Author: stephchun

Japan to 1600

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Japan to 1600: A Social and Economic History, by William Wayne Farris, surveys Japanese historical development from the first evidence of human habitation in the archipelago to the consolidation of political power under the Tokugawa shogunate at the beginning of the seventeenth century. It is unique among introductory texts for its focus on developments that impacted all social classes rather than the privileged and powerful few. In accessible language punctuated with lively and interesting examples, Farris weaves together major economic and social themes. The book focuses on continuity and change in social and economic structures and experiences, but it by no means ignores the political and cultural. Most chapters begin with an outline of political developments, and cultural phenomena—particularly religious beliefs—are also taken into account. In addition, Japan to 1600 addresses the growing connectedness between residents of the archipelago and the rest of the world.

May 2009 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3379-4 / $22.00 (PAPER)

Cambodge Wins Major SEA Studies Book Award

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Cambodge: The Cultivation of a Nation, 1860–1945, by Penny Edwards, was awarded the Harry J. Benda Prize at the Association for Asian Studies Annual Meeting in March 2009.

“In Cambodge: The Cultivation of a Nation, Penny Edwards examines brilliantly the metamorphosis of the kingdom of Cambodia into the French-Khmer colonial entity of Cambodge—the chrysalis from which today’s Cambodia has emerged. Demonstrating a masterful command of scholarship and of archival, literary, and popular sources, Edwards reveals not a simple dance of colonial domination and resistance but an array of complex collaborations through which Khmer subjects adapted, and embraced as their own, processes set in train by the French: to iconize and secularize Angkor Vat; to promote a Khmer Buddhism separate from Thai influence and free of hoary superstitions; and to root ‘Khmerness’ both in a romanticized antiquity and France-led modernity.

In a narrative that is elegantly crafted and ultimately gripping, Edwards links the colonial world of schools, research institutes, and print culture and of museums, monuments, and tourism to the post-colonial nation-building projects of Sihanouk, Lon Nol, and Pol Pot. In doing so, she brings legibility to highly theorized subjects such as hybridity, authenticity, and nationalism and both complicates and enriches our understanding of the colonial era and its legacies in modern Southeast Asia—demonstrating, as Harry J. Benda did, how rigorous historical scholarship can expose surprising ways in which the past is complicit in the present.”

Begin Here Receives Honorable Mention for AAAS Book Award

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Begin Here: Reading Asian North American Autobiographies of Childhood, by Rocío G. Davis, will receive an Honorable Mention for the Association for Asian American Studies (AAAS) 2007 Literacy Studies Book Award. The award will be presented at this week’s AAAS Annual Meeting in Honolulu.

“Informed by the latest developments in postmodern and postcolonial autobiography theory, this vital work focuses on 50 autobiographies of childhood written by Asian Americans in North America. . . . Highly recommended.” —Choice

Conquest and Pestilence in the Early Spanish Philippines

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Scholars have long assumed that Spanish colonial rule had only a limited demographic impact on the Philippines. Filipinos, they believed, had acquired immunity to Old World diseases prior to Spanish arrival; conquest was thought to have been more benign than what took place in the Americas because of more enlightened colonial policies introduced by Philip II. Conquest and Pestilence in the Early Spanish Philippines, by Linda A. Newson, illuminates the demographic history of the Spanish Philippines in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and, in the process, challenges these assumptions.

“The book is truly remarkable in breadth and depth and has the power of a prosecuting attorney’s relentless presentation of a damning circumstantial case: the reader’s resistance gives way under the sheer weight of the evidence. We hear many different voices (some ecclesiastical, some civil or military) reiterating the same sad tale of depopulation and slow recovery. Others have, on less evidence, surmised some of this story of loss, but no one before has effectively estimated its depth or duration. The tale deserves to be told.” —Norman G. Owen, editor, The Emergence of Modern Southeast Asia

April 2009 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3272-8 / $56.00 (CLOTH)

