The Sino-Indian boundary dispute provides an interesting test case to determine the willingness of mainland China, a revolutionary regime, to argue its position within the framework of traditional international law. Judging by Peking's official rationale for its claims in that dispute, one must conclude that its leaders demonstrated an awareness of the law's uses and limitations, and a willingness to rely upon it as an important support for its position. Thus, though the issue was viewed as a political question, Peking chose to argue that the correct answers to it should rest upon such legal or quasilegal considerations as: (1) the boundary had never been delimited through a process recognized by international law and (2) Chinese claims to contested territory were based upon historical evidence such as administrative control and official records. At the same time, China's diplomate skillfully interspersed nonlegal theses, e.g., that India was seeking to gain by the imperialist activities of the British, and underlined all of their propositions with a show of military strength on her southern frontier.

Political conflicts around religious, caste and regional identities have multiplied in India. Whether one views these “million mutinies” as symptomatic of a growing crisis of governability or of a democratic revolution, analytical questions abound. Why is there apparently more violent conflict around identity politics in India today than at any time since Independence? To what extent do the character and intensity of recent conflicts differ from those of the past? What lessons can we learn from cases where community demands have been successfully accommodated? And, relatedly, what measures might alleviate the widespread destruction of life and property and create the sense of predictability on which all social order rests? The following essays analyze both the growing incidence of violent ethnic conflict in India and some of the conditions for their resolution.

Kōtoku Shūsui is generally known as a socialist and anarchist who participated in the plot against the life of the Meiji emperor in 1910 and was executed for the crime of “high treason” the following year. Such an individual hardly strikes one as a nationalist. Why deal with him on a panel that proposes to address itself to the question of nationalism? And yet, contrary to surface appearance, Kōtoku was and remained a nationalist. But his image of nationalism, and the role that this force should play in the lives of the Japanese people differed considerably from that of the Meiji leadership. It is to this image, to how it was derived, and to how it was sustained that this paper is addressed.

Most of the books reviewed in this article deal with Indian philosophy, mythology, or the Vedas, but other recent publications are discussed. The author provides a general assessment of the present state of the art in classical Indology. In spite of the venerable antiquity of the subject, not all pertinent studies are esoteric or dull. There have been new and unexpected discoveries along with solid and original contributions that have wide-ranging implications. Many views that are commonly held are now seen to derive from misconceptions and to stand in need of revision. Topics treated are Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Tantrism, and Shamanism; contacts between India and Central Asia, and the Indianization of Asia; Soma and karma; ritual, epic, psychology, sex, and grammar.