In Lost Modernities Alexander Woodside offers a probing revisionist overview of the bureaucratic politics of preindustrial China, Vietnam, and Korea. He focuses on the political and administrative theory of the three mandarinates and their long experimentation with governments recruited in part through meritocratic civil service examinations remarkable for their transparent procedures. 
The quest for merit-based bureaucracy stemmed from the idea that good politics could be established through the "development of people"--the training of people to be politically useful. Centuries before civil service examinations emerged in the Western world, these three Asian countries were basing bureaucratic advancement on examinations in addition to patronage. But the evolution of the mandarinates cannot be accommodated by our usual timetables of what is "modern." The history of China, Vietnam, and Korea suggests that the rationalization processes we think of as modern may occur independently of one another and separate from such landmarks as the growth of capitalism or the industrial revolution.
A sophisticated examination of Asian political traditions, both their achievements and the associated risks, this book removes modernity from a standard Eurocentric understanding and offers a unique new perspective on the transnational nature of Asian history and on global historical time.

Lost Modernities: China, Vietnam, Korea, and the Hazards of World History (The Edwin O. Reischauer Lectures)

History

Woodside, Alexander

Asia

Harvard University Press

Why did the Vietnamese accept certain Chinese institutions and yet explicitly reject others? How did Vietnamese cultural borrowings from China alter the dynamics of traditional relations between Vietnam, Siam, Laos, and Cambodia? How did Vietnam’s smaller Southeast Asian environment modify and distort classical East Asian institutions?
Alexander Woodside has answered these questions in this well-received political and cultural study. This first real comparison of the civil governments of two traditional East Asian societies on an institution-by-institution basis is now reissued with a new preface.

Vietnam and the Chinese Model : A Comparative Study of Nguyen and Ch'ing Civil Government in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century (Harvard East Asian Monographs)

Harvard University Asia Center

The Emergence of Modern Southeast Asia: A New History

The modern states of Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, Myanmar, Malaysia, Singapore, Cambodia, Laos, Brunei, and East Timor were once a tapestry of kingdoms, colonies, and smaller polities linked by sporadic trade and occasional war. Their societies shared many elements but also centered on traditions as diverse as Buddhism, Islam, Confucianism, and Christianity. By the end of the nineteenth century, however, the United States and several European powers had come to control almost the entire region—only to depart dramatically in the decades following World War II. The emergence of modern Southeast Asia raises many questions, specific and general. Why were the great royal capitals—Hue, Ava, Ayutthaya, Yogyakarta—relegated to obscurity? What led the Vietnamese, at great cost in human suffering, to fight the French, the Americans, and each other for thirty years, and what did the revolutionaries do when they won? How did Southeast Asians live together and how were their lives—and dreams—changed by new forms of authority and new modes of production? What are the region’s economic resources, who controls them and benefits from them, and how have they and their distribution changed over time? 
The Emergence of Modern Southeast Asia offers a new and up-to-date perspective on this complex region. Although it does not neglect nation-building (the central theme of its popular and long-lived predecessor, In Search of Southeast Asia), the present work focuses on economic and social history, gender, and ecology. It describes the long-term impact of global forces on the region and traces the spread and interplay of capitalism, nationalism, and socialism. It acknowledges that modernization has produced substantial gains in such areas as life expectancy and education but has also spread dislocation and misery. Technology means helicopter gun ships and government surveillance as well as jet travel and the Internet. As the region’s economies have grown, the environment has become polluted and natural resources have been savagely exploited. 
Organizationally, the book shifts between thematic chapters that describe social, economic, and cultural change, and "country" chapters emphasizing developments within specific areas. Enhanced by scores of illustrations, The Emergence of Modern Southeast Asia will establish a new standard for the history of this dynamic and radically transformed region of the world.

Steinberg, David Joel

CHANDLER, David P.

Taylor, Jean Gelman

Wyatt, David K.

Taylor, Robert H.

Owen, Norman G.

Roff, William R.

University of Hawaii Press

Global Capitalism and the Future of Agrarian Society

This book offers historical and comparative analyses of changes in agrarian society forced by the globalization of capitalism, and the implications of these changes for human welfare globally. The book gives special attention to recent economic development and urbanisation in the People's Republic of China which have had a major impact on contemporary transformations globally. Case studies from South and Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America in turn place these transformations in a comparative global perspective. The contributors include distinguished scholars from the UN, PRC, India, Zimbabwe, and Latin America who are also active in policy issues.

Business & Money

Prazniak, Roxann

Dirlik, Arif

Economics

Routledge

This book offers historical and comparative analyses of changes in agrarian society forced by the globalization of capitalism, and the implications of these changes for human welfare globally. The book gives special attention to recent economic development and urbanization in the People s Republic of China which have had a major impact on contemporary transformations globally. Case studies from South and Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America in turn place these transformations in a comparative global perspective. The contributors include distinguished scholars from the UN, PRC, India, Zimbabwe, and Latin America who are also active in policy issues."

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