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into a major player in their domestic affairs; all are briefly described. Missing, for some reason, are Vietnam and Cambodia. Absent, too, is any substantial reference to the massive Asian immigration into the United States which has characterized the post-1965 period, and which has brought major demographic changes.
While brevity in books is often to be recommended. Dudden's work would have benefitted from the addition of separate sections or chapters on the different impulses leading the United States to expand into the Pacific, for instance the commercial, missionary, and strategic impulses.
The book boasts a large number of clear and easily read maps, those indispensable aids to any understanding of international history. One can only regret that the press did not see fit to include either illustrations or a bibliographic essay guiding the inquiring reader to further reading. The latter is particularly important, since this work does not pretend to be more than an introduction to a large and complex subject.
Finally, let me say with regret that this is not the first occasion on which I have discovered in a book produced by the New York branch of Oxford University Press an appalling number of typographical errors. There were too many errors in the text, and the notes were a disgraceful display of misplaced and inconsistent punctuation, spelling mistakes, omissions, and inaccuracies. One can only hope that Oxford may in future hire copy editors who know how to copy edit.
PRISCILLA ROBERTS
Maria Jaschok. Concubines and Bondservants: The Social History of a Chinese Custom. (London: Zed Books Ltd, 1988), 156 pp. Appendices, Index.
Mui-tsai, girls sold by their natal families to act as servants in wealthier households, were a marked feature of Hong Kong society, especially before the last War, and the study of this social institution is one of perennial fascination. As so often with Chinese social institutions, the Mui-tsai are difficult to pin down. It is clear that girls spoken of as Mui-tsai could be found in a wide range of situations
324
into a major player in their domestic affairs; all are briefly described. Missing, for some reason, are Vietnam and Cambodia. Absent, too, is any substantial reference to the massive Asian immigration into the United States which has characterized the post-1965 period, and which has brought major demographic changes.
While brevity in books is often to be recommended. Dudden's work would have benefitted from the addition of separate sections or chapters on the different impulses leading the United States to expand into the Pacific, for instance the commercial, missionary, and strategic impulses.
The book boasts a large number of clear and easily read maps. those indispensable aids to any understanding of international history. One can only regret that the press did not see fit to include either illustrations or a bibliographic essay guiding the inquiring reader to further reading. The latter is particularly important, since this work does not pretend to be more than an introduction to a large and complex subject.
Finally, let me say with regret that this is not the first occasion on which I have discovered in a book produced by the New York branch of Oxford University Press an appalling number of typographical errors. There were too many errors in the text, and the notes were a disgraceful display of misplaced and inconsistent punctuation, spelling mistakes, omissions, and inaccuracies. One can only hope that Oxford may in future hire copy editors who know how to copy edit.
PRISCILLA ROBERTS
Maria Jaschok. Concubines and Bondservants: The Social History of a Chinese Custom. (London: Zed Books Ltd, 1988), 156 pp. Appendices, Index.
Mui-tsai, girls sold by their natal families to act as servants in wealthier households, were a marked feature of Hong Kong society, especially before the last War, and the study of this social institution is one of perennial fascination. As so often with Chinese social institutions, the Mui-tsai are difficult to pin down. It is clear that girls spoken of as Mui-tsai could be found in a wide range of situations
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