KLD Book Review of City in Action

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Asian Studies Review
December 2009, Vol. 33, pp. 535–563
Book Reviews
China
SIGRID SCHMALZER. The People’s Peking Man: Popular Science and Human
Identity in Twentieth-Century China. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008.
Downloaded By: [University of New South Wales] At: 03:23 15 December 2009
368 pp. US$26.00, paper.
The People’s Peking Man musters rich archival materials and interviews, critical
analyses, and comparative history of science to explore the discursive formations of
national, local, and indeed human identities in twentieth-century China. In its
synthesis of a variety of data sources and critical methods, the work is
groundbreaking. Crucially, the book addresses the important decades between
1940 and 1970, while at the same time grounding the research in earlier periods and
drawing necessary connections to contemporary cultural phenomena. It treats
questions of science dissemination, popular science, and anti-superstition campaigns
in Mainland China.
The book is oriented around the rhetorical axis of the story of the ‘‘Peking Man’’
[yuanren, also known as Sinanthropus pekinensis or simply ‘‘Nellie’’]. I say
‘‘rhetorical’’ because in many ways this fine, ambitious historical study is not really
about the discovery of the Peking Man at all. On one hand, Schmalzer offers us
an informative and colourfully articulated history of various groups’ claims to
the Peking Man and how the cultural meanings associated with the discovery
were subsequently transformed in light of changing theories of evolution. For
example, the discovery of the Peking Man at first led archeologists to identify the
origin of mankind in China, but when subsequent archeological discoveries moved
the data point to Africa, Peking Man was relegated to an obsolete branch of the
human family tree in archeological – and also political, literary and historical –
discourses.
But in places the story of the Peking Man is secondary to other fascinating
examinations of topics such as the craze for fossil-hunting, the fever for yeren [a
figure like ‘‘Bigfoot,’’ or the Yeti], and important discussions of the politics of
science dissemination vs research under Mao; tension between scientific elitism
and peasant involvement in science research and field work (reminiscent of
debates about the applications of popular literature both in the Republican
period and beyond); and an extremely helpful discursive excavation of how
appropriations of Engels and Darwin on the links between labour and human
evolution played into early Chinese socialist theory and subsequent under-
standings of humanity as defined by labour. The author highlights the apparent
ISSN 1035-7823 print/ISSN 1467-8403 online/09/040535-29

DOI: 10.1080/10357820903361078
536 Book Reviews
contradiction that Mao, on one hand, called for greater recognition and
involvement of peasant contributions to archeological research (and by extension,
science in general), while at the same time relegating such contributions to the
realm of ‘‘superstition’’. In this way, both in her conclusions and in the book at
large, Schmalzer seems to be suggesting that there is still room to find a more
truly ‘‘populist’’ science in China.
Schmalzer should be commended for taking stylistic and structural risks in her
work, mixing detailed and exhaustive archival research with interviews, and
historical presentations of data with literary analysis. It is a successful mix, though
ambitious, and a must-read for anyone interested in the modern history of science
(and the history of modern science) in China.
LARISSA HEINRICH
University of California, San Diego

Ó 2009 Larissa Heinrich
JAMES LEIBOLD. Reconfiguring the Chinese Nation: How the Qing Frontier and Its
Indigenes Became Chinese. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. 288 pp. US$42.50,
hardcover.
World War I and nationalist-inspired movements in the early twentieth century

shattered the Hapsburg, Ottoman and Romanov empires into a multitude of
states. By contrast, after the 1911 Revolution that toppled the Qing dynasty, the
new Chinese nation-state retained most territories of the Qing empire and
claimed sovereignty over the diverse peoples living in Tibet, Xinjiang, Inner
Mongolia and Manchuria, among other places. The ability of the modern
Chinese nation-state to maintain its hold on the territories and subjects of the
former Qing empire is one of the most remarkable phenomena in modern world
history. (It is particularly impressive given that half of the Qing territories were
acquired relatively recently, in the course of the eighteenth century.) While many
assume that China’s empire-to-nation transition was natural and unproblematic,
James Leibold’s book unmasks the laborious effort by post-Qing political parties
and Han elites to invent a ‘‘Chinese nation’’ that was geographically bounded
and culturally homogenous, encompassing all Qing frontier territories and
subjects.
Reconfiguring the Chinese Nation: How the Qing Frontier and Its Indigenes Became
Chinese is the first book to comprehensively address China’s transition from empire
to nation-state during the late Qing and Republican eras. In this book, Leibold
historicises the concept of the Zhonghua minzu, or the Chinese nation, which
assumes the centrality of the Han and a geographical, political and cultural one-ness
among all who live in China. This work convincingly demonstrates that this concept,
which is deeply embedded in both the official histories and national psyche of the
People’s Republic of China, was a twentieth-century construct. Going against
conventional wisdom, Leibold astutely points to the striking continuity in minority
integration policies adopted by various post-Qing regimes. Despite bitter
ideological, political and military clashes, the Nationalist and Communist parties
Book Reviews 537
shared the conviction that ethnic differences among the Chinese population were an
obstacle to China’s independence and modernisation. As such, both scrambled to
construct policies and historical narratives aimed at ‘‘reify[ing] the spatial and
temporal boundaries of the nation’’.
Leibold’s first chapter illustrates how early twentieth-century and early
Republican-era Chinese nationalist theorists grappled with various interpretations
of the Chinese nation – from a Han racial nationalism to an inclusive but Han-
centric Zhonghua minzu. This chapter shows that modern Chinese nationalism was
neither a purely imported concept nor a natural historical development. Leibold
convincingly argues that, in their effort to define the nation-state, Chinese
nationalist theorists borrowed from traditional Chinese ways of viewing cultural
others, as well as modern ideologies of national sovereignty and social Darwinism.
As a result, early nationalist theorists came to define the nation in terms of
territorial integrity, Han racial superiority, and the necessity of assimilating non-
Han groups.
Unlike the Qing empire, which ruled a polyethnic empire by forging personal
and political alliances with religious and political elites in Tibet, Xinjiang and
Mongolia, the modern nation-state emphasised territorial integrity. So the first
challenge facing post-Qing political parties was devising a strategy to legitimise
the Chinese nation-state’s claim of sovereignty over the culturally and ethnically
diverse Qing frontier. Chapters 2–3 discuss how various Chinese political forces
tried to walk a fine line between exerting control over the frontiers and appeasing
transfrontiermen, ethnic elites and foreign powers. Leaders of the Nationalist
and Communist parties, such as Sun Yat-sen, Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong,
paid lip-service to the idea of ‘‘national self-determination’’ and adopted
the ‘‘loose rein’’ approach when their own military and political powers were
weak. At the same time, these political forces maintained the Chinese nation-
state’s right to former Qing territories. And the promise of ‘‘national self-
determination’’ was eventually replaced by limited regional autonomy for
minority nationalities.
Chapters 4–5 show how early Republican revolutionaries, Nationalists and
Communists alike, invented and propagated a myth of national belonging to
accompany the policies of territorial integration. Historians affiliated with the
Nationalist and Communist parties employed cultural myths, archaeological
discoveries and the modern science of ethnography to invent ethnogenealogies that
provided historical and scientific justifications for the unity of people living inside
China’s territorial boundaries. While the meaning of Zhonghua minzu varied from
one party to another and from one theorist to another, the phrase was consistently
used to construct an overarching identity for all who lived within the physical
boundaries of the nation-state.
Leibold’s discussion leaves some questions unanswered. For example, how did
minority leaders influence debates about the definition of the Chinese nation?
With the exception of some discussion in Chapter 2 of Inner Mongolia
Independence Movement leader De Wang and Tibetan leaders during the
Xikang incident, the book focuses heavily on state actors and Han intellectuals
closely associated with the state. In the concluding chapter, Leibold contends that
Chinese nation-building was a largely top-down process that centred on state
538 Book Reviews
actions. One wonders how a more in-depth analysis of state-minority interactions

and minority agency in this process might have brought this contention into
question. Additionally, Leibold’s excellent analysis of central policy discussions
and debates naturally leads the reader to wonder how these forms of rhetoric
affected the actual political and cultural incorporation of various non-Han
groups.
To be fair, China’s transition from empire to nation was a complex process. Issues
of minority agency as well as political and military manipulations cannot be fully
addressed in one book alone. For his part, Leibold has accomplished his purpose of
demystifying the Chinese nation. In doing so he has not only filled an important gap
in understanding modern Chinese nationalism, but also successfully challenged
many existing notions about the Chinese nation and policies of major twentieth-
century political parties.
Reconfiguring the Chinese Nation adds a substantive new voice to the scholarly
discussion of modern Chinese nation-building. Students of modern world history,
especially those interested in analysing the global phenomenon of the empire-to-
nation transition, will also find the book useful. A must-read for graduate students
investigating modern China and twentieth-century world history, Leibold’s work is
accessible – thanks to its lucid and jargon-free prose – to undergraduate students
and the general public.
YUFENG MAO
Washington University in St. Louis
Ó 2009 Yufeng Mao
YUKO KIKUCHI (ed). Refracted Modernity: Visual Culture and Identity in

Colonial Taiwan. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2007. 296 pp. US$60.00,
hardcover.
Refracted Modernity is one of the few books in English that is devoted to the cross-
cultural examination of visual art and culture in Taiwan during the Japanese
colonisation period (1895–1945). This volume, part of a larger project at the
University of Arts London, is a compilation of papers presented by project members
at two conferences in 2000 and 2001.
Japanese imperialism is frequently neglected in the more generalised, Eurocentric
literature on colonialism; yet by the early twentieth century, Japan was a prominent
Asian power that had already colonised Taiwan, Korea and parts of Northeast
China. The principal concept of the volume, ‘‘refracted modernity’’, is employed in
the Taiwan context ‘‘to refer to the transferable nature of ideas and practices of
Euroamerican colonialism and in particular, Japanese colonialism, which itself had
adopted and refracted those of Western colonialism’’ (p. 9). Hence modernity in
colonial Taiwan is examined as being at variance with a solely imperialistic western
stimulus, as the transfer of ideas came through a Japanese sense of ‘‘refraction’’
embodied within an Asian framework.
Already heavily influenced by Chinese and local aboriginal heritages, Taiwanese
visual culture was inculcated with elements of Japanese aesthetics during the
Book Reviews 539
colonial period. Contextualising both points of view, this volume reveals Japanese
sensibilities and how the Taiwanese were expected to comply with them.
Constructing a visual culture that was distinctive to Taiwan through the
encouragement of its own ‘‘local colour’’, the Japanese colonisers also imposed
their own discourse of vernacularism onto the colonised.
In the volume’s chapters, one garners the dynamics of Japanese and Taiwanese
life in the colony. Naoko Shimazu examines, for instance, how the travel writer
Tokutomi Sohô was not particularly interested in Taiwan itself, but rather in
Japanese susceptibilities in Taiwan, such as how the aborigines [banjin] were being
‘‘civilised’’ to the extent that they threatened the idealised inferiority of the ‘‘noble
savage’’ and the superiority of the civilised Japanese. There was a tendency to
‘‘scientifically’’ classify Taiwanese aboriginals, their artefacts and crafts, in an
anthropological sense; all part of a purpose of implying the island’s need for
modernisation and Japan’s ability to provide it.

