[
    {
        "id": 205191,
        "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-1966",
        "page_number": 147,
        "title": "RAS-1966",
        "content_text": "BOOK REVIEWS\n\n141\n\nTHE GLASS CURTAIN BETWEEN ASIA AND EUROPE: A Symposium on the Historical Encounters and the Changing Attitudes of the Peoples of the East and the West. Edited by Raghavan Iyer, with a Foreword by the Dalai Lama. London: Oxford University Press, 1965. xii+356 pages. HK$42.00\n\nThis book, as its subtitle indicates, is a study of the East-vs.-West mentality of both Asians and Europeans in the modern world. The \"Glass Curtain\" refers to this mentality, as it were, \"invisible yet impenetrable.\" As something that divides peoples into opposing sides, it is more subtle, and therefore more difficult to recognize and deal with, than the Iron Curtain, the \"Bamboo Curtain,\" or what have you. The result is lack of mutual understanding and the proliferation of distorted images of other peoples as well as of one's own.\n\nSuch a result, though perhaps inevitable historically, is naturally undesirable, so it is assumed in this book. This is so especially in our day of more extensive intercultural exchanges and more intense international conflicts. Furthermore, it is time to look forward to an emerging world civilization in which Asians and Europeans and other peoples should be more or less equal partners. All those who share this global outlook and cosmopolitan concern should read this book. The book is a tract for the times, a lesson in world citizenship. Though it presents a somber picture at the beginning, the book ends with an optimistic outlook. It appeals throughout to a broader understanding and a deeper sympathy. Although its material is historical (as are most of its essays), its aim is moral. Here lies the book's peculiar character.\n\nThe main purpose of the book is to expose and, hopefully, lift one particular \"curtain of ignorance\" that separates and misleads people about others and about themselves, for the sake of better communication and in the name of a common humanity. In the words of its editor, the book aims at least \"to offer a provisional framework for a frank dialogue between Asians and Europeans on the Glass Curtain that seems to separate them\" (p.312). And he adds, \"the concern for a real dialogue on equal terms is indeed more significant than the anxiety to reach agreement or to find specific solutions\" (p.318). The point is to get the dialogue going. This book should provide a good start.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 205193,
        "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-1966",
        "page_number": 149,
        "title": "RAS-1966",
        "content_text": "BOOK REVIEWS\n\n143\n\ntributed) makes it the most interesting of all and appealing to this reader.\n\nMax Scheler's statement is quoted more than once, with approval, about the coming of \"the hour that harbours in its breast the future of humanity, the hour when Asia and Europe will enter upon a discussion of the principles of their religious and metaphysical life\" (p.313). The book does not present directly such a discussion except in a few spots, notably the essay on the uniqueness of Europe by a Frenchman. Is it because religious and metaphysical principles are the things that ultimately divide as well as unite? Slater's essay should provide a step toward Scheler's prophesy. This should be coupled with Needham's proposition that it is the common knowledge (and use) of nature, which is what he means by science, that is the real basis of dialogue, if not indeed of the unity of mankind. What is the place of normative values in the study of science and in intercultural confrontations? Should we, as the important footnote on pp.317-318 suggests, confine ourselves to \"thoughtful and accurate description\" (such as provided by the historical essays in the book) for the time being, avoiding value judgments and therefore the temptation of \"cultural egotism?\" This is the kind of significant question the book raises but does not answer.\n\nThe essays collected in this symposium are generally short (about 15 pages) and readable. Some are better documented than others. The material in the upper half of p.318, for example, is too important not to be acknowledged as to its source. The long Bibliography at the end of the book would be more useful if classified or annotated. It should be otherwise more selective. Karl Wittfogel's work, Oriental Despotism, apparently important because it is mentioned twice in the book, is strangely left out of the Bibliography. Wang Gungwu's family name is Wang, not Gungwu, as arranged in the \"Notes on Contributors\" on p.355 and stated on p.316—a minor case of East-West misunderstanding! It may be noteworthy that eight out of the twenty contributors (most of them historians) were at one time or another associated with St. Anthony's College, Oxford, making the book to this extent a joint product of that scholarly community. The book, finally, includes as its most important appendix \"A Dialogue on the Glass Curtain between Arnold Toynbee and Raghavan",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811",
        "rank": 0
    }
]