against cocaine and the opiates have been established by international convention. These arrangements evolved out of the measures taken to help imperial China with its opium problem, which was regarded, at least in part, as a foreign responsibility arising out of the vast quantities of Indian opium which had been imported by foreigners into China throughout the nineteenth century, often in questionable circumstances. The behaviour of the opium merchants and their governments seemed all the more reprehensible because of the encouragement which it gave to the Chinese to break their own government's laws against opium smoking and poppy cultivation. The first International Opium Commission met in Shanghai in 1909 and passed a number of resolutions to help China; it also laid down principles of co-operation between producing and consuming countries which tended logically to expand in scope and force, leading to a global system of control of all narcotic substances, and to the institutionalization of these arrangements under the League and the United Nations.

A contemporary Hanoi newspaper, Viêt-Nam Tân Báo, reported on 28 April 1945: ‘Old men of 80 to 90 years of age that we talked with all told us that they had never before seen a famine as terrible as this one’. The Vietnamese starvation was described in a letter written in April 1945 by a foreign visitor named Vespy:

They roam in long, endless groups, comprising the whole family, the elderly, the children, men, women, all of whom are disfigured by poverty, skinny, shaky and almost naked, including young girls of adolescent age who should have been very shy. From time to time they stop to close the eyes of one of them who has collapsed and who would never be able to rise again or to take the piece of rag (I do not know what to call it exactly), that has covered the fallen victim. Looking at those human shadows who are uglier than the ugliest animals, seeing the shrunk corpses, with only a few straws covering them for both clothes and funeral cloth, at the side of the roads, one could feel that human life was so shameful.

Laos constituted one of the five territorial entities making up French Indochina—comprising in addition the colony of Cochinchina and the protectorates of Annam, Tonkin and Cambodia. It was never, however, one among equals. Even before the annexation of Lao territories east of the Mekong river in 1893, Laos was perceived as little more than an extension of Vietnam west towards Siam (Thailand), a much more significant potential prize. The addition of minor extensions west of the Mekong demarcated by treaty in 1904 and 1907 still gave France no more than half the former Lao Kingdom of Lan Xang. Any possibility of reconstituting a greater Lao state was thereafter lost.

Ongoing volatile political activism in the Indian Punjab, embodying an armed guerrilla warfare, inter-religious dissensions and severe official retaliatory policies, is a microcosm of a pervasive governability crisis in entire South Asia. The dilemma, with all its intensity, is the culmination of various parallel political processes in currency for almost one century. While the state, both colonial and post-colonial, may conveniently and simplistically perceive it as a mere administrative prblem or, at the most, an enduring communal disharmony fostered by hazy ideas,1 its very endurance warrants a serious review of numerous crucial denominators. Politicized ethnicity, largely banking on religious and similar other primordial factors, has received added momentum from interaction with a sterilized and elitist state structure in the wake of vital demographic changes and diasporic quest for identity. Neighbouring Pakistani Punjab exhibited a profile in political defiance for the entire period of Benazir Bhutto's premiership when her Pakistan People's Party (PPP) confronted a formidable opposition from the provincial government of the Islamic Democratic Alliance (IDA/IJI). It eventually catapulted Mian Nawaz Sharif into premiership.2 Such an increased political activism in the grain basket of the sub-continent may pose a perplexing issue for those to whom the province since early times has been a conformist, centrist and pro-establishment area when it came to its relationship with Indiawide movements all the way from the stormy events of 1857 to the 1980s Quest

One of the most neglected aspects of the history of Korea under Japanese colonial rule is the significant role of the drug trade during the colonial period. Korea emerged as a major producer of opium and narcotics in the 1920s, and in the 1930s became an important supplier to the opium monopoly created by the Japanese-sponsored Manchukuo regime. The latter development sparked an international controversy due to Manchukuo's unsavory reputation in connection with the illicit drug trade, and would later lead the International Military Tribunal for the Far East to identify Korea as the ‘principal source of opium and narcotics at the time of the Mukden Incident and for some time thereafter.’