A Companion to Grammata Serica Recensa

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“Minimal Old Chinese and Later Han Chinese: A Companion to Grammata Serica Recensa succeeds admirably in the goals the author has set for it. The introduction is the clearest and most useful document of its kind I have seen in recent years. It lays out in relatively few pages what others have heretofore taken reams to express. The body of the work gives the reader the entire syllable inventory of Old Chinese in a clear and useful format. The index and finding list are well organized and allow quick access to the material in the text. I predict that it will become a standard handbook for sinologists in general, just as Kalgren’s Grammata Serica and Grammata Serica Recensa have been during the past sixty years.” —W. South Coblin, University of Iowa

“The present work will fill the need for an updated and easy-to-use source for citing the various historically reconstructed stages of Chinese. It retains the basic structure of Karlgren’s early works with one big difference: the inclusion of an additional historical stage, Later Han Chinese. [Axel] Schuessler’s work will allow a much wider audience to access the most important result of Chinese historical phonology, especially those not interested in specializing in the study of historical phonology. It will also be a helpful resource for the linguist who, although familiar with the linguistic literature concerning Old Chinese, often needs a convenient way to look up reconstructions. Even those given to a more speculative turn of mind may well find that their work is greatly facilitated by Schuessler’s book. I believe that in a short time Minimal Old Chinese and Later Han Chinese will become a standard reference on the active sinologist’s bookshelf.” —Jerry Norman, University of Washington

April 2009 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3264-3 / $58.00 (CLOTH)

Fundamental Spoken Chinese

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Fundamental Spoken Chinese, by Robert Sanders and Nora Yao, introduces most of the basic grammatical patterns of modern spoken Mandarin in a carefully planned, graduated fashion. Every chapter follows the same organizational format and includes: key grammar points, new vocabulary items arranged by part of speech, sentence patterns, and four or five short dialogues illustrating contextual use of each new grammar pattern and vocabulary item. Non-technical explanations of grammar are written from the perspective of the English-speaking learner and are illustrated with multiple sentences in simple chart form. When appropriate, vocabulary and culture notes are provided, together with numerous drills, exercises, and in-class activities. Finally, English-Chinese translation exercises help determine how well students have mastered the chapter’s grammar and vocabulary.

“The course set out in Fundamental Spoken Chinese and Fundamental Written Chinese provides a thorough training in all the skills that a learner needs to reach a basic level of proficiency in Mandarin Chinese as well as a solid foundation for more advanced study. Fundamental Spoken Chinese is marvelously executed. The explanations of grammar and usage are exceptionally clear, the best I’ve ever seen in a textbook. The charts used to illustrate grammatical constructions are easy to follow, and the examples are well chosen for maximal clarity. The dialogues are naturalistic and well keyed to everyday situations, as is the vocabulary. Fundamental Written Chinese has many of the same virtues as its companion volume. Like Fundamental Spoken Chinese, Fundamental Written Chinese not only teaches the content of the lesson but also inculcates habits essential for further learning. The emphasis on explaining characters explicitly in terms of radicals and phonetics is an example of the kind of approach that makes for successful advanced learners. The two books are designed to be flexible so that teachers of various approaches can use them either to introduce the spoken and written skills simultaneously or to introduce writing after the spoken language has progressed to a certain level. Teachers and learners are provided with all the basic tools needed in one well-designed package.” —Mark Hansell, Carleton College

April 2009 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3156-1 / $39.00 (PAPER)

The Record of Linji Now Available in Paperback

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The Record of Linji, translation and commentary by Ruth Fuller Sasaki and edited by Thomas Y. Kirchner, is now available in paperback.

“A masterpiece of scholarship not only on Linji Chan, but also on Chinese Buddhist language and history—the annotations, which constitute almost two-thirds of the book, explain in astonishing detail the meanings, references, and grammar of each line of text. The edition preserves the excellent historical introduction, and includes a lengthy glossary, index, and table of names.” —Buddhadharma: The Practitioner’s Quarterly

Nanzan Library of Asian Religion and Culture
March 2008 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3319-0 / $25.00 (PAPER)

Colonial Legacies Longlisted for 2009 ICAS Book Prize

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The International Convention of Asia Scholars (ICAS) Book Prize is a global competition that provides an international focus for publications on Asia while at the same time increasing their visibility worldwide. The coveted book prizes are awarded for best studies in the humanities and the social sciences.

