East Asia: From Chinese Predominance to the Rise of the Pacific Rim (review)

Reviews 431 dominate Hsinchu County, which surrounds the city. There have been two Houses ofLin in Taiwan; the one in Wufeng, Taichung County, has been even more important in the history ofTaiwan than the one in Panchiao (p. 61). These two families each built a spectacular Chinese garden in the late nineteenth century. The garden ofthe Lin family at Panchiao has been donated to Taipei County, not to the city ofTaipei. Ying-hwa Chang Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica Arthur Cotterell. EastAsia: From Chinese Predominance to the Rise ofthe Pacific Rim. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993. xii, 339 pp. Hardcover $25.00. Arthur Cotterell has produced a small miracle—a highly readable history of East Asia in 339 pages. He has accomplished this in a volume that is relatively small in page size as well, a mere five and three-eighths by eight and a quarter inches. And he has incorporated all of Southeast Asia in his definition of the region. Quite an accomplishment! This accomplishment invites comparison with the familiar one-volume history of East Asia by John Fairbank, Edwin Reischauer, and Albert Craig. In its first edition in 1973, that work ran to 969 pages, was printed in a relatively large format on pages ofgreater size, and ventured no further south than Vietnam. Indeed , the principal distinction ofthe Cotterell volume, other than its brevity, is its redefinition ofEast Asia, departing from the traditional formulation of"the Chinese culture area" and looking to the new definition of "the Pacific rim" ofits subtitle. China is nevertheless at the center of this volume, Cotterell explains, because it is the "persistent lack ofa perspective" on the events ofthe last fifty years in China—"the most dramatic transformation taking place in the contemporary world"—that this book attempts to remedy (p. x). This is very much the work of an historian who believes that "the social and economic direction that the Chi- „ , ?? . nese people eventually decide to take must prove as decisive for the future of East© 1995 by Universityr r / r ofHawai'iPressAs'a as '?^as ^or *ts Past" ^P- ^- ^e attenuon t0 Iapan, "the catalyst for so much change" in modern times and now "the front-runner of the Pacific rim" (ibid.) is familiar enough. So is the inclusion ofKorea and Vietnam. What is remarkable is 432 China Review International: Vol. 2, No. 2, Fall 1995 the inclusion ofSoutheast Asia beyond Vietnam, "for the good reason that periodically it was very much part of the East Asian sphere of influence" (ibid.). One measure of the volume is how well it justifies this redefinition of East Asia. The book is divided into three parts, which represent "distinct periods ofEast Asian civilisation." The first part considers "the era of Chinese supremacy"; the second, "the new balance ofpower inaugurated by the rise ofnorthern peoples such as the Mongols and the Manchus"; and the third, "the impact ofmodern times" (p. x). Each part considers developments in China, Korea, Japan, and Southeast Asia in turn. The general framework of the history is thus geopolitical, although the author introduces material of a social, economic, and cultural nature throughout, and does so on occasion with details that are so telling or quotations that are so apt that one is moved to admiration. Part 1 contains chapters on classical China to the Qin dynasty, the early Chinese empire to the Mongol conquest, early Korea to the fall of Koryö, early Japan to the end ofthe Kamakura shogunate, and early Southeast Asia from the Chinese annexation ofVietnam to the Mongol invasions. This last discussion is useful in bringing together in one place the Chinese impact on northern Vietnam, which is evident to this day, and on Burma, Cambodia, and the island kingdoms ofwhat is now Indonesia, which was destructive enough but led to a Chinese rule that was only short-lived and limited to Burma. As an introduction to early Southeast Asia, this chapter leaves something to be desired, especially with regard to Indian influences. Part 2 contains chapters on the late Chinese empire to the founding of the Republic, on Korea during the Yi dynasty, on feudal Japan to the Meiji Restoration , on the medieval kingdoms...