Traditionally plantations in Malaysia provide primary school education for the children of their workers as well as other basic needs. This element is normally part of the ‘package’ of welfare facilities offered to the residential work force on plantations. However, the conditions under which this educational scheme is usually implemented are far from satisfactory, in comparison with those of the population as a whole and the progress achieved in the democratization of education since independence. Thus the plantation workers’ children have become an educationally disadvantaged group, with the highest drop-out rates, lowest achievement levels, and attending the ‘poorest and smallest’ schools in the entire nation. Almost all these schools in plantations are ‘Tamil Schools’ in accordance with the majority residential work force — Indian Tamils who form the bulk of the labour force in plantations. Basically this paper will review the characteristics and the educational climate of these schools, along with other indicators of education such as enrolment rates, drop-out rates, and achievement rates.

Having followed Modern Asian Studies for some time now as being among the major journals to have sustained a high degree of sophistication on debates relating to the historical and cultural developments of modern South Asia, one was greatly distressed to read Akbar S. Ahmed's article ‘Bombay Films: The Cinema as Metaphor for Indian Society and Politics’. Practices of representation always implicate positions of enunciation. In what follows, I wish to re-read Ahmed's article to show that his representations of Indian society derive their legitimacy not from their engagement with the many-layered sociocultural formation of the present-day Indian nation, but from a perspective which reinforces the continuing relations of dominance between metropolis and former colony. As an academician of and for present-day India, to challenge such a perspective is not merely an attempt to radicalize academic frameworks but, as I wish to show, expressive of a larger social need to create spaces where one is able to transform present reality. It is to identify marginality as much more than a site of deprivation. It is to identify marginality as a space of resistance, as a site of radical possibility.

It may be expected of the Kingsley Martin lecturer that he addresses a theme of topical relevance. This is as it should be, for the modern history of South Asia offers an exceptionally wideranging choice of themes for reflection and inquiry. It will, then, seem strangely inappropriate to go to the other end of the time scale, to the early beginnings of Indian civilization. It would be vain to try and advance an excuse for this turn-about — such excuses would be too easily tainted by special pleading. It is just the romantic lure of a world that was irredeemably lost long ago. Or was it? It may be nearer to us than we care to admit.

Inspired by Japanese influences among others the late Qing period saw a great surge in the writing of fiction after 1900. The rate of growth was unprecedented in the history of Chinese literature. The great surge coincided with rapid socio-political changes that China underwent in the last fifteen years of the Qing Dynasty. At the psychological level, the humiliating defeat by Japan in 1895 gave rise to a feeling of urgency for reform among some progressively minded Chinese intellectuals. Those reformers came to view fiction as a powerful medium to further their reform causes and to arouse among the people the awareness of the changes they believed China most urgently required. Fiction was no longer considered as constituting insignificant and trivial writings. It was no longer the idle pastime of retired literati composed to entertain a small circle of their friends, or written by a discontented recluse to vent a personal grudge through a brush. The role of fiction came to be defined in relation to its utility as an influence on politics and society and its artistic quality was subordinated to such a definition.

The Rise of the West, the creation of the Third World, the beginnings of disparity between Asia and Europe, or whatever other phrase is used, is obviously the great event of world history; hence the attempts to explain and date it, going back to the time when the Rise was actually beginning in the later eighteenth century. The literature is vast, complex and mostly of high quality. Some of it is concerned with causation—how did ‘the West’ get ahead, why did ‘Asia’ fall back or perhaps just stay the same? Others are interested in trying to date the beginnings of inequality—when can we see the beginnings of dominance, where did this occur and in which sectors of human life was this first to be seen? The first matter is, of course, the more important for an historian. It has been argued that, in the most general way, the fundamental cause of the beginnings of inequality is the series of changes in western Europe, and at first in England, known collectively as the Industrial Revolution. I will use this term as a shorthand for these collective changes, which Marshall Hodgson called the ‘Great Western Transmutation.’ Put most crudely, western Europe advanced and changed in a paradigmatic way, while Asia did not. At the most, Asia kept doing what it had been doing for centuries; Europe changed basically.