Colonial Legacies: Economic and Social Development in East and Southeast Asia, by Anne E. Booth, has been longlisted in the social sciences category. Winners will be announced at ICAS 6, which will be held in August 2009 in Daejeon, Korea.

Being Dutch in the Indies: A History of Creolisation and Empire, 1500-1920, by Ulbe Bosma and Remco Raben, distributed by UH Press for NUS Press (Singapore) has been longlisted in the humanities category.

Movement, Gender, and Cook Islands Globalization

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Dancing from the Heart: Movement, Gender, and Cook Islands Globalization, by Kalissa Alexeyeff, is the first study of gender, globalization, and expressive culture in the Cook Islands. It demonstrates how dance in particular plays a key role in articulating the overlapping local, regional, and transnational agendas of Cook Islanders. Alexeyeff reconfigures conventional views of globalization’s impact on indigenous communities, moving beyond diagnoses of cultural erosion and contamination to a grounded exploration of creative agency and vital cultural production.

“Dancing from the Heart is written from the heart. This book is a wonderful evocation of contemporary Polynesian life, joy, and loss. Yet it is also analytically adventurous. Cook Island dance becomes a lens through which questions of gender, performance, embodiment, and globalization come into focus in novel ways. This is surely one of the finest of recent Pacific ethnographies.” —Nicholas Thomas, Univeristy of Cambridge

March 2009 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3244-5 / $55.00 (CLOTH)

The Public vs. Private School Debate in Hawai`i

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Going Against the Grain: When Professionals in Hawai‘i Choose Public Schools Instead of Private Schools is about passion, advocacy, and the willingness of parents to “go against the grain.” It’s about Hawai‘i professionals choosing public education for their children in a state that adheres to a commonly held belief that “public schools are failing and private schools are succeeding.” University of Hawai‘i education professor Ann Bayer interviewed fifty-one parents, including five who chose private schools. Physicians, professors, attorneys, military officers, teachers, legislators, business executives and entrepreneurs, bankers, and administrators of both genders and from a wide range of ethnic backgrounds were among those interviewed.

Bayer begins by asking parents why they chose to send their children to public schools. She also asks them to describe the reaction of families, friends, and colleagues to their decision and their children’s school experiences—both positive and negative. From these conversations the concept of what constitutes a “good public school” emerges as well as the opportunities provided by such schools. Several parents remark that their children have gone on to attend the same colleges and universities as private school graduates. Other chapters examine more closely the prevalent belief in the superiority of Hawai‘i’s private schools and its impact on students, parents, and teachers. Bayer argues that it is important to understand this belief system and how both newcomers and longtime residents are exposed to it given its influence on parental decisions about schooling. Finally, she returns to interviews with parents for suggestions on how to improve public education in Hawai‘i and to address the question “Why should we care about the public school system?” Responses spark frank discussions on the broader implications for the civic and economic health of a community fragmented by two-tiered schooling.

March 2009 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3339-8 / $26.00 (PAPER)

Voices from Okinawa

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Despite Okinawa’s long and close relationship with the United States, most Americans know little about the rich and remarkable culture of Japan’s southernmost islands. And they know even less about the Okinawan immigrants who brought their heritage to the U.S. over one hundred years ago. In this landmark publication—the first literary anthology showcasing Okinawan Americans—their voices are heard in plays, essays, and memoirs. Through the beauty, humor, and heartbreak in Jon Shirota’s award-winning plays, the experiences of an extraordinary people are illuminated. And in personal essays and interviews, the compelling life stories are told of June Hiroko Arakawa, Philip Ige, Mitsugu Sakihara, and Seiyei Wakukawa. The distinctive cultural perspectives and literary excellence of Voices from Okinawa, edited by Frank Stewart and Katsunori Yamazato, expand our definition of American literature, showing it to be more inclusive, complex, and multilayered than we have imagined.

Mānoa 21:1
February 2009 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3391-6 / $20.00 (PAPER)

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