Author: stephchun

Chinese Healing Exercises

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Daoyin, the traditional Chinese practice of guiding the qi and stretching the body is the forerunner of Qigong, the modern form of exercise that has swept through China and is making increasing inroads in the West. Like other Asian body practices, Daoyin focuses on the body as the main vehicle of attainment; sees health and spiritual transformation as one continuum leading to perfection or self-realization; and works intensely and consciously with the breath and with the conscious guiding of internal energies. Chinese Healing Exercises: The Tradition of Daoyin, by Livia Kohn, explores the different forms of Daoyin in historical sequence, beginning with the early medical manuscripts of the Han dynasty, then moving into its religious adaptation in Highest Clarity Daoism. After examining the medieval Daoyin Scripture and ways of integrating the practice into Tang Daoist immortality, the work outlines late imperial forms and describes the transformation of the practice in the modern world.

“Livia Kohn is absolutely the source on the origins and great luminaries of Qigong, Tai Chi, and Chinese healing exercises. As the world’s appetite for stress mastery, wellness, and complementary medicine grows and the fields of health promotion and personal empowerment explode, there is a need for accurate reflection on the origins of China’s ancient power tools for well-being, healing, and longevity. Based on sound scholarship and accessible to a wide audience, this book fulfills that need.” —Roger Jahnke, OMD, Institute of Integral Qigong and Tai Chi

A Latitude 20 Book
September 2008 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3269-8 / $25.00 (PAPER)

The Shaolin Monastery Now Available in Paperback

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The Shaolin Monastery: History, Religion, and the Chinese Martial Arts, by Meir Shahar, is now available in paperback.

“A real gift to martial arts enthusiasts and historians alike. Combining scholarly caution and respectful appreciation, Shahar shows how much and how little can be learned about the origins of the monastery in the fifth century, its close relationship with the Tang emperors (618–907), its flowering as a religious and military institution in the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), and the suspicion with which it was regarded by the Qing state (1644–1911). . . . This refreshingly original study is indispensable for understanding both the history and the hype.” —Choice

September 2008 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3349-7 / $23.00 (PAPER)

Hawaii’s Ferns Now Available in Paperback

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Hawai‘i’s Ferns and Fern Alllies, by Daniel D. Palmer, is now available in paperback.

“A long awaited and much requested manual of the Hawaiian pteridophytes. Here, in one volume, is a guide to all of the ferns and fern allies of the Islands that will be welcomed by professionals and amateurs alike. This manual is well researched, detailed and comprehensive. It is an essential addition to the library of all those interested in pteridophytes as well as those interested in Hawaiian plants and in island floras.” —American Fern Journal

September 2008 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3347-3 / $25.00 (PAPER)

Cambodge Now Available in Paperback

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Cambodge: The Cultivation of a Nation, 1860–1945, by Penny Edwards, is now available in paperback.

“Penny Edwards’ Cambodge is an original and impressive tour de force of scholarly analysis. She provides a richly textured cultural genealogy of state formation in Cambodia by reassessing the impact of French colonialism on modern Khmer thought and nation building. Relying on extensive archival research, Edwards traces a complex cultural history of Angkor as the site of competing religious and political investment that not only redefined regional boundaries and imperial power relations but also determined the very notion of Khmerness. Her book is a most important intervention in Southeast Asian history and should engage scholars across such diverse disciplines as archaeology, art, history, religion, cultural and literary studies.” —Panivong Norindr, author of Phantasmatic Indochina: French Colonial Ideology in Architecture, Film, and Literature

September 2008 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3346-6 / $25.00 (PAPER)