Toshio Watanabe examines the influential artist and teacher of western-style
painting in Taiwan, Ishikawa Kin’ichirô (1871–1945), who introduced the idea of
modern landscape painting to Taiwan from ideas that developed out of the Japanese
Watercolour Movement. The characterisation and reference of Taiwan as the
‘‘exotic south’’ [nangoku, or literally, ‘‘southern country’’] was a reply to the notion
that in comparison to western colonisers, Japan had no ‘‘East’’ in which to explore
its ‘‘exoticism’’. Interestingly, Ishikawa and other artists did compare Taiwan with
Italy, and Ishikawa insisted that Taiwanese landscape paintings be represented with
‘‘modern’’ bright hues, contributing to an implied concept that ‘‘the South was the
natural home of modernity’’ (p. 75).
There were two official painting styles prevalent in Taiwan by the time of the first
government-sponsored art exhibition in 1927: Western-style painting [seiyôga] and
Oriental-style painting [tôyôga]. Chuan-ying Yen explores the short history of
tôyôga in Taiwan and its demise towards the end of the Japanese colonial period.
Tôyôga artists included the female artist Chen Jin (1907–1998), an example of a
privileged female artist who studied at the Tokyo Women’s Art School in Japan.
According to Kaoru Kojima, Chen’s work clearly reflected this ‘‘refracted
modernity’’, as she excelled at both Japanese-style painting, such as women in
kimono, and Taiwanese ‘‘local colour’’ through the depiction of Taiwanese women
that was reminiscent of the bijinga [pictures of beautiful women] tradition.
The Japanese occupation came to an end in 1949 when Guomingdang (GMD)
forces from the mainland ‘‘recolonised’’ a dramatically different Taiwan, one that
had modernised both outwardly in its art, architecture and urban development and
inwardly in its language and refracted ideologies of modernism gained over the
colonial period. This rich and complex period, which was largely suppressed in the
minds of the populace once the GMD took power, needs to be examined and
recognised. An appreciation of the significance of this period helps us to gain a
deeper understanding of not only the development of Taiwanese visual culture and
identity but also its importance to Taiwan today.
NATALIE SEIZ
University of Sydney
Ó 2009 Natalie Seiz
540 Book Reviews
ZHANG XUDONG. Postsocialism and Cultural Politics: China in the Last Decade
of the Twentieth Century. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008. 346 pp.
US$24.95, paper.
In Postsocialism and Cultural Politics, Zhang Xudong presents a critical narrative of

cultural politics in 1990s China, outlining three distinct discourses of intellectuals,
literature and cinema. Zhang argues that the themes and issues of the decade provide
a frame of reference for understanding Chinese cultural-intellectual manifestations
in the sense of a historical condition that he terms ‘‘postsocialism’’.
The 1990s was a transitional period in China’s dramatic thirty years of reform
from 1978 to 2008. Zhang describes a traumatic twelve-year span that began with
the depressed post-1989 Tiananmen period and the failure to win the right to host
the 2000 Olympic Games, and was followed by the Gulf War in 1990, the implosion
of the former USSR in 1991, renewed tensions with Taiwan in 1996, and the Asian
financial crisis of 1998. The period also witnessed the return of Chinese sovereignty
over Hong Kong in 1997 and Macao in 1999 before ending with China’s entry into
the World Trade Organisation in 2001.
Zhang offers a detailed description in Part One of the intellectual and ideological
debates and confrontations between China’s Neo-liberal and New Left positions
following a shift in the global ideological environment after the 1989 Tiananmen
Incident when China’s reform process came under consistent assault from Western
capitalist triumphalism as illustrated in Francis Fukuyama’s book The End of
History and the Last Man, which was widely read by Chinese intellectuals in
translation. Although both positions share a common social and intellectual origin
in Chinese modernisation of the Reform Era, there is a significant fault line between
these two intellectual discourses or groups. To put it in very general terms, Chinese
Neo-liberals call for privatisation, deregulation and liberalisation, claiming
capitalism as the only world system while accusing New Left intellectuals of
rejecting the idea of the free market, Western values and the universality of the
liberal discourse. The tension between the two is described as an ideological conflict
between ‘‘economic liberty and political democracy, individual freedom and social
justice, the universal and the particular, free market and state intervention,
modernity and its critique’’ (p. 85). While the Neo-liberal position adopts the
mainstream discourse of the Chinese state, namely ‘‘the ideology of moderation and
universal progress’’ (p. 83), the theoretical sources of the New Left are often
borrowed from the intellectual Left in the West such as the Frankfurt School,
Fredric Jameson, Michel Foucault, Edward Said and Gayatri Spivak. Looking back
today as the capitalist world is in financial crisis and world governments are calling
for bailout plans, this debate in China during the 1990s provides an interesting case
study in introspection.
In terms of the conceptual frame of his book, Zhang argues that postsocialism is
defined by a sense of historical continuity and discontinuities. In theory, socialism
has survived in the phenomenological richness of postsocialism, with the signified
now filling as the signifier of discourses of Chinese postmodernism and nationalism;
while on the other hand the 1990s marked, in practice, the threshold of China’s
amazing achievement in ‘‘consistent economic growth and political stability’’ (p. 1).
Zhang’s theoretical and chronological account of the tumultuous 1990s also seeks to
Book Reviews 541
negotiate a space in-between Western theory and Chinese reality and to theorise
Chinese local experiences, in order to explain why and how Chinese postmodernism
became coupled with Chinese postsocialism, which in my view is a significant
contribution to Chinese Studies. This book is not only an attempt to ‘‘break the
straitjacket of socialism and capitalism as two reified and fetishized social, political
and theoretical institutions’’ (p. 87), but also provides theoretical ground to tackle
other terms describing post-Mao China, including ‘‘socialism with Chinese
characteristics’’, ‘‘capitalism with Chinese characteristics’’, ‘‘socialist market
economy’’ and ‘‘state capitalism’’. It is allegorical that the dogmas of capitalism
and socialism are coupled not only in these terms but, more interestingly, in the
practice and reality of the imagined communist nation-state of China, by its first
irritating then accepted place in the global capitalist system.
In Parts Two and Three of the book, Zhang explores literary and cinematic
discourse articulated in Wang Anyi’s nostalgic ‘‘rewriting’’ of Shanghai and Mo

Yan’s ‘‘demonic realism’’. Zhang also explores Tian Zhuangzhuang’s Blue Kite, a
film that was banned in China but won awards overseas, and Zhang Yimou’s Qiu
Ju’s Story, the tale of a country woman’s legal battle with a local cadre. Although
these sections make for fascinating reading, the book as a whole is unbalanced
structurally, in particular in Part Three, which is far too short compared with
Part One and seems to be an unnecessary add-on to the book’s main focus and
argument.
WANG YI
University of Western Australia
Ó 2009 Wang Yi
Japan and Korea

TIMOTHY R. TANGHERLINI and SALLIE YEA (eds). Sitings: Critical
Approaches to Korean Geography. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press and
Center for Korean Studies, University of Hawai’i, 2008. 237 pp. Illustrations.
US$58.00, hardcover.
Korean elites historically tended to view their country’s position vis-à-vis China, as
indicated in names such as Tongguk (Eastern Country). Yet there was little interest
in local geography, as opposed to topography and geomancy. Nor was there much
interest in the larger world until the end of the nineteenth century. The catalyst for
this change was the threat of imperialism. Greater knowledge of the outside world
thus became of paramount importance. In Yu Kilchun’s S oyu-kyonmun (Observa-
tions on a Journey to the West, 1895), Korea became just one country among many
located in Asia, with Asia just one among seven continents.
Therefore, it is fitting that this volume focuses on the twentieth century. The
editors’ ‘Introduction’ teases out the ideas that link the ten chapters while
emphasising the importance of geography as something both actual and figurative.
The chapters themselves are organised around ‘‘the (colonial) city’’, ‘‘the (imagined)
village’’, ‘‘religion’’ and ‘‘the margin’’. Each is interesting in its own right, but they
542 Book Reviews
collectively underscore the degree to which ‘‘constructed places’’ have entailed

‘‘contested spaces’’ in modern Korea (pp. 1–11).
It is helpful that Henry’s chapter on ‘Respatializing Chos on’s Royal Capital’
comes first, setting out the tension between ‘‘representations of space’’ and ‘‘spaces
of representation’’ (p. 15). This tension, which characterised urban reforms under
the Japanese in the early twentieth century, occurs implicitly and explicitly
throughout the volume. Just as important, he examines how the Korean elite
attempted to refashion the royal capital of Hanyang (i.e. Seoul) into the imperial
capital of Hwangs ong during the short-lived Great Han Empire (1897–1910), as well
as how residents ‘‘actively sought to protect their individual and collective interests’’
(p. 16). Emphasis on agency is central to Jin’s investigation of the views surrounding
the demolition of the Japanese government-general’s headquarters in the mid 1990s.
In tackling this topic, he is working in a fairly dense area of scholarship in Korean
and English, including Hyung Il Pai’s influential Constructing ‘‘Korean’’ Origins

