Models of masculinity: sex education,the United States Public Health Service,and the YMCA, 1919-1924

In 1918, the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) told American parents that "it is no longer possible for you to choose whether your child will learn about sex or not." According to the PHS, most American boys learned about sex from "improper sources" by the age of nine. The "unfortunate effect of these early impressions" had, PHS warned, not only resulted in a gross misunderstanding of sex, but also been a major factor in the spread of venereal disease (The Parents' Part [the U.S. Public Health Service, 1918], p. 5). To counter and correct this miseducation, PHS joined with the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) to create a sex education program aimed at adolescent boys. Officially launched in the spring of 1919, the "Keeping Fit" campaign provides a unique insight into the federal government's attempt to medicalize and regulate American sexuality through the forum of public health.     

Book reviews

CHINA

TANG KWOK‐LEUNG. Colonial State and Social Policy: social Welfare Development in Hong Kong 1842–1997. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1998. 192 pp. US$36.00, hardcover.

ZHENG YONGNIAN. Discovering Chinese Nationalism in China: modernity, Identity, and International Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. 208 pp. US$54.95, hardcover; US$19.95, paper.

STEVAN HARRELL, BAMO QUBUMO and MA ERZI (photographs by Zhong Dakun). Mountain Patterns, The Survival of Nuosu Culture in China. Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 2000. Colour and black‐and‐white illustrations. No price given, paper.

PENG XIZHE with ZHIGANG GUO (eds). The Changing Population of China. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2000. 312 pp. Figures, tables, index. £50.00, US$68.95, hardcover; £15.99, US$31.95, paper.

ROBERT S. ROSS (ed). After the Cold War: domestic Factors and U.S.‐China Relations. Armonk: M. E. Sharpe, 1998. xiv, 208 pp. Charts, figures, index. US$59.95, hardcover; US$22.95, paper.

PING CHEN. Modern Chinese: history and Sociolinguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. 229 pp. Introduction, tables, notes, references, index. US$59.95, hardcover; US$21.95, paper.

JAPAN, KOREA

MARK R. MULLINS. Christianity Made in Japan: a Study of Indigenous Movements. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1998. 288 pp. Illustrations, preface, notes, bibliography, index. US$24.95, paper.

HIROSUKE KAWANISHI (ed). The Human Face of Industrial Conflict in Post‐war Japan. London: Kegan Paul International, 1999. 287 pp. Introduction, chronology of events, translation of Japanese organisational and statutory names, index. US$93.50, hardcover.

YUKIKO KOSHIRO. Trans‐Pacific Racisms and the US Occupation of Japan. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999. xi, 295 pp. US$21.50, paper.

PHYLLIS BIRNBAUM. Modern Girls, Shining Stars, the Skies of Tokyo: five Japanese Women. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999. 255 pp. US$29.00; UK£19.95, hardcover.

ROBIN M. LEBLANC. Bicycle Citizens: the Political World of the Japanese Housewife. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999. 246 pp. US$14.95, paper.

SOUTH, WEST & CENTRAL ASIA

ROWENA ROBINSON. Conversion, Continuity and Change: lived Christianity in Southern Goa. New Delhi, Thousand Oaks, London: Sage Publications, 1998. 236 pp. £27.50, hardcover.

RAJAT GANGULY. Kin State Intervention in Ethnic Conflicts: lessons from South Asia. New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1998.266 pp. Map, notes, bibliography, index. Rs. 350, hardcover.

SOUTHEAST ASIA

DANNY UNGER. Building Social Capital in Thailand: fibers, Finance, and Infrastructure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. 227 pp. A$90.00, hardcover; A$29.95, paper.

JEFFREY R. VINCENT, ROZALI MOHAMED ALI and ASSOCIATES. Environment and Development in a Resource‐Rich Economy: Malaysia Under the New Economic Policy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997. 364 pp. Foreword, preface, bibliography, index. US$46.95, hardcover; US$22.95, paper.

GENERAL ASIA

ANITA CHAN, B. J. TRIA KERKVLIET and J. UNGER (eds). Transforming Asian Socialism: China and Vietnam Compared. St. Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin, 1999. 240 pp. A$24.95, paper.

KURT W. RADTKE and J. A. STAM et al. (eds). Dynamics in Pacific Asia: conflict, Competition and Cooperation. London and New York: Kegan Paul International, 1998. 287 pp. US$110, hardcover.

YUE‐MAN YEUNG (ed). Urban Development in Asia: retrospect and Prospect. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Institute of Asia‐Pacific Studies, Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1998. 453 pp. Plates, introduction, notes, index. No price given, hardcover.     

“A handshake across the Himalayas:” Chinese investment,hydropower development,and state formation in Nepal

Abstract

This article examines contemporary patterns of Chinese infrastructure development in Nepal’s Rasuwa District and the ways in which Nepali actors engage with Chinese investments to advance projects of state formation. Particularly in the wake of political volatility and natural disaster, Chinese interventions support the material and imaginative projects of a Nepalese state seeking stability, security, and economic growth. Long perceived as peripheral to the state center, Rasuwa is rapidly becoming central to Sino-Nepal relations, particularly in the context of bilateral investments in hydropower and transportation infrastructure. Drawing on data generated from 30 months of fieldwork in Nepal, we argue that Chinese development in Rasuwa: a) undergirds territorializing practices of the Nepalese state; b) represents a “gift of development” that connects Nepali ambitions of bikas (development) with Chinese anxieties over exile Tibetan populations; and c) reflects a strategic reorientation of geopolitical alliances between Nepal, China, and India. Challenging studies that depict Chinese development as an overwhelming extractive force, we instead show how small states like Nepal in fact use Chinese interventions to advance domestic projects of state formation and national security at home. On the basis of this study, we expand understandings about the place and priority of infrastructure in national state-making agendas, illustrate uneven local experiences with international development interventions, and highlight new configurations of Chinese investment and development abroad – characterized in Nepal as a “handshake across the Himalayas.”     

Proceedings of the Twenty-ninth Annual Meeting,Wolverhampton, 1872

Abstract

This paper takes as its starting point the relatively unusual form taken by Lincoln's gatehouse-cum-guildhall, which was rebuilt in 1520. It is argued that the Stonebow's elevation bears a superficial similarity to the contemporary royal palace at the Field of the Cloth of Gold. The local political background may suggest that the two buildings are, indeed, connected — through the city council's efforts to renegotiate the terms of their fee-farm with their feudal lords. The new building, and its simple Annunciation iconography, were intended to be understood at several levels of symbolic meaning, all of which referred to the city's relationship with its various lords. Consequently, the Stonebow's simplicity is deceptive; it is, in fact, a multi-faceted political statement, summing up the city's own view of its place in contemporary politics and, as such, it is a good example of the complexity sometimes achieved in early Renaissance architectural iconography.     

The Cult of Animals

The early modern history of the festivities associated with Hallowe’en and St Valentine’s Day reveals a significant overlap in early forms of celebration and customary practices. In the eighteenth century, however, each day developed its own distinctive traditional identity. This article argues that this was a result of mass print culture and the spread of literature: primarily in popular verses, the poetry of Robert Burns, and the influence of William Shakespeare.