Hirata Atsutane’s Ethnography of the Other World

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Hirata Atsutane (1776–1843) has been the subject of numerous studies that focus on his importance to nationalist politics and Japanese intellectual and social history. Although well known as an ideologue of Japanese National Learning (Kokugaku), Atsutane’s significance as a religious thinker has been largely overlooked. His prolific writings on supernatural subjects have never been thoroughly analyzed in English until now. In When Tengu Talk: Hirata Atsutane’s Ethnography of the Other World, Wilburn Hansen focuses on Senkyo ibun (1822), a voluminous work centering on Atsutane’s interviews with a fourteen-year-old Edo street urchin named Kozo Torakichi who claimed to be an apprentice tengu, a supernatural creature of Japanese folklore. Hansen uncovers in detail how Atsutane employed a deliberate method of ethnographic inquiry that worked to manipulate and stimulate Torakichi’s surreal descriptions of everyday existence in a supernatural realm, what Atsutane termed the Other World. Hansen’s investigation and analysis of the process begins with the hypothesis that Atsutane’s project was an early attempt at ethnographic research, a new methodological approach in nineteenth-century Japan. Hansen posits that this “scientific” analysis was tainted by Atsutane’s desire to establish a discourse on Japan not limited by what he considered to be the unsatisfactory results of established Japanese philological methods.

September 2008 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3209-4 / $52.00 (CLOTH)

Factional Conflict in Late Northern Song China

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Between 1044 and 1104, ideological disputes divided China’s sociopolitical elite, who organized into factions battling for control of the imperial government. Advocates and adversaries of state reform forged bureaucratic coalitions to implement their policy agendas and to promote like-minded colleagues. During this period, three emperors and two regents in turn patronized a new bureaucratic coalition that overturned the preceding ministerial regime and its policies. This ideological and political conflict escalated with every monarchical transition in a widening circle of retribution that began with limited purges and ended with extensive blacklists of the opposition. Divided by a Common Language: Factional Conflict in Late Northern Song China, by Ari Daniel Levine, is the first English-language study to approach the political history of the late Northern Song in its entirety and the first to engage the issue of factionalism in Song political culture.

“This study is important for the clarity with which it presents a critical period in the development of Chinese imperial history and government. It is entirely original, well written, and the scholarship is very sound. Levine is deeply grounded in the texts and debates he is examining, and his command of the language of the sources, both primary and secondary, is excellent. Divided by a Common Language provides a significant contribution to Chinese, and especially Song, historiography.” —Hugh P. Clark, Ursinus College

September 2008 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3266-7 / $55.00 (CLOTH)

An Intellectual Biography of Jean-Marie Tjibaou

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Jean-Marie Tjibaou is arguably the most important post–World War II Oceanic leader. His intellectual abilities, acute understanding of both Melanesian and European civilizations, stature as a statesman, commitment to nonviolence, and vision for Melanesia’s potential contributions to the global community have all contributed to the creation of a remarkable and enduring legacy. Until now, no substantial English-language study has existed of Tjibaou, who was assassinated in 1989. This biography, by Eric Waddell, takes an essentially chronological approach to the Kanak (New Caledonia) leader—from his beginnings in the mountains of northern New Caledonia and his studies at the Sorbonne to his leadership of the independence movement in the Territory. The work focuses on the spiritual, cultural, and intellectual sources of Tjibaou’s ideas and actions as well as on those who were a source of inspiration to him.

Pacific Islands Monograph Series, No. 23
Published in association with the Center for Pacific Islands Studies, University of Hawai‘i
September 2008 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3314-5 / $25.00 (PAPER)

A Study and Translation of the Rastrapalapariprccha-sutra

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Bodhisattvas of the Forest, by Daniel Boucher, delves into the socioreligious milieu of the authors, editors, and propagators of the Rastrapalapariprccha-sutra (Questions of Rastrapala), a Buddhist text circulating in India during the first half of the first millennium C.E. In this meticulously researched study, Daniel Boucher first reflects upon the problems that plague historians of Mahayana Buddhism, whose previous efforts to comprehend the tradition have often ignored the social dynamics that motivated some of the innovations of this new literature. Following that is a careful analysis of several motifs found in the Indian text and an examination of the value of the earliest Chinese translation for charting the sutra’s evolution.