(2000). Nonetheless, his treatment benefits from the passage of time and adds to a
fuller understanding of the debates that erupted between advocates of demolition
and preservationists. Ultimately, Jin highlights the complexity of the competing
nationalisms and the continued power of native practices. I was in Seoul at the time
and fully agree that the ‘‘official event of the demolition [showed] how the cultural
heritage of the past as premodern is negotiated with a modern, popular conception
of the nation’’ (p. 54).
Likewise, I have visited many places mentioned in ‘Chos on Memories’,
Tangherlini’s study of the Korean Folk Village (Minsokch’on). I vividly recall my
own sense of unreality at the Minsokch’on, though I had little idea how unreal it
truly was. The ‘‘folk village is not only a fiction of time and history, it is also a fiction
of geography’’ (p. 70). His analysis draws strength from careful treatment of the
many factors influencing interpretation of Korean folk life and its fictional
representation/s. Nemeth, by contrast, examines destruction of real (i.e. ‘‘natural’’)
villages during modernisation. Firsthand experience explains his anger. He even
suggests that the ‘‘unprecedented, unnatural, and premeditated’’ violence done to
farmers by ‘‘economic development planners’’ was a ‘‘planned genocide’’ (p. 92). I
am not comfortable with this use of ‘‘genocide’’ (though I understand it). Still, it is
impossible to be unmoved by stupid decisions such as the one demanding the
abandonment of grass and the adoption of tin and plastic for roofs. Nemeth
emphasises the Neo-Confucian implications of grass roofs, but what he finally shows
is that in practical terms, grass was better.
The following section treats geography and religion. As usual, Kendall combines
sharp observation with masterful storytelling, styling her chapter as something
between ‘‘a field anecdote and a fairy tale’’ (p. 101). Here, too, the central question is
conflict over space and its use. Yet, paradoxically, she strikes an upbeat note. Her
‘‘mobile landscape’’ emphasises the role of human memory in making space sacred.
People – and therefore, the gods – are resilient. ‘‘Buildings may crumble, but spirits
are not one with the material substance of the shrines’’ (p. 118). Ryu, by contrast,
focuses on movement within the immovable Kyeryong Mountain. Here the focus is
on the various meanings of the site for Shamanists, Buddhists, Confucians and other
religious groups, as well as the state. Yet ‘‘shamanists have managed to maintain
their control of the mountain through the practice of spatial tactics’’ (p. 121).
Book Reviews 543
Oppenheim also deals with a specific location, South Mountain in Ky ongju,
focusing on its meaning for a lay Buddhist group that has connected it with ‘‘a broad
vision of religious, environmental, historical, and social harmony’’ (p. 149). In this
respect, the significance of South Mountain is an ongoing process. It ‘‘works
because, as made, it is always ever ‘unfinished business’’’ (p. 143).
The final section explores spaces inhabited by the socially marginalised. Song’s
study, a model of clarity, succeeds in its stated goal of understanding ‘‘homelessness
and homeless policy in South Korea following the Asian debt crisis’’ through ‘‘the
transformation of two symbolically charged physical spaces’’, Seoul Square and the
Pangmin Factory (p. 159). This makes for grimly fascinating reading. One con-
sequence of the financial crisis was that it allowed for the categorisation of the
homeless into the deserving and undeserving, with the former comprised of those
whose plight resulted from the crisis and the latter (around 80 per cent, according to
one trustworthy estimate) comprised of everyone else. As might be expected, this

distinction was problematic at best, and Song draws out the many important
ambiguities.
Socio-sexual ambiguities abound in the two final chapters. Pettid’s chapter on
space for ‘‘all lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgendered (LGBT) persons’’ (p. 174) is a
marker of change. Not too long ago, sexuality was largely off-limits, and one often
heard that homosexuality did not exist in Korea – though, of course, it did and had,
as Pettid shows in a helpful historical overview (which quotes me). He shows that
although cyberspace has led to a ‘‘growing sense of empowerment and political
rights’’ among the sexually marginalised, severe challenges remain vis-à-vis political,
economic and family life (p. 183). Cyberspace is not real space, and we must wait to
see whether this translates into real rights for LGBT persons. Likewise, Yea focuses
on what is generally considered deviant, specifically the ‘‘foreign spaces’’ typified by
kijich’on or the areas surrounding US military camps. Yea shows how such spaces
have evolved through immigration and thus how limiting it is to view them vis-à-vis
‘‘challenges to Korean identity’’ (p. 202). Moreover, she humanises such spaces and
convincingly argues that despite abuses associated with prostitution they also
provide a space for many ‘‘to construct alternative futures for themselves’’ (p. 203).
Judging from news reports after the introduction of the 2004 Anti-Prostitution
Law in South Korea, it seems that the construction of alternative futures is ongoing
and set to grow more complex for all involved. But then, as this volume illustrates, it
is always unfinished business.
GREGORY N. EVON
University of New South Wales
Ó 2009 Gregory N. Evon
MASAHIKO AOKI, GREGORY JACKSON and HIDEAKI MIYAJIMA (eds).

Corporate Governance in Japan: Institutional Change and Organizational Diversity.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. 480 pp. US$99.00, hardcover; US$49.95, paper.
Corporate governance is concerned with the rules – explicit and implicit – that
govern the way in which corporations operate. The Japanese style of corporate
544 Book Reviews
governance has been the subject of intense interest and extensive study by scholars.
In part, this stems from the success of the Japanese economy in generating high
economic growth and relative social equality, up to the 1990s at least. To use Aoki’s
(1990) characterisation, the J-firm’s corporate governance is bank-centred and
stakeholder- and relationship-oriented; there is a main bank, cross shareholdings,
insider-dominated boards and lifetime employment. Because these elements are
complementary, there is credence to thinking in terms of nationally (and culturally)
distinct systems of governance.
The collapse of the bubble economy in 1992 led some commentators to argue that
corporate governance itself had contributed to Japan’s decade-long recession and
growth slowdown (see, for example, Yafeh, 2000 for a discussion). The book under
review may already be the definitive study of contemporary Japanese corporate
governance. It presents the findings of a study group convened by the Research
Institute of the Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI) in 2002. In addition to

