More than one hundred textbooks in American and world history, geography, modern problems and civics were examined recently by social studies and Asiatic specialists to evaluate the accuracy and adequacy of the material included on the Far East. Their report, Treatment of Asia in American textbooks (104 p. 40¢), has been published by the American Council, Institute of Pacific Relations, New York. Dr. Howard E. Wilson, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, coordinator and editor of the report, writes that “There may be arguments over what pupils need most to be taught about Asia; there can no longer be argument over the necessity of their being well informed.” One significant recommendation made by all the analysts was that experts in Asiatic affairs should be consulted more frequently by textbook authors and publishers to insure “accuracy, relevancy, and comprehensiveness of information included” on Asia.

In the transition of Japan into the modern world, the role of those who first introduced the techniques, institutions, and ideas of the West deserves special attention. Performing the service of what Toynbee has called “the human counterpart of the ‘transformer,’” these were the men who learned the secrets of a foreign civilization and adapted them to their own community to enable it to adjust its life to the intrusive Western society. To some degree the whole leadership of Meiji Japan carried out this function, for soon after the Restoration the pursuit and application of knowledge from the West was made official policy. For the most part the military and political leaders were concerned with the mastery of Western military techniques and administrative and economic forms. But among the intelligentsia there were those who performed the broader task of learning and teaching the manners and morals, customs, and beliefs of European society. As advocates of Westernization they were important agents of change before as well as after the Restoration.

The 1953 Chinese census reported a total population on the Chinese mainland of 582.6 million. This figure came as a surprise to Western observers, since the population figures most frequently quoted for China during the preceding twenty years had been on the order of magnitude of “about 450 million,” the 1933 estimate of the League of Nations. Although the inadequacies of Chinese population statistics and their controversial nature are well known, some understanding of the latest figure is possible by viewing it in historical perspective. Such an analysis is here presented, and is confined to the 1953 census data referring to the size of the population and its distribution among the provinces.

Perhaps no other area of comparable size presents such geographical, racial, climatic, political, linguistic and economic complexities as are found in Southeast Asia. This region may be delimited roughly as a parallelogram extending southeastward from the Burma-Assam-Sikang frontier through Burma, Thailand, and Indochina and including part of Yunnan and all of the Malay peninsula with the adjacent islands. Those who prefer their geography in circles may think of Southeast Asia as the mainland and peripheral islands embraced within a circle having Bangkok as a focus with a radius of 1000 miles; i.e. from Singapore to Fort Hertz and from Brunei to Chitta-gong.

Until 1945, the Japanese nation had never suffered a really major defeat. Humiliations, actual as well as imaginary, had been imposed, but never outright and final loss of a war, never invasion and occupation since the descent of the Yamato people themselves from the high plain of heaven. Her remoteness in fact, and in the calculation of her leaders, her unique polity under the rule of a dynasty established for ages eternal in the minds of her people had saved Japan on each previous threatening occasion. But this time there was no escape. Japan lost the war, and all Japanese know that she lost. Just as, at an earlier date, the country provided a unique laboratory for the student of social stability and of cultural integration–a much neglected laboratory, unfortunately–so, now Japan offers the opportunity for a study of society under the most extreme forms of stress. What have been the effects of war, of catas-trophically losing war, upon Japanese society?

Seventeenth-century Chinese literature thematizes market segmentation, the idea that functionally similar but different objects can be produced for and marketed to different ranks of people. A 1671 collection of classical essays, Xianqing ouji 閑情偶寄 by Li Yu 李漁 (1611–80), has generally been understood to be the most influential of lifestyle guides, containing essays about the theater, everyday life, and material culture. This article argues that price and quality differentiation when it comes to a variety of consumer goods forms a central organizing principle for the volume and provides a prism through which Xianqing ouji discusses social inequity and hierarchy.

In China, as among many of the African and Asian peoples, early nationalism was almost the monopoly of the urban, educated elite. It was nurtured on anti-imperialist sentiment and was brought to maturity by a knowledge of Western civilization rather than a mastery of Chinese tradition. It was often closely associated with the revolt of youth against their fathers, with the younger generation seeking a more rapid modernization than the older generation. Little wonder, then, that student movements punctuate the definition of nationalism and provide exclamation points in its expression.

The house has stood empty since Partition. Its Muslim family abandoned their Bihari village in India for a new life in West Pakistan, 1,300 kilometers distant. Unlike most other homes left behind by emigrants, this one's doors still open to its owner's keys, since his brothers remained in their homes nearby. One of those brothers follows invitations across north India preaching the Tablighi Islamic revival. In conversation, he demonstrates little interest in the religious traditions of the Hindu majority of his large village. Two decades ago, his son, Farhad, opened one of the first private schools in the area, anticipating the surging demand for education that has overtaken India. Some of the first classrooms built had brick walls pierced by concrete screens decoratively depicting a Quran, crescent moon, and star. Most of the school's students and many of its teachers are Hindu.