“This important study makes the Rastrapalapariprccha-sutra available, for the first time, in an English translation that highlights the differences between the oldest version (a third-century Chinese translation) and the much later Sanskrit version. Highly recommended for all those who are interested in the process of evolution of Mahayana scriptures over time.” —Jan Nattier, International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology, Soka University

Studies in the Buddhist Traditions
September 2008 / ISBN 978-0-8248-2881-3 / $54.00 (CLOTH)

Death and the Afterlife in Japanese Buddhism

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For more than a thousand years, Buddhism has dominated Japanese death rituals and concepts of the afterlife. The nine essays in Death and the Afterlife in Japanese Buddhism, edited by Jacqueline I. Stone and Mariko Namba Walter, ranging chronologically from the tenth century to the present, bring to light both continuity and change in death practices over time. They also explore the interrelated issues of how Buddhist death rites have addressed individual concerns about the afterlife while also filling social and institutional needs and how Buddhist death-related practices have assimilated and refigured elements from other traditions, bringing together disparate, even conflicting, ideas about the dead, their postmortem fate, and what constitutes normative Buddhist practice.

August 2008 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3204-9 / $52.00 (CLOTH)

Asian Settler Colonialism

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Asian Settler Colonialism: From Local Governance to the Habits of Everyday Life in Hawai‘i, edited by Candace Fujikane and Jonathan Y. Okamura, is a groundbreaking collection that examines the roles of Asians as settlers in Hawai‘i. Contributors from various fields and disciplines investigate aspects of Asian settler colonialism to illustrate its diverse operations and impact on Native Hawaiians. Essays range from analyses of Japanese, Korean, and Filipino settlement to accounts of Asian settler practices in the legislature, the prison industrial complex, and the U.S. military to critiques of Asian settlers’ claims to Hawai‘i in literature and the visual arts.

“When Native Hawaiian activists lash out against Asian settler colonialism, we must remember what Malcolm X said: ‘The conditions that our people suffer are extreme, and an extreme illness cannot be cured with moderate medicine.’ This book takes a candid and necessary look at indigenous views of Asian settlement in Hawai‘i over the past century.” —Yuri Kochiyama, civil rights activist

August 2008 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3300-8 / $25.00 (PAPER)

Hawaii at the Crossroads

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Hawai‘i at the Crossroads of the U.S. and Japan before the Pacific War, edited by Jon Thares Davidann, tells the story of Hawai‘i’s role in the emergence of Japanese cultural and political internationalism during the interwar period. Following World War I, Japan became an important global power and Hawai‘i Japanese represented its largest and most significant emigrant group. During the 1920s and 1930s, Hawai‘i’s Japanese American population provided Japan with a welcome opportunity to expand its international and intercultural contacts. This volume, based on papers presented at the 2001 Crossroads Conference by scholars from the U.S., Japan, and Australia, explores U.S.–Japanese conflict and cooperation in Hawai‘i—truly the crossroads of relations between the two countries prior to the Pacific War.

August 2008 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3225-4 / $49.00 (CLOTH)

Enjoying and Learning about Hawaii’s Sea Turtles

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The Book of Honu: Enjoying and Learning about Hawai‘i’s Sea Turtles, by Peter Bennett and Ursula Keuper-Bennett, is the first guide to finding and observing Hawaiian green turtles, or honu. It describes an exciting journey of discovery undertaken by two avid sports divers, Peter Bennett and Ursula Keuper-Bennett, who encountered their first honu twenty years ago while diving off Honokowai, Maui. The Bennetts soon realized that many honu (and green turtles worldwide) were afflicted with debilitating and potentially deadly tumors. They began to document the disease using photographs and videotape and in the process educated themselves about the daily lives of honu. To their surprise, they discovered they were the first to make prolonged observations of a marine turtle population in its natural habitat.

72 color illus.

A Latitude 20 Book
August 2008 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3127-1 / $18.95 (PAPER)

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