Suchergebnisse

Woodside reviews THE CLASH OF EMPIRES: The Invention of China in Modern World Making by Lydia H. Liu.

'Les Missionnaires Francais Au Tonkin Et Au Siam, XVIIe-XVIIIe Siecles. Volumes 1-3' by Alain Forest are reviewed.

Der Autor untersucht die Bedeutung von Intellektuellen und deren Einflüsse auf verschiedene Reformprozesse in Vietnam und der VR China. Die in beiden Staaten Ende der 1970er Jahre eingeleiteten Reformen bewirkten sowohl ökonomische als auch gesellschaftliche Transformationen. Die Problematik besteht in der zeitlichen Parallelität einzelner Prozesse und der rasant verlaufenden Entwicklungen, so daß Erfahrungswerte westlicher Industrieländer aufgrund von unterschiedlichen Voraussetzungen kaum von Nutzen sind. Das politische System in diesen Staaten begrenzt die Möglichkeit der Intellektuellen, Theorien und Lösungsansätze zu diskutieren bzw. umzusetzen. (FUB/APCh-Str)

The singularity of the Vietnamese revolution cannot be explained entirely by factors such as a racially discriminating colonialism or oppressive landlordism. These factors are to be found in many Asian and African countries which did not produce a Ho Chi Minh or a Vo Nguyen Giap. Vietnam's Confucian past is critically important. It was distinguished by (1) an incompletely centralized monarchy which generated both political and moral expectations that it could never satisfy; (2) a peculiarly bipolar political system in which the monarchy had to share power with a provincial intelligentsia which lived close to the peasantry; and (3) a transcendental neoConfucian philosophy, diffused through civil service examinations, which stressed the writings of the idealist philosopher Mencius. Large peasant rebellions, often advised by Confucian scholars, and bent on punishing rulers who did not exemplify the proper cosmic principles through "benevolent government," recurred in Vietnam before French colonialism. Ho Chi Minh and many of his associates were descendants of the provincial scholar class who might be so involved.