chapters written by each of the editors, there are contributions from leading scholars
such as Ron Dore, Takeo Hoshi, Hideshi Itoh, Mari Sako, Zen Shishido and
Christina Ahmadjian. In a remarkably coherent set of studies, they consider various
aspects of corporate governance in Japan and the way in which it has changed in the
aftermath of the collapse of the bubble economy and the banking crisis. The sub-text
is whether Japanese firms are (should be?) becoming more market-oriented and
Anglo-American (viz. Aoki’s shareholder-focused A-firm) in the way in which they
do business. This reflects the hand wringing in Japan about the perceived
shortcomings of the traditional J-firm structure of corporate governance.
The traditional structure has decided advantages and disadvantages. Stable
shareholders through reciprocally held cross shareholdings among corporations
and their bankers serve to insulate the firm from hostile takeovers and a possible
‘‘short-termism’’ associated with share price concerns. The main bank is a
monitor. The bank intervenes when times get tough, while avoiding costly
bankruptcy procedures and preserving the value of long-term relationships with
suppliers and employees. These features encourage investment in physical and
human capital in the firm. In fact, the features of the governance system are both a
uniform pattern of business organisation and a potential source of comparative
institutional advantage.
Of course, things went seriously pear-shaped in the early 1990s. Japanese banks
with non-performing loans (NPLs) rolled over loans to bankrupt clients and
undermined the credibility of intervention. There are two reasons for the
ineffectiveness of banks. One is that the banks themselves were not effectively
monitored and disciplined (i.e. ‘‘who monitors the monitor?’’). A second is that the
banks performed well prior to the crisis not because they monitored and disciplined
their client firms, but because the firms were themselves disciplined by international
competition. When client firms reduced their reliance on bank credit in the 1980s,
the banks extended their funding to non-traded-goods industries, such as real estate
and finance. A direct consequence was the NPL problem in the 1990s. Of course,
circa early 2009, I do not have to convince readers that financial crises have
significant effects on the real economy. At such times, uncertainty is rife, financial
vulnerabilities are exposed and the calls for institutional change in business practices
become deafening.
Book Reviews 545
The bottom line after myriad Japanese reforms for most of the authors is that
there has been an emergence of a hybrid form of governance, incorporating both
Japanese and US characteristics. Whether this process is being driven by the
response to NPL-induced problems or by greater international competition and the
imitation of certain features of a supposedly superior system of governance and
through changing social values is moot.
There has been restructuring going on, particularly if we focus on the activities of
business groups, rather than particular business segments (Chapter 8). Ownership of
institutional and foreign shareholders has increased and cross shareholdings have
declined (Chapters 3 and 4). Moreover, foreign ownership does mean a more Anglo-
American style of governance (Chapter 9). However, exposure to foreign investors,
US listing requirements and international bond ratings is still small. As is well
known, inward foreign direct investment is similarly small (by OECD standards).
There has been a marked decline of the main bank and an overall shift to
financing by corporate bonds rather than bank loans (Chapter 2). Bank-centred
financing is now less important for large firms, but somewhat curiously more
important at smaller firms (Hoshi and Kashyap, 2001). In Chapter 12, Miyajima
shows that the greater dependence on capital market financing has added impetus to
the push for reforms. There is now more diversity in the types of firms. In Chapter
14, Sako draws on the influential Varieties of Capitalism literature (Hall and
Soskice, 2000) to argue that liberal market economies permit greater organisational
diversity.
On the other hand, despite increases in features such as performance-based pay
and the increasing casualisation of the workforce (Gaston and Kishi, 2005), there
has been no significant shift away from lifetime employment (Chapter 10, and
Genda and Rebick, 2000). In other words, ‘‘Fortress Japan survives’’ (The
Economist, 2008). The J-firm structure is still used by the vast majority of Japanese
corporations – i.e. reforms have been incremental and stakeholder-oriented
governance is still intact. In Chapter 11, Shishido argues that there has been actual
convergence, but functional divergence. In Chapter 13, Dore argues that the
strength of social norms explains why there is so little change. On top of this, the
clamouring for US-style corporate governance has abated, since the Enron scandal.
Overall, the main change has been the growing importance of the capital market,
particularly for Japan’s stellar corporations. Notwithstanding, the broad argument
is that capital market financing can in fact be compatible with traditional J-firm
features such as lifetime employment. In the last chapter, Aoki argues for a new
‘‘external monitoring of internal linkage (EMIL) model’’ to characterise the ‘‘new’’
system of Japanese corporate governance. EMIL is the relational model with which
we are familiar plus capital market (rather than main bank) monitoring. That is,
Tom Friedman’s golden straightjacket has been grafted onto the familiar J-firm
model.
Rather than a ‘‘lost decade’’, Aoki and his co-editors argue that Japan has
reached a major turning point, and even a point of culmination, in its business
history. In my opinion, this characterisation is disingenuous. Why do so many
scholars believe that when they write what they do represents a period in time so
singularly important? Indeed, at the time of writing this review, the tables have
turned. Japanese banks and financial institutions have cleaned up their NPLs to
546 Book Reviews
such an extent that Nomura Securities was in the process of buying Lehman
Brothers’ Asian operations and Mitsubishi UFJ is buying out the massive Union
Bank of California (and not the other way around). I venture to speculate that
such happenings indicate that foreign oversight and the possibility of foreign
takeovers of Japanese corporations has lessened, not increased. Timing is
everything, I suppose.
As a corollary, I seriously wonder about the need to invent new acronyms for
marginally different systems of corporate governance. Corporate governance in
Japan is undergoing incremental, not radical, change. I must also admit to be
starting to tire of the predisposition to always look first at ‘‘cultural differences’’ in
the way in which corporations are organised. Further, the lost decade epithet refers
to the sluggish reaction of Japan’s policymakers to the credit crunch after the bubble
had burst. It was not until 1998 that taxpayer funds were committed to sweeping
financial reforms.
Of course, my complaints are trifling. It seems obvious to me that this book will be
on every corporate governance scholar’s reading list. There is no need for a sales
pitch from me.
NOEL GASTON
Bond University
Ó 2009 Noel Gaston
References
Aoki, M. (1990) Toward an economic model of the Japanese firm. Journal of Economic Literature 28(1),
pp. 1–27.
The Economist (2008) Corporate governance in Japan. Bring it on. 29 May.
Friedman, T.L. (1999) The Lexus and the olive tree (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux).
Gaston, N. and T. Kishi (2005) Labour market policy developments in Japan: Following an Australian
lead? Australian Economic Review 38(4), pp. 389–404.
Genda, Y. and M.E. Rebick (2000) Japanese labour in the 1990s: Stability and stagnation. Oxford Review
of Economic Policy 16(2), pp. 85–102.
Hall, P.A. and D. Soskice, eds. (2001) Varieties of capitalism: The institutional foundations of comparative
advantage (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Hoshi, T. and A. Kashyap (2001) Corporate financing and governance in Japan: The road to the future
(Cambridge: MIT Press).
Yafeh, Y. (2000) Corporate governance in Japan: Past performance and future prospects. Oxford Review
of Economic Policy 16(2), pp. 74–84.
JEFFREY LESSER. A Discontented Diaspora – Japanese Brazilians and the

Meanings of Ethnic Militancy, 1960–1980. Durham, NC: Duke University Press,
2007. 219 pp. US$79.95, hardcover; US$22.95, paper.
Jeffrey Lesser’s examination of Japanese Brazilians provides insight into a unique

Japanese phenomenon. Brazil is the only country where the population of Japanese
immigrants has reached such a critical mass that it has had a large impact on the
identity of the wider community. Nowhere else has there been a community of the
size and continuity of the Brazilian Japanese. Lesser points out that ‘‘São Paulo is
Book Reviews 547
different from other cities in the Americas where images of Japan may be strong but
where the Japanese descent population is small . . .’’ (p. xxii). Of a total Brazilian
Japanese population of 1.2 million in 1987, nearly 900,000 lived in São Paulo, and so
Japanese identity has been particularly strong there. This is in contrast to other cities
in, for example, the United States, where Japaneseness is largely subsumed by more
dominant cultures. Astonishingly, Lesser points out, ‘‘Outside of Japan, there are
more Nikkei in the state of São Paulo than in the rest of the world combined!’’ (p. 3).
Lesser’s Introduction offers a useful overview of the history of Japanese migration
to Brazil, both pre-WWII and postwar, when the Japanese started to be seen as
model immigrants – studious, hard-working and successful. They were often
portrayed as ideal citizens and were over-represented in academe, politics and the
professions. This image was boosted by the resurgence of Japan as an economic
powerhouse. By the 1960s and 1970s the images of São Paulo and its Japanese
citizens were inextricably interwoven, and the Japanese were increasingly

represented as what Lesser calls ‘‘a monolithic community’’.
Lesser proceeds to examine Japanese identity in Brazil through two phenomena:
artistic militancy, mainly in film, and political militancy. With five Japanese movie
houses in São Paulo’s ‘‘Japtown’’ (Liberdade), there were many opportunities for
filmmakers and critics to be exposed to Japanese films. Lessing examines how this
influence paralleled the development of often stereotypical portrayals of Japanese in
Brazilian films. For example, the portrayal of Japanese women as mysteriously
sexual and compliant was a recurring theme on Brazilian screens for many years.
Lessing looks at the development of Japanese Brazilian cinema, such as the work
of Nikkei filmmaker Tizuka Yamasaki. An interesting difficulty experienced by
Yamasaki gives a significant insight into how the Japanese Brazilian population had
evolved. While making an historical film about the early Japanese Issei communities,
Yamasaki found that the Nikkei she cast were not able to convincingly portray
Japanese as their body language was ‘‘overly loose’’. As a result, she was forced to
cast Japanese in the leading roles.
Lessing’s examination of the portrayal of Japanese in film is related to his
observation that ‘‘Nikkei . . . did not easily fit into the national racial dichotomy of
whiteness/wealth/Brazilian and blackness/poverty/Brazilian’’. One result was that
the broader community ‘‘always saw Nikkei as diasporic, no matter how much the
Japanese-Brazilians argued to the contrary’’ (p. 72).
In the next part of the book, Lessing links these disparate views of identity to the
experiences of Nikkei activists who were determined to assert how Brazilian they
were, but who were often forced to pay what Lessing calls ‘‘the fee of their ethnicity’’
(p. 74). In a confluence of stereotypes, in the minds of many Brazilians Nikkei
activists were often confused with both external activists, such as the Japanese Red
Army, and images of the violent samurai depicted in Japanese films. It seems that
Japanese Brazilians have been condemned to carry their ethnicity into any role, be it
complaisant citizen or leftist revolutionary.
Confusion over the identity of Brazilian Nikkei continues to the present, and in
many ways has crystallised into a strange amalgam of historical and contemporary
stereotypes. Lessing gives the example of Toshiba advertising that proclaims, ‘‘Our
Japanese are STILL better than everyone else’s’’ (p. 148). In another bizarre
example, he cites the cases of pest control companies called ‘‘Nagasaki’’ and
548 Book Reviews
‘‘Hiroshima’’ that unashamedly use the idea of the power of the atomic bomb to
eliminate pests.
Lessing’s conclusions have implications for wider diasporic studies. He clearly
states that ‘‘the subjects of this study seem to understand that diasporic images of
people, products, and identities do not always fit together comfortably’’ (p. 150).
This book is a fascinating analysis of a unique population that gives us a glimpse of
the might-have-been world of Japanese migrants in countries such as the United
States or Australia where World War II effectively halted or even reversed the
establishment of large Nikkei communities.
YURIKO NAGATA
University of Queensland
Ó 2009 Yuriko Nagata
YUMA TOTANI. The Tokyo War Crimes Trial: The Pursuit of Justice in the Wake
of World War II. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center. 335 pp.
Totani begins her analysis of the political and legal manoeuvring that occurred before,
during and after the Tokyo War Crimes Trial with an introductory chapter curiously
titled ‘Why the Tokyo Trial Now?’. In doing so, Totani seems to be justifying the need for
a re-examination of the details of the Tokyo Trial. Yet, in the subsequent chapters it
becomes clear that there is no need for any such justification: rather it is clear that a re-
examination of the trial preparations and processes is long overdue. And, as Totani writes
in her concluding paragraph, there is still much to be learnt from further examination of
all the trial documents from the period – not just those from Tokyo but also those from
the other trials held across the Asia Pacific region.
Based on extensive archival research in English and Japanese in the United States,
Australia, Japan and India, Totani discusses the Tokyo Trial thematically and in terms
of its chronological position between Nuremburg and subsequent war crimes trials. In
situating the trial in this manner, Totani is able to highlight some of the major differences
between the Nuremburg and Tokyo Trials, as well as some of the differences between
it and later trials. This enables the Tokyo Trial to be seen as part of the process of
the development of international humanitarian law rather than a stand-alone trial.
The three main themes of the book are: 1) the Emperor; 2) the first analysts of the
trial; and 3) Pal’s dissenting opinion. The chapter on the first theme is likely to lead
to renewed debate on the issue. As is well known, the Australian government took
the view that the Emperor should stand trial. And, it was commonly believed that
General Macarthur made the decision not to make the Emperor stand trial.
However, Totani argues that General Macarthur made no such decision. Rather, he
referred the decision to Washington knowing that he did not have the authority to
make it, and the reply was that there was no change in US policy on that matter (pp.
56–57). That is, the US government was not committed to either supporting or
opposing such a trial. Interestingly, Totani contends that the idea that Macarthur
was responsible for the decision was due to Macarthur’s own assertions that he had
made the decision (p. 57).
Book Reviews 549
In relation to the second theme, Totani analyses a number of the views of people
who wrote on the Tokyo Trial in the 1940s and 1950s. In doing so, Totani shows
how the opinions of some of those analysts influenced the views of later analysts,
and in some cases led to the view that the Tokyo Trial was about revenge and
‘‘Victor’s Justice’’ and not entirely based on legal principles. Importantly, however,
the discussions on this theme place the initial analysis of the trial in a political
and economic context that encourages a clearer understanding of the manner in
which the trial has come to be understood. Moreover, Totani has skilfully linked
the discussion on this theme to that of Pal’s dissenting opinion. However, it is in
the discussion of Pal’s opinions that the analysis is weakest and the least
satisfying. While Totani briefly introduces Pal’s position and the effect that his
dissenting decisions had on the views of some commentators, she fails to explain
satisfactorily the decisions themselves or how Pal came to those decisions. This
criticism may be more due to Pal himself not explaining his position, but the
discussions on Pal are clearly the one weak point in an otherwise interesting
book.
Totani should be congratulated on writing a highly readable and informative
book that provides new perspectives on the Tokyo Trial and the negotiations that
occurred before and during the trial and the effect that it had afterwards. The book
makes a useful contribution to the development of international humanitarian law,
and provides some new perspectives on the occupation as well as Japan’s early
postwar history. It should also serve to encourage new examination of the trial from
both a legal and political perspective.
ROWENA WARD
University of Wollongong
Ó 2009 Rowena Ward
GEORGE AKITA. Evaluating Evidence: A Positivist Approach to Reading Sources

