[ { "id": 209716, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1982", "page_number": 373, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "BOOK REVIEWS\n\n351\n\nstudy of revolts, reforms and revolutions in the South East Asian region is of particular interest and relevance for the outside world. This is because the variety of its component races, religions and political systems, before and after the colonial period, are paralleled by the diversity of situations experienced in revolution, reform and revolt. They are as diverse in kind as the very varied social, cultural, economic, historical context will allow, whether in or outside the colonial period, whether the colonial power was French, British or Dutch, whether a communist party was present or not. They are also, they claim, made the more interesting through the variety of \"models,\" outside assistance and influences available to the leaders of its governments and insurgent movements alike.\n\nThe authors state that, out of the total of twelve articles, five study revolts, three reforms and four revolutions. Five of the nine new states are represented (Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Singapore and Vietnam), with the former colonies of French Indo-china making up three quarters. Two articles concern events before 1914, three take place between 1914 and 1945 and four after the Second World War, and three span several of these periods. Neither the early period of colonial penetration nor the contemporary scene have been neglected, though by choice the authors have generally not gone back beyond 1850.\n\nGenerally speaking, the essays illustrate the theme of the Introduction, and they do cover a most diverse and interesting set of events. This is a stimulating collection of essays which will certainly be of value to serious students of South East Asia. Also, they bear out the authors' claim that they have a wider relevance than the region in which they are set.\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\nChinese Festivals Joan Law and Barbara E. Ward, South China Morning Post, Hong Kong, 1982, 95pp, including Bibliography, Index. 85 Colour plates\n\nIt is surprising that no-one produced a book like this long ago. Of course, this superb volume is no less welcome for that. The book consists of a short introduction, followed by brief", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210984, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1987", "page_number": 46, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "21\n\nnineteenth-century sinologists had laid the foundations for modern China in studies in the West.\n\nBut this long episode of almost total neglect of China was to come to an end with the unexpected ascendancy of Communist China. French intellectuals were caught completely unprepared, all the more since there was strictly no equivalent in France to the sympathetic writings of Snow, Smedley and so many other reporters who had prepared at least some sections of British and American public opinion for the Communist takeover. The French intellectual scene was a blank page - a very Maoist feature and this was a decisive contributing factor to what has since been described as the 'love affair' between Maoist China and French intellectuals.\n\nThis love affair is a very complex story, and requires a much closer look. It had first of all to do with the rejection on the part of the French intellectuals of Soviet-styled communism, once so popular with them. China and Maoism provided ex-Communist Party members with an occasion to settle their accounts with Moscow. Chinese communism was also considered a valuable experiment in Marxist economic theory, and noted economists, such as Charles Bettelheim, always made this point. For Jean-Paul Sartre, who was in the late 1960s at the peak of his cultural and political prestige, Peking was definitely different from Moscow.\n\nChina also met a basic aspiration among French left-wing intellectuals, which I would describe as political exoticism, that is, the tendency to look for a political homeland and model of reference in distant, exotic countries. At times in Cuba, at one time in Algeria, in Vietnam, then in China; each provided a substitute for the ideal society France was unable to develop at home, especially after the failure of the May '68 movement which had been so popular with most intellectuals, and not only with students. The radical young intellectuals of the May '68 generation, such as André Glucksmann and Bernard-Henri Lévy, who were later to establish themselves as trendy 'new philosophers', were among the most devoted Maoists.\n\n—\n\nBut it would be just too easy to restrict the love affair between Maoism and French intellectuals to such radical groups. At least", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210986, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1987", "page_number": 48, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "23\n\nLa Pléiade was wide open to classical Chinese literature, which benefited from the Maoist vogue.\n\nThe Maoist mirage met nevertheless with reservations and condemnations from various quarters — from the conservative Catholic right-wing and also from the pro-Moscow French Communist Party, which was hardly surprising, but also from two more specific groups, rather influential among intellectuals. The academic sinologists, on one hand, were very critical of the pro-Maoist fashion; with very few exceptions, they were well aware of the simplistic naivety of the new sinophiles. Yet, one should wonder whether their open hostility towards the fashionable intellectuals was not, after all, a kind of defensive reaction against what sinologists considered to be trespassing on their professional estate! On the other hand, pro-Maoist intellectuals were harassed pitilessly by a radical and very vociferous group, the young situationists, whose overall attack against established cultural values of every kind had been an important contribution to the May '68 movement. Thus, an unexpected anti-Maoist alliance was formed between respectable sinologists and sniping situationists, which was to make a lasting impact in France and in which the Canberra academic scene also became involved.\n\nLooking at this strange, erratic, very emotional love affair at a distance, some fifteen or twenty years later, how should we react — including myself? The whole affair was certainly a strange combination of affectation and naivety, of misinformation and self-complacency, which deserves blame and regret and nothing else. We were definitely lacking intellectual rigour, caution, and integrity. Not only did we satisfy ourselves with a rosy picture of China, which was conveyed to us by visitors on short-term and carefully controlled tours, but we made this rosy picture an essential ingredient of our social prestige, our publishing careers, our popularity with the media. We failed completely to assess properly our responsibility towards French public opinion and especially towards those for whom China understandably meant hope, determination, the ability to shape one's own future. I am not sure that self-criticism was something George Ernest Morrison was quite familiar with. But I am pleased that the present Morrison Lecture gives me a convenient occasion for expressing such regret.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 } ]