Revue Bibliographique de Sinologie 13 (1995) (review)

© 1998 by University ofHawai'i Press Reviews 89 commended for providing both, in addition to a handy table showing basic statistics on the countries ofthe East Asia-Pacific region. Overall, I recommend this book as a class guide—even for graduate seminars on East Asian political security issues. Even though none ofthe chapters, taken alone, begins to do justice to its subject, virtually all ofthe chapters are excellent starting points, particularly for students who have no background at all in a particular area or subject. The reading lists provide the next step. Harlan W. Jencks University ofCalifornia at Berkeley Harlan W. Jencks is a research associate at UC Berkeley, and an analyst at the UCs Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. He specializes in EastAsian security affairs , with an emphasis on the Chinese People's Liberation Army. Michel Cartier, Danielle Elisseeff, and Jacqueline Nivard, editors. Revue Bibliographique de Sinologie 13 (1995). Paris: Éditions de l'École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, 1995. xxxii, 572 pp. Fr 250 ($42.00), issn 0080-2484. The Revue Bibliographique de Sinologie (Bibliographie Review ofSinology), an indispensable reference tool for two generations, began publication in 1955. The Ancienne série (Old Series) consists ofN° 1 (i955)-N° 15 (1970); publication ceased between 1971 and 1982; and the Nouvelle série (New Series) consists ofN° 1 (1983)N ° 14 (1996) (the most recent volume has just appeared but is not reviewed here). The 1995 volume includes entries on 380 books and 300 articles selected from 121 periodicals, originally in Chinese, Japanese, or Western (including Eastern European ) languages. The entries themselves, written in either French or English (this volume is typical ofthe series in general, about three French entries to one in English ), run from about a quarter ofa page to a page and a quarter in length and tend to be descriptive rather than critical—though they certainly indicate, ifappropriate , significant deficiencies or virtues. Each volume contains two indexes: one to authors ofworks and one to subjects and proper names mentioned in the entries. Chinese characters are not included in the indexes but do appear in the entries—for names ofChinese and Japanese authors ofworks reviewed, tides of books and articles, and significant terms and proper nouns that appear in the en- 90 China Review International: Vol. 5, No. ?, Spring 1998 tries. Romanization is in pinyin (the Old Series used the Wade-Giles system). A list of contributors (ninety-three different scholars) appears on pp. xxvii-xxix. The Revue Bibliographique de Sinologie cannot, of course, review every work that appears in a given year, but it does attempt to treat most significant works and illustrate current trends in all major fields of Chinese studies. A survey of the contents of the 1995 volume reveals the following categories: bibliography (new review publications, bulletins and newsletters, bibliographies, collections ofdocuments , sources and archives, reference works, history of sinology, and proceedings of colloquia and conferences); history and the social sciences (historiography , history, economics, institutions, sociology, diaspora, border peoples/ relations, and geography); art and archaeology (interdisciplinary approaches, methodology, reports of archaeological finds, bronzes, jade, Buddhist art, catalogs of collections and exhibitions, numismatics, architecture, gardens, minor arts, music, painting, and calligraphy); linguistics (script, lexicography, history ofthe Chinese language, phonetics, grammar, dialects, and comparative linguistics); literature (fiction, poetry, drama and theater, women's literature, and translations); philosophy and religion (Confucianism/Neo-Confucianism, Buddhism, Daoism, Islam, and popular religions); and history of science (technology/technological procedures, agronomy, astronomy and mathematics, and medicine). The entries in each category begin with general works and, if appropriate, follow the historical chronology of the subjects treated. Beginning with 1995, each volume of the Revue Bibliographique de Sinologie also contains a number of bibliographical surveys that explore new topics and introduce books and articles that were previously omitted. The 1995 volume has eight such surveys, all in French: (1) Christine Nguyen Tri, "La vogue des manuels d'enseignement élémentaire traditionnels en RPC: Naissance d'une recherche, retour de la morale confucéenne ou manipulation politique?" (Current vogue for traditional elementary educational textbooks in the People's Republic of China: Birth of new research, return of Confucian morality, or political manipulation?), follows the section on bibliography; (2) Michel Cartier, "Le...