on Modern Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2008. xv, 225 pp.
A specialist in Meiji-Taishô (1868–1926) political and constitutional history, George

Akita has worked on letters and other documents written in the sôsho calligraphic
style for over thirty years. Evaluating Evidence is a statement of his conviction, based
on this extensive experience, that ‘‘documentary sources are central to the historian’s
craft’’ and his commitment to positivist methodology (p. ix). Akira equates
positivism with inductive reasoning, a process ‘‘in which the scholar seeks out facts
on the subject of interest and, through observation and examination of an extensive
body of data, is able to discern certain patterns . . . [and] is able to formulate certain
propositions about the subject’’. Inductive reasoning is contrasted with deductive
reasoning, which ‘‘starts with a theory or proposition and seeks to test it through
observation and data’’ (p. ix). The book also offers an insider’s view of the world of
Japanese historical scholarship, through an account of the author’s experiences of
being tutored by and collaborating with Japanese scholars at the forefront of the
study of political documents since 1977.
550 Book Reviews
In the Introduction, Akita relates how and why he became a positivist at the
University of Hawai’i in the late 1940s and 1950s, and expands upon his
understanding of this approach. He presents an engaging discussion of the role of
theory and the indispensability of positivists’ ‘‘highly qualified conclusions’’ in
historical research (p. 5). In Chapters 1 and 2, he traces this journey through his
initiation, by Itô Takashi, into a community of scholars engaged in transcribing the
writings of prominent Meiji statesmen Itô Hirobumi (1841–1909) and Yamagata
Aritomo (1838–1922) and the production of vast compendia of documents related to
them. In an informative discussion of Japanese primary documents, he outlines the
complexities of dealing with different types of documents and the different questions
that must be asked of letters, diaries, opinion pieces and memoirs, and the potential
pitfalls attending the use of these as evidence – i.e. the process of uncovering the
intentions and motivations of their authors. In Chapter 3, Akita describes several
problems attending published primary sources – categories of emendation – that

shape the reliability, and thus authority, of a primary source as evidence. The value
of careful attention to textual detail characteristic of the positivist approach is
revealed in a comparison of a recently published photo-reproduction, with two older
editions of published transcriptions, of the original diary of Hara Kei (1856–1921).
The importance of editorial experience in the preparation of primary documents for
publication and the value of the collaborative approach for ensuring accurate
transcription outlined in the first two chapters is further reinforced. These chapters
bring Akita’s primary sources alive, instancing how they reveal the world and
relationships of prominent Meiji and Taishô political figures; and provide testimony
to the dedication and inspiring example of several scholars described as onshi.
This reader found the two following chapters on the treatment of primary sources
in English-language secondary sources less satisfying. The discussion is polemical
but less engaging, and the author comes across as less endearing. Chapter 4 offers a
detailed and lengthy catalogue of how primary sources have been (mis)treated by
non-Japanese scholars working on modern Japanese history. The discussion reveals
Akita to be well read and highly discerning, but somewhat frustratingly assumes that
the reader is equally familiar with the extensive literature and related commentary –
authors are frequently referred to by their last name only and frequent digressions
distract from the central argument. Akita’s treatment of these secondary sources
demonstrates less rigour than he advocates for the treatment of primary sources: in
large part his evidence is drawn from book reviews of the sources in question and
quotations are ambiguously referenced. Akita’s most trenchant criticisms are
reserved for the work of John W. Dower and Herbert P. Bix, which he analyses in
Chapter 5. His analysis of the deductive historical methodology and reasoning of
Dower (in his introduction to E.H. Norman’s Origins of the Modern Japanese State
(1975) and his characterisation of E.O. Reischauer’s scholarship) and of Bix (in
Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan (2001)) clearly demonstrates Akita’s view
of what poor historical scholarship looks like. He attributes their flawed conclusions
to a tendency to speculate on, rather than make tentative statements based on
careful analysis of the documentary evidence, the motivations of historical actors,
and laments their practice of postulating, in the face of contrary evidence, a link
between ‘‘the putative ideology of those with whom they disagree and their
scholarship’’ (p. 161).
Book Reviews 551
Akita’s respect for the work of positivist Japanese historians and his own scholarly
expertise is beyond question but, in Evaluating Evidence, do not translate into making
this world readily accessible to an English-language audience. (The lack of English
translations for Japanese terms assumes proficiency in Japanese language.) This
reader was left wondering who the intended audience is and with the sense that the
purpose of the book is highly personal to its author: to document Akita’s
contributions to Japanese postwar positivist scholarship, and to express his
dissatisfaction with the deductive methods of acclaimed non-Japanese scholars. This
is entirely appropriate in view of Akita’s long scholarly career and position as
professor emeritus at the University of Hawai’i. The first chapters of the book are
more satisfying than the later chapters precisely for the personal insights that they
provide into postwar Japanese historical scholarship and Akita’s particular
engagement in it.
Overall, Evaluating Evidence is an engaging exposition of the methodological

concerns of a pre-eminent scholar, and serves as a valuable reminder of both the
centrality of text as historical evidence and the complexities involved in using
modern Japanese documents as primary sources. Evaluating Evidence will be useful
to postgraduate students immersed in the analysis of modern Japanese historical
documents and of interest to scholars of modern Japanese historiography and
specialists on modern Japanese political history.
VANESSA B. WARD
University of Otago
Ó 2009 Vanessa B. Ward
South, West and Central Asia

JIM MASSELOS. The City in Action: Bombay Struggles for Power. New Delhi:
Oxford University Press, 2007. 414 pp. Rs 695.00, hardcover.
India hosts some of the world’s largest cities, and one would expect a prolific
literature on the urban phenomenon in the country. With a few exceptions, however,
the field is characterised by a distinct frugality of social science writing. Cities in India
have comprised the primary spaces where modernity has over time created new
cultures of distraction, of mobility, of loss and exhilaration, and of displacement. In
the last few decades cities have been transformed in a way that was never experienced
before. The urban morphology in India now contains new places of consumption
such as shopping malls and reflects a crisis of place, especially where old
neighbourhoods lose their sense of community. Cities in India are on the move at
such a rapid pace that at times they exceed ways of knowing them. The city of
everyday life in India is at once being built and rebuilt as we watch the heritage tower
of the Taj Hotel burn in front of us on the TV screen. The title of the book reflects the
dynamic character of one of the greatest cities of India and provides a most timely
critical academic input into understanding the events of those few days in Bombay.
Jim Masselos is not a newcomer to Bombay. He has studied Bombay for over four
decades and consequently the book speaks with an authoritative ease that makes it a
552 Book Reviews
‘‘must-read’’ for social scientists from a range of disciplines, including urban

geography. At the same time, the history of Bombay that he presents is not just a
collection of incidents, but a narrative that contextualises them in terms of space and
time. Masselos’ history is intimately connected to space, which again is at once a
physical space that acts as a site of discourses and one where new spaces are
produced by these discourses. His position comes through clearly; he reads Bombay
as an ‘‘everyday city’’ where popular life and culture are enmeshed into politics, by
using his lens of history from his base in another port city, Sydney.
Masselos narrates the metamorphosis of Bombay from a colonial port city under
foreign rule and dominated by ‘‘liberal modernists’’, pro-British Parsis. The first five
decades of the twentieth century, on the eve of independence, form the setting for
this transformation of the colonial city into a metropolis and the prime commercial
node in an independent nation. He traces the historic journey of Bombay, ‘‘urbs
prima in India’’, to becoming Mumbai. This transformation of the city is of course

