Urban law—I

In this essay, I aim to identify and analyze the influence of Cartesian dualism on Rembrandt's pictorial representations of the self. My thesis is that Descartes and Rembrandt share concerns about philosophy's exploration of human nature, concerns rooted in mind–body dualism. Descartes's corpus bears witness to a growing skepticism about the relation between matter and extension. Likewise, Rembrandt's anatomy lessons lead the viewer to question the value of treating humans as scientific objects. I suggest that by reexamining Rembrandt's work in light of the mind–body problem we generate a fuller understanding of Rembrandt's artistic critique and expression and Descartes's mature scientific thinking and abiding influence. My analysis centers on four Rembrandt paintings: The Anatomy Lesson of Doctor Nicolaes Tulp (1632); The Descent from the Cross (1632–1633); The Sacrifice of Abraham (1635); and The Anatomy Lesson of Doctor Joan Deyman (1656).     

Urban law—II

This paper explores the political thought of Andrew Michael Ramsay with particular reference to his highly acclaimed book called A New Cyropaedia, or the Travels of Cyrus (1727). Dedicated to Prince Charles Edward Stuart, the Young Pretender, to whom he was tutor, this work has been hitherto viewed as a Jacobite imitation of the Telemachus, Son of Ulysses(1699) of his eminent teacher archbishop Fénelon of Cambrai. By tracing the dual legacy of the first Persian Emperor Cyrus in Western thought, I demonstrate that Ramsay was as much indebted to Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet's Discourse on Universal History (1681)as he was to Fénelon's political romance. Ramsay took advantage of Xenophon's silence about the eponymous hero's adolescent education in his Cyropaedia, or the Education of Cyrus (c.380B.C.), but he was equally inspired by the Book of Daniel, where the same Persian prince was eulogised as the liberator of the Jewish people from their captivity in Babylon. The main thrust of Ramsay's adaptation was not only to revamp the Humanist- cum-Christian theory and practice of virtuous kingship for a restored Jacobite regime, but on a more fundamental level, to tie in secular history with biblical history. In this respect, Ramsay's New Cyropaedia, or the Travels of Cyrus, was not just another Fénelonian political novel but more essentially a work of universal history. In addition to his Jacobite model of aristocratic constitutional monarchy, it was this Bossuetian motive for universal history, which was first propounded by the German reformer Philipp Melanchthon in his Chronicon Carionis (1532), that most decisively separated Ramsay from Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke, author of another famous advice book for princes of the period, The Idea of a Patriot King (written in late 1738 for the education of Frederick Lewis, Prince of Wales, but officially published in 1749).     

Book reviews

Ravi Arvind Palat (ed.). Pacific‐Asia and the Future of the World System. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press. 1993. vii + 206 pp. $US55.00 (cloth).

Eric Jones, Lionel Frost and Colin White. Coming Full Circle: An Economic History of the Pacific Rim. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993. xv + 188 pp. $US49.95 (cloth), $US12.95 (paper).

Andrew MacIntyre (ed.). Business and Government in Industrialising Asia. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1994. xi + 312 pp. $29.95 (paper).

Michael C. Howard (ed.). Asia's Environmental Crisis. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993. ix + 293 pp. $44.95 (paper).

Richard W. Baker (ed.). The ANZUS States and Their Region. Regional Policies of Australia, New Zealand, and the United States. Westport, Conn.: Praeger Publishers, 1994. xiii + 228 pp. $US57.95.

Stephen Chee (ed.). Leadership and Security in Southeast Asia: Institutional Aspects. Singapore: ISEAS, 1991. xii + 187 pp. $US25.00 (cloth), $US17.00 (paper).

Gerald L. Curtis (ed.). Japan's Foreign Policy After the Cold War. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1993. xxvi + 382 pp. $US60.00 (cloth), $US22.50 (paper).

Taichi Sakaya. What is Japan? Contradictions and Transformations, trans. Steven Karpa. New York, Tokyo and London: Kodansha International, 1993. xxii + 312 pp. No price given.

Bill Brugger and Stephen Reglar. Politics, Economy and Society in Contemporary China. London: Macmillan, 1994. vii + 367 pp. $36.55 (paper).

Sung Chul Yang. The North and South Korean Political Systems: A Comparative Analysis. Boulder, CO: Westview/Seoul: Seoul Press, 1994. xiii + 983 pp. $US64.95 (cloth).

Mark L. Clifford. Troubled Tiger: Businessmen, Bureaucrats and Generals in South Korea. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1994. xiii + 357 pp. $US19.95 (paper).

Thongchai Winichakul. Siam Mapped. A History of the Geo‐Body of a Nation. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1994. xvi + 228 pp. $US34.00 (cloth).

Derek Tribe. Feeding and Greening the World — The Role of International Agricultural Research. Wallingford: Centre for Agriculture and Biosciences International, 1994. xiii + 274 pp. $35.50 (paper).

Ernst Ulrich von Weizsacker. Earth Politics. London: Zed Books, 1984. xii + 234 pp. $US59.95 (cloth), $US25.00 (paper)

Neil Middleton, Phil O'Keefe and Sam Moyo. Tears of the Crocodile: From Rio to Reality in the Developing World. London: Pluto Press, 1993. xii+ 228 pp. $US66.50 (cloth), $US19.95 (paper).

Boris Kagarlitsky. The Disintegration of the Monolith, translated by Renfrey Clarke. London and New York: Verso, 1992. x + 169 pp. No price given.

George Schöpflin. Politics in Eastern Europe, 1945–1992. Oxford, UK and Cambridge, USA: Blackwell Publishers, 1993. viii + 327 pp. $39.95 (paper).

Andrei S. Markovits and Philip S. Gorski. The German Left: Red Green and Beyond. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1993. xiii + 393 pp. $45.00 (paper).

Raymond L. Garthoff. The Great Transition: American‐Soviet Relations at the End of the Cold War. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1994. xiv + 834 pp. $US44.95 (cloth), $US14.95 (paper).

Richard N. Haass. Intervention: The Use of Military Force in the Post‐Cold War World. Washington, DC: The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1994. x + 258 pp. $US24.95 (cloth), $US12.95 (paper).

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The State of the World's Refugees: The Challenge of Protection. New York: Penguin Books, 1993. ix + 191 pp. $19.95 (paper).

Francis M. Deng. Protecting the Dispossessed: A Challenge for the International Community. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1993. xii + 175 pp. No price given.

Paul Wehr. Heidi Burgess and Guy Burgess (eds). Justice without Violence. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1994. ix + 300 pp. $US45.00 (cloth), $US18.95 (paper).