BOOK REVIEWS
223
John Pelzel compares Japanese and Chinese Kinship. As Professor Freedman sums up in his introduction to the volume, 'it seems that the perduring units of kinship structure are in Japan the ie and in China the lineage, the “lineage” in Japan and the chia in China are passing phenomena.'
This volume of essays does not form a textbook on Chinese kinship and family; rather it summarises contemporary thinking on and research about family and kinship in China and discloses, I feel, some likely future developments. More attention needs to be given to the study of matrilateral relationships, a topic hardly explored in any major research project or study. There is also a need to explore relationships that do not depend on kinship. Chinese, after all, do become members of guilds and trade unions and other associations; and some of the non-kin relationships they enter into are as meaningful and sociologically significant as those connected with family and kinship; and, after reading Professor Cohen's essay, it seems clear that somebody should take a very close look at the Chinese firm or business, at the Chinese business-man in his economic habitat. Lastly, there is a need for a more comparative approach. Professor Freedman states, 'China, we are discovering more and more, can be profitably studied within the context of the group of societies with which it shares a classical tradition.' He refers to Japan, Korea and Vietnam. Most scholars would concur: sinologues tend to be obsessively preoccupied with China.
Although there are some ideas in this volume which would be obscure for the non-sinologue or non-anthropologist, there is precious little obscurity of expression. This is an important book, elegantly written, and should interest historians, students of comparative institutions, and the educated common reader.
Hong Kong, June 1971.
HENRY JAMES LETHBRIDGE
TAIKOO: Charles Drage, London, Constable, 1970, pp. 298, appendices, illus, £2.25.
This book is a tapestry woven around the office and private lives of the Eastern Staff of Butterfield & Swire. It is set against