expressed in its physical space and morphology that expanded to accommodate
many more people, buildings and cars. But more importantly, it is also expressed in
the ‘‘idea’’ of Bombay and the personality of its different neighbourhoods.
The book offers a collection of 13 essays – most of which were published earlier in
scholarly journals in India and elsewhere – along with an introduction and a
bibliography. These 13 chapters are grouped into periods – the city in a time of
empire, during Gandhian resistance and the time of independence. The journey,
however, is not only from the past to the present; the reader of the book also
journeys from the micro to the macro in the urban space, and from the private to the
public spheres of those inhabiting that space, but not necessarily in a linear fashion.
Together, the chapters show how urban landscapes are produced over time, and how
they act as sites for local politics that are connected to larger events and incidents.
The interpretation of urban landscapes reveals the effects of politics played out on
various scales and demonstrates how local acts contribute to trans-local imagina-
tions, practices and ways of knowing.
The first section contains five chapters, and gives us good insights into colonial
Bombay. Chapter 1 begins with micro-politics during 1904 to 1915. Masselos peels
off layers and configurations of power to track how the many little worlds of the
mohalla [neighbourhood] came together and separated in response to the unfolding
of global events and how the colonial British manipulated these processes with the
police apparatus. The second chapter takes the reader into the Bombay of the 1870s,
where local politics around municipal affairs created fluid intergroup alignments and
provided a force that contributed to a growing nationalist unity. Next, Masselos
discusses the ‘‘crowd’’ and how it redefines public space, and provides some material
to show how the informal congregation of people was imagined and controlled in
urban Bombay throughout the nineteenth century. However, the long literature
review on rural crowds does not throw adequate light on how ‘‘the crowd’’ was
imagined and addressed by colonial rulers in urban Bombay. More ethnographic
detail appears in the next chapter on Hindu-Muslim riots – in particular those of
1893 – to show how the identities of Bombay residents were in flux during these
events. The final chapter in this section takes the reader from the streets to the
‘‘inside’’ domains of the cityscape, the Marathi household, in the nineteenth century.
The visitations by the epidemic of plague attacked both the body of the individual
Book Reviews 553
and the efforts of the government to prevent the epidemic by measures that were
equally invasive of the individual’s personal and domestic space.
The second part of the book is titled ‘The city in the time of Gandhian
resistance’, and is broken into five chapters, discussing city politics in 1919, crowd
events in 1930, control of the Prabhat Pheris, Bombay in August 1942, and finally
the social constructs of space in the time of the Raj. Although it is not stated
explicitly, I took it that the connecting factor of these chapters is not just their
periodicity. The aim is also to show the emerging discontent and increasing
belligerency among all sections of the urban community, a rise of new Gujarati
leadership and the building of resistance to British authority and rule. With the
salt march of Gandhi, civil disobedience escalated and took on mythical
proportions in Bombay, marking a turning point in the history of the crowd. It
was politicised to such an extent that it was seen as part of Congress-driven
resistance, neither covert nor controllable, and indeed with an ability to erode
British self-assurance. It all culminated in the Quit India movement led by Gandhi
in 1942, and Masselos argues that in Bombay the movement was the product of
past behaviours in new circumstances. The last chapter in this section is about
how, within the broad region/religion categorisation of the urban space, a more
finely tuned template bearing the morphological stamp of the locality or
neighbourhood arose as a feature of urban space.
The last section of the book is about Bombay in the time of independence,
beginning with an analysis of the independence on 15 August, then the Republic
Day, and the fractured discourses in a postmodern Bombay that experienced the
1993 riots. The last chapter provides a suitable culmination to all the preceding
chapters that helps us to understand the dynamics of and deep-rooted reasons for
the riots.
As a human geographer reading Masselos’s book, I found its style of storytelling
compelling. In terms of its ability to analyse these stories and connect them to the
bigger picture, however, it probably needed more careful editing – there is just too
much in it, overwhelming the reader with an avalanche of material. Written over a
period of time, the chapters present an appreciable scholarship, and a huge body of
knowledge, but do not present that crucial single connecting thread that lifts a book
above the rest and makes it shine.
KUNTALA LAHIRI-DUTT
Australian National University
Ó 2009 Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt
DEBJANI GANGULY and JOHN DOCKER (eds). Rethinking Gandhi and

Nonviolent Relationality. Global Perspectives. London and New York: Routledge,
2007. xi, 272 pp. £80.00, hardcover.
This collection edited by Debjani Ganguly and John Docker seeks to ‘‘rethink
Gandhi’’ against the framework of contemporary world history in an ‘‘era of global
violence’’. Far from being just another contribution to the discussion of Gandhi’s
legacy today, it provides fresh insights into a whole set of ‘‘Gandhian themes’’,
554 Book Reviews
which are rarely focused upon or rather differently addressed in most of the
literature available. Even more noteworthy, though, is the overarching aim of the
book, namely to locate Gandhi – as a ‘‘vernacular cosmopolitan figure’’ – and
Gandhian thoughts in a transcultural space. This constitutes an unconventional
historiographical approach and, more importantly, expresses a political awareness
of the present, which compels the authors to combine theoretical accuracy with the
need for social responsibility.
Motivated by the conditions created by ‘‘the violent and morally skewed times we
live in’’ (p. 2f), the editors underline the importance of Gandhian ideas – theoretical
as well as practical – for up-to-date approaches. Rather than opting for a revisionist,
traditionalistic approach as result of an assumed lack of alternatives, the individual
articles consequently emphasise modes of translation and reinterpretation of the
sources available.
What follows is not least the emphasis on a semantic analysis, which seems to
look out for an appropriate terminology of suppression and subordination,
framed in Gandhian terms as an empathetic engagement for and with the global
sufferer, which morally justifies interventions, on both the level of speech and
practice. Ganguly asserts that it is Gandhi’s ‘‘alternative language of political
engagement [. . ., a] language of nonviolent relationality in the public domain, of
a moral internationalism based on the notion of compassion for and connectivity
with strangers, the language of soul-force based on truth and love’’ (p. 3) that
turns him into an outstanding advocate for modes of resistance. Such resistance
is based on moral integrity and recognition of the other and therefore goes
beyond the common claims for ‘‘tolerance’’, because it not only acknowledges the
other’s existence but accepts the performance of this otherness as cultural
practice.
As a ‘‘free-floating’’ and yet ‘‘organic intellectual’’ – though he may not have
been too content with that label – it is Gandhi’s syncretistic use of ‘‘traditional’’
heritage and ‘‘modern’’ influences and the almost artistic gesture of translation
and appropriation that enable him to transcend an exclusive dualism of the
construction of the other. Gandhi’s empathic inclusiveness, reflected in his
‘‘transcultural nonviolent ethics of the everyday’’ (p. 3), creates a notion of
proximity beyond subjective essentialism. Adopting such an attitude allows us to
rethink and evaluate conflict solution strategies from the point of view of the
apparently ‘‘weak’’, who develops his force through the moral integrity of the
subjugated.
The book, which consists of an instructive introduction by Debjani Ganguly and
12 chapters, is divided into four sections, each one setting up an innovative
framework for Gandhi’s transcultural relevance.
The first part, ‘Worlding the Gandhian everyday’, includes contributions by
Leela Gandhi, Sandhya Shetty and Tripid Suhrud. The authors reinterpret some of
the foundational principles of Gandhian thought, in a quite innovative way. We
encounter concepts such as ahimsa, understood not as emanating from an
assumed, fairly static (Indian) origin, but as emerging from Gandhi’s transcultural
thought and practice that are informed by lifelong travel, traversing spiritual as
well as physical borders. From the analysis of his approach to illness and care, we
come to know that it is Gandhi’s experimental ‘‘biomoral performances’’ (p. 53) in
Book Reviews 555
which his notion of proximity, unconditional care and (dialogical) justice are
based.
Part 2 includes articles by Thomas Weber, Charles R. DiSalvo and Ajay Skaria
under the heading ‘Of friendship, law and language: shaping Gandhian
‘‘weakness’’’. Opting for a holistic approach (Weber), which transcends mere
political accounts, this section covers Gandhi’s personal relationships and traces
biographical and professional reasons for life-changing transformations of his
world view. It concludes with a thorough linguistic analysis of this terminology
and its political implications that directs the focus to Gandhi’s political stance with
regard to the crucial delineation of agency and responsibility (of the subaltern
actor).
In a third part, Sean Scalmer, Penny Edwards and Rhonda Y. Williams
analyse connections between Gandhian thought and global social movements;
‘Carrying Gandhi over: global peace movements’ elaborates Gandhi’s

personal involvement in diverse peace movements in the twentieth century and
shows his influence on them. We learn of a range of twentieth-century social
movements all over the globe that were and still are inspired by his philosophy
and attitude.
‘Interlocuting with modernity: Gandhi at home and in the world’ (John Docker,
Anjali Roy and Debjani Ganguly) concludes the collection. The articles sum up
several topics central to the book: questions regarding the translatability of
Gandhian thought across historical and geographic distance, particularly his
approach to nonviolence; Gandhi’s relationalist strategies in dealing with
transcultural techniques and practices that aim to transgress the typical dichotomy
of ‘‘modern’’ and ‘‘traditional’’ as well as static conceptions of politically framed
ethics; and the importance of a historiographic method that emphasises the
centrality of flows of ‘‘collective imaginaries’’ (p. 253). Gandhian thought ultimately
reads as the transcultural intertwining of histories of ideas, reflected in the
performance of ‘‘vernacular cosmopolitical acts’’ (p. 257).
Most of the articles in the book are highly instructive and very eloquent, albeit
somewhat eclectically captioned. Some chapters do appear slightly farfetched
in their comparative attempt to relocate Gandhian thought. In total, however,
Rethinking Gandhi and Nonviolent Relationality provides a very sensible and highly
recommended compilation of scholarly excursions. The book is an innovative and
instructive interrogation of the key question of how the Gandhian notion of
nonviolence can be adapted and translated. The authors use Gandhian thought in
creative ways that avoid ‘‘Orientalist hyper-difference’’ as well as ‘‘Western over-
likeness’’ (p. 143), while opening up new ways of thinking about and with Gandhi in
a global world order. The social responsibility of scholars as well as the moral
integrity of the proponents of such an approach might eventually be achieved by
considering Gandhi’s ‘‘intellectual wanderlust’’ and ‘‘peripatetic lifestyle’’ (p. 179) as
a worthwhile model for doing justice to the requirements of contemporary ‘‘being in
the world’’ – intellectually as well as practically.
HANNA WERNER
University of Heidelberg
Ó 2009 Hanna Werner
556 Book Reviews
Southeast Asia
DIRK TOMSA. Party Politics and Democratization in Indonesia: Golkar in the Post-
Suharto Era. London and New York: Routledge, 2008. 288 pp. £85.00/US$170.00,
hardcover.
Tomsa’s study of the Golkar party, one of the main pillars of Suharto’s New Order,
offers an in-depth analysis of why Golkar did not vanish in post-Suharto politics,
but rather managed to sustain its influence during the subsequent elections in
Indonesia. Tomsa argues, however, that Golkar’s success cannot be explained only
by the party’s longstanding and steady party institutionalisation. Rather, it was also
the other new parties’ infrastructural weaknesses and deficiencies that helped
Golkar to win the second highest number of votes in 1999 and the highest number
in 2004. In order to analyse Golkar’s performance, Tomsa chose from among a

number of available party institutionalisation models a theoretical framework
developed by Randall and Svåsand (2002), for the reason that this model
differentiates between party institutionalisation and party system institutionalisa-
tion, which are not necessarily interdependent. Having explained the advantages of
Randall and Svåsand’s model (one that combines four dimensions in its assessment:
systemness, decisional autonomy, value infusion and reification), Tomsa goes on to
apply it as the basis for exploring Golkar’s strengths and weaknesses.
Chapter 3 deconstructs the myth of Golkar’s superior organisational party
machinery by portraying Golkar’s eroding party apparatus, and the continuation of
weak leadership, as well as the prevalence of factionalism and patron-clientelism.
Portraying meticulously the rise and fall of party leader Akbar Tanjung, Tomsa
reveals the defection of local party politicians and the bottom-up erosion of regional
support for the party leadership, which became most obvious at the first direct
presidential election, in which Tanjung supported Megawati as presidential
candidate – and failed against Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his Golkar co-
runner Jusuf Kalla. Moreover, this chapter also carefully examines the party’s
financing, probably one of Golkar’s strongest points due to its tight connections
with Indonesia’s business elites.
The party’s finances are discussed again in Chapter 4, which deals with the
internal and external factors affecting the party’s decisional autonomy. In order to
come to terms with whether the party can actually implement what serves its
collective interests best, Tomsa finds that personal interests and money politics
control the party to a great extent and negatively affect its credibility. The second
benchmark by which to judge Golkar’s decisional autonomy is the party’s
relationship with the Indonesian military, the onetime founding fathers of Golkar.
Tomsa argues that while in general Golkar has become emancipated from the
former strong military influence and now faces little pressure from the military, in
terms of decision-making at the national level, members of the military still retain an
influence over individual politicians at the local level. Ideally, Tomsa could have
provided more empirical proof for this assertion. Nevertheless, this chapter provides
a valuable theoretical contribution since Tomsa overcomes merely applying the
Randall and Svåsand framework by proposing an important amendment to the
model.
Book Reviews 557
Chapter 5, on value infusion, discusses Golkar’s ideological alignments, which are

better described as ‘‘a patronage-dispensing vehicle which uses religious, regional
and economic policy orientation merely as a superficial shell’’ (p. 97) rather than a
representation of a consistent value system. Moreover, the chapter offers an insight
into the socioeconomic backgrounds of the electorate and Golkar’s ‘‘ersatz’’-values,
which take the place of party ideology.
In Chapter 6, Tomsa explores Golkar’s reification by elaborating on the party’s
symbolism and its media coverage. In particular, he points to the difficulty of image-
change in overcoming its ‘‘stigma as a disgraced remnant of the New Order’’ (p. 7) on the
one hand, and on the other, in keeping longstanding party stalwarts. A regional media
analysis of the time before the 2004 elections in South Sulawesi completes this chapter.
In order to contextualise the previous findings on Golkar’s strengths and
weaknesses in regard to party institutionalisation, Chapter 7 compares Golkar’s
results with the performance of other main Indonesian political parties by applying
Randall and Svåsand’s model of systemness, decisional autonomy, value infusion
and reification. As many might expect, the outcomes affirm a prevalence of weak
institutionalisation, failures in training and recruitment programs, personalistic
decision-making processes, outbreaks of factionalism, patron-clientelism, external
interferences, non-transparency of funding mechanisms, and cases of corruption
among other major parties in Indonesia.
Tomsa therefore concludes that, although it is the best institutionalised of all
Indonesian parties despite its obvious weaknesses, Golkar might benefit from its
superior party institutionalisation in terms of long-term survival. Being better
institutionalised, however, does not guarantee short-term election victories. In a
system where other parties are also badly institutionalised Golkar’s position is based
not only on its advantages but all the more on the weaknesses of the others – as the
latest elections, in which Golkar only won a meagre 12 per cent of the votes
compared to 22 per cent in 1999 and 21 per cent in 2004 (equalling more than 20
million voters), confirm.
Tomsa’s schematic assessment of Golkar’s institutionalisation is a valuable
contribution to widening our understanding of post-New Order politics. It not only
contributes to scholarship on Indonesia, but is also of interest to students of
comparative politics, democratisation and system transition. Tomsa’s book is
logically structured, rigorously written and well integrated into current political
discussions on party politics in Indonesia.
ANTJE MISSBACH
Australian National University
Ó 2009 Antje Missbach
HONG LYSA and HUANG JIANLI. The Scripting of a National History:

Singapore and its Pasts. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2008. 320 pp.
Individually and as co-authors, Hong Lysa and Huang Jianli have made notable
contributions to Singapore Studies. The Scripting of a National History: Singapore
558 Book Reviews
and its Pasts brings their work together in an impressive volume that gives a sense of
the major issues in the study of the history of modern Singapore, and of the debates
that have engaged historians.
In a context in which much that is said about Singapore emanates from the
state, it can be difficult to describe the authoritarian nation/society in terms
other than those provided by the state. The study of Singapore has been
overwhelmingly concerned with the country’s economic performance, and even
in the domain of history the study of post-independence Singapore tends to focus
on the economic transformation of the island state. With the important excep-
tion of race relations, social and cultural aspects of history have received far
less attention. Hong and Huang’s volume makes a sustained effort to turn this
tide.
The Scripting of a National History combines a new chapter by Hong on the
intensely presentist and political nature of doing Singaporean history with

revised versions of nine previously published pieces. These individual chapters
have been re-edited to read as a single volume, and glued together with new
contextualising commentaries. Although most of the previously published material
will be familiar to readers in Singapore Studies, that very familiarity attests to the
importance of these pieces to the field. Read together, a deep and complex picture
of Singaporean history-making emerges. Strong pieces in their own right, their
compilation highlights the utility of a breadth of examples and allows readers to
see the evolution of the scripting of Singapore’s national history. And for those
new to the field of Singapore Studies, this volume is essential historiographical
reading.
Reflecting the origins of the chapters as stand-alone articles, the book is framed in
a slightly unusual, although largely successful, fashion. There are three distinct
sections to the book. Part One, the most cohesive section, and largely written by
Hong, adapts imagery derived from the Catholic mass – of public ritual, oral
sermon, and canonical text – to draw out the underpinnings of Singapore history as
told by the state.
The unifying principle of Part Two is more conventional for Singapore Studies:
the role of the Chinese. Negotiations of race, language and ethnicity historically
have been (and remain) fundamental concerns of the Singaporean nation-state. The
Singaporean government’s domination of what is said about the island nation has
made it difficult for either outsiders or Singaporeans to describe the nation/society in
terms other than those that the state provides. Consequently, questions many
scholars ask about Singaporean society tend to fall within the discursive parameters
established by the People’s Action Party (PAP), presenting limited challenges to
state orthodoxy. In offering a History of History-making and writing, this book
charts the evolution of ideas and practices that are fundamentally important to
Singaporean society. That is, although concern with race and identity is a topic
sanctioned by the state as worthy of study, and in this sense conventional, Hong and
Huang acknowledge the topic’s constructedness and in so doing subvert its
centrality.
Part Three of the book, entitled ‘Con/Scripting Singapore’s National Heroes’,
speaks directly to the challenges of forging a national history for a new nation with a
Book Reviews 559
migrant, multiracial population via detailed readings of public sites, such as the Sun
Yat Sen Nanyang Memorial Hall and the Tiger Balm Gardens, to illustrate how the
Chineseness of national heroes/sites contributes to their ambiguity.
One of the strengths of the book is the range of sites under consideration. Rather than
appearing disparate, the authors draw together policy, ideology, historiography and
institutions to interrogate the active process of making the national History of
Singapore. Part Three, in particular, draws together the broader themes of nation-
making threaded through the first two sections. That is, in Part One, Hong offers a
searing critique of readings of former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew as a national hero.
In Part Two, the ambiguity of Chineseness in Singapore is interrogated via a reading of
language and education policies. And in Part Three, hero and Chineseness are
combined to demonstrate a history and ideology very much in transition and
inseparable from this moment in the politics and history of Singapore.
Although both authors are primarily historians of other parts of Asia (Hong of
Thailand and Huang of China), these two historian-citizens have authored what is
clearly the most significant work on Singaporean historiography to date. In and of
itself, this odd circumstance reveals something of the state of Singapore Studies.
That is, although the national history of Singapore has received an inordinate
amount of state attention, it has received less than might be expected from scholars.
Hong and Huang have answered, and answered admirably, a desperate need in this
field.
NICOLE TARULEVICZ
Cleveland State University
Ó 2009 Nicole Tarulevicz
General Asia
DARRELL WILLIAM DAVIS and EMILIE YUEH-YU YEH. East Asian Screen
Industries. London: BFI, 2007. 192 pp. £15.99, paper.
Darrell Davis and Emilie Yueh-yu Yeh’s East Asian Screen Industries forms part
of a new British Film Institute (BFI) series edited by Michael Curtin and Paul
McDonald entitled ‘International Screen Industries’. The book provides an intro-
duction to the screen industries of Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan and the
PRC through a series of case studies geared to avoid a national cinema approach by
encompassing the region as a whole through representative examples.
The book is as accessible as it is timely. Taking as their starting point the rise to
prominence of East Asian films both domestically and internationally, the authors
attempt to explain the industries’ successes despite the influx of Hollywood exports
throughout the 1990s. As is consistent with the title of the book, the authors
concentrate mainly on the industrial, political and structural contexts of the various
East Asian film industries; this is not to say that aesthetic and critical concerns are
neglected but that they are consequent upon a broadly industrial and historical
approach.
560 Book Reviews
The authors do not attempt a complete overview of East Asian film industries, but
arm their readers with an understanding of the ‘‘benchmarks’’ that have shaped
these industries and continue to shape them. Chapter 1 begins with three case studies
exploring East Asian benchmarks in policy and practice. With the decline of
domestic industries throughout much of East Asia, new strategies of survival
became necessary. Using the examples of the South Korean film revival since Shiri,
pan-Chinese co-productions (such as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero),
and Hong Kong’s high concept films (notably Infernal Affairs), the authors point to
new patterns of activity and development within and across the East Asian film
industries. The authors note that these domestic and regional benchmarks cannot be
subsumed under a model of the blockbuster but instead establish unique ways of
responding to challenges that are specific to East Asian markets.
Chapter 2 continues with alternatives to blockbuster benchmarks and explores
strategies that have been used to target local and regional audiences. Feng
Xiaogang’s New Year films, Steven Chow’s Shaolin Soccer and Andy Lau’s success
in Asia (but not in the West) are various examples of a ‘‘new localism’’ whereby East
Asian film industries do not attempt to outdo Hollywood but aim to find new
strategies to operate within the internal market.
Chapter 3 focuses specifically on Japanese television and how ‘‘small screen’’
formats have led to big screen success. Chapter 4 attends to new models of financing
and structuring investments in the form of pan-Asian cinema. Chapter 5 revisits
genre and nationality, noting that specific genres become aligned with specific
national cinemas (such as Japanese horror and Chinese martial arts), nevertheless
allowing these generic elements to translate globally. The authors are at pains to
emphasise the popular aspect of East Asian films against their usual classification in
the West as art-house, festival or cult films. Chapter 6 provides case studies on key
‘‘players’’ and international film festivals that have played an important role in
building East Asian cinema’s success (namely the Shanghai, Hong Kong and Pusan
International Film Festivals, and directors Wong Kar-wai, Jia Zhang-ke and Kim
Ki-duk).
As an introduction, the book is successful in providing students and followers of
East Asian films with new ways of thinking about the ways in which these dynamic
film industries operate. Through the use of case studies and universally recognised
‘‘benchmarks’’, the authors illuminate the success of East Asian film industries while
allowing for new dialogues and studies to take place around them.
OLIVIA KHOO
Curtin University of Technology
Ó 2009 Olivia Khoo
MINA ROCES and LOUISE EDWARDS (eds). The Politics of Dress in Asia and
the Americas. Eastbourne and Oregon: Sussex Academic Press, 2007. 275 pp. £55.00/
Those who delve into the history of clothing and politics will be rewarded with an
extremely fertile field of study. The subject offers diverse examples of how specific
Book Reviews 561
garments, cultural practices of clothing the body, or indeed, keeping parts of the
body naked, have been manipulated to serve or undermine political ideologies and
agendas, promote class values, or craft sexual identities, within a myriad of
temporal contexts. Gilles Lipovetsky’s seminal work on fashion and modern
democratic values, first published in 1987, for instance, argues that French fashion
from the mid-fourteenth century to the twentieth century unshackled people
from the constraints of tradition, and encouraged modernity and individual
autonomy, while ushering in new aesthetics and images of femininity. Marjorie
Garber’s witty investigation of cross-dressing, published in 1997, brings into sharp
focus the sometimes surprising ties binding sexuality, power relations, and
western vestimentary practices; and most recently, Wendy Parkins’ highly
acclaimed edited volume of essays astutely examines how forms of dress, or even
certain bits of clothing, could become sites of fierce political struggle and con-
testation. Parkins’ book begins with an arresting account of how Italy’s Supreme
Court overturned a rape conviction on the basis of a pair of jeans, and the
question as to whether this item of clothing could be removed from the wearer
without consent.1
The Politics of Dress, edited by cultural and feminist historians Mina Roces
and Louise Edwards, is an important contribution to this scholarship, though it
suffers from one or two flaws. Literature on dress history is inadequately
discussed in the Introduction; there is some repetition of phrases and a tendency
to belabour the point; and a little more explanation of the theoretical rationale,
semiotics, that anchors the approach, would not have gone amiss. Perhaps, too,
given the editors’ emphasis on clothing and appearance as ‘‘visual signifiers’’, I
would have liked to read more about the significance of sensory impressions,
especially the predominance of vision and the importance of ocular-driven
understandings. These quibbles aside, I found the essays provocative and
stimulating.
The Politics of Dress brings together twelve well written and lavishly-illustrated
essays that focus on select countries in Asia and the Americas that deserve more
sustained attention – Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Burma, nineteenth-
century Mexico, colonial Brazil, Argentina, and Peru. The volume, as the editors
explicitly state, is intended to complement and elaborate upon the work of Parkins
by ‘‘expand[ing] understandings of the nexus between dress, politics and gender to
include an appreciation of the dynamics generated by trans-cultural and trans-
national interchange’’. The editors are intent on tightening connections between
dress, which they argue is often viewed as superficial and ephemeral, and the serious
business of ‘‘hard-core’’ politics. The editors bring to bear on the contributions a
conventional notion of politics, a perspective established from the outset by
reference to the ceremonial practice of gifting articles of clothing during the annual
APEC summits of Asia Pacific Rim leaders, an example that appears early in the
Introduction. This emphasis suits many of the chapters, which detail how presidents
and military personalities of authoritarian regimes, kings and their entourages,
colonialists, and nationalist elite intellectuals dictated on such seemingly quotidian
matters as hair styles, the quality and cut of fabric, how a piece of cloth should be
worn and by whom, and the wearing and carrying of adornments and accessories
such as hats and handbags.
562 Book Reviews
Other essays, however, show how public interest in faddish and sometimes
outlandish fashionable items, an interest that was often expressed by women,
could just as well disrupt the political hierarchies and sumptuary laws those in
power were attempting to forge. Regina A. Root’s marvellous example of the
enormous and emblematic hair comb, the peinetón, avidly sought after in the late
nineteenth century by Argentine women who used it as a way to ‘‘improvise their
citizenship individually and collaboratively’’ stands as a reminder of how the
extravagant, fabulous and absurd aspects of fashionability could carry immense
and unforeseen political clout during a period of nation-building. Technological
innovation and commercial interest also played a part in complicating class
relationships and gender roles in a society. Jean Gelman Taylor’s discussion on the
introduction of the sewing machine and the use of the engraved copper block in
Indonesia points to how these innovations, coupled with Chinese entrepreneurial
interests, placed batik cloth within the realm of cheap everyday wear for all,
ousted female artisans from the clothing industry and the demand for their hand-
drawn cloth, and put men to work printing and sewing ready-to-wear kebaya
[blouses] in factories.
Roces and Edwards are fundamentally interested in unpacking structures of
power that clothing makes manifest within colonial and postcolonial settings. In
this respect, gender as an analytical category, productively applied in all the
chapters, demonstrably illuminates how differences in dress between the sexes
could underpin anti-colonial resistance, and influence evolving ideas of nation-
hood and the articulation of tradition and modernity. Roces’ own contribution to
the volume cites the now well-known sartorial strategies of the Philippines’ most
famous fashionista, ex-First Lady Imelda Marcos, whose style of dressing could be
made to represent a quintessential image of ‘‘Filipino’’ femininity, by turn be
popularised, or raised to the level of haute couture, or be denigrated and discarded
in line with changes in the political climate. Penny Edwards’ subtle and nuanced
discussion of changing dress regimens in Burma from the late nineteenth century
to the late twentieth century tracks expressions of masculinity and power – from
amulets embedded beneath the skin, the initial adoption of western-style clothing
by western-educated Burmese men aiming to convey secular and nationalist
sentiments, to the post-independence period and the rise in popularity of the
longyi [sarong], pinni [mandarin collared white jackets], headdress, and homespun
fabrics.
This book will appeal to scholars and students of culture and politics who take an
interest in the historical role of dress in society. Most of the essays in the Politics of
Dress, as the editors note, offer good examples of how different forms of dressing –
elements of western dress (shoes, trousers, jackets), nakedness (bare bosoms,
shoulders, torsos, and buttocks), bodily adornments (tattoos, lip plugs, and paint) –
were variously employed to lend credibility to aspirations to modernity or progress,
provide evidence of civilisation or barbarism, or confuse categories of ‘‘local’’ and
‘‘indigenous’’ that permitted hybridised forms of dress to convey notions and
conceptualisations of ‘‘national dress’’. What could emerge, as the example of Peru’s
fanciful national costume paraded in a recent Miss World beauty contest amply
illustrates, might be parody, kitsch – and the fun that can be had in both.
Book Reviews 563
Fluctuations in fashion, dress styles and sartorial practices not only mirrored
political times but defined them. That is the main point this volume most
successfully brings home.
RAQUEL A.G. REYES

SOAS, University of London
Ó 2009 Raquel A.G. Reyes
Note
1. Gilles Lipovetsky, Empire of Fashion: Dressing modern democracy, trans. Catherine Porter
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002); Marjorie Garber, Vested Interests: Cross-dressing
and cultural anxiety (New York and London: Routledge, 1997); and Wendy Parkins (ed.),
Fashioning the Body Politic: Dress, gender, citizenship (Oxford: Berg, 2002).

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University of California, San Diego

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and English, including Hyung Il Pai’s inﬂuential Constructing ‘‘Korean’’ Origins

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GEORGE AKITA. Evaluating Evidence: A Positivist Approach to Reading Sources

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