Book reviews

Barbara Harrisson. Pusaka: heirloom jars of Borneo. xvi, 55 pp., 142 plates. Singapore, etc: Oxford University Press, 1986. (Oxford Asia Studies in Ceramics.) £48.

E. E. van Delden (comp). Klein repertorium: index op tijdschriftenarti‐kelen met betrekking tot voormalig Nederlands‐Indië. Deel l. Tijdschrift voor het Binnenlandsch Bestuur, 1887–1900. 79 pp. Amsterdam: Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen, 1986. Guilders 40.     

《玉壶野史》“生旦杂处”考辨

北宋文莹《玉壶野史》载南唐韩熙载事,有"生旦杂处"一语,学者或据此而论定其时已有"生""旦"脚色。今梳理该书历代版本流变,知是书在明初后五卷阙佚,嘉靖年间抄补时已有阙文,作"生杂处",鲍廷博校刊本则去此空格,作"生杂处"。另有清抄本作"生冝杂处",乃抄录之误,周星诒、陆心源等人校订时皆删去。作"生旦杂处"者后出,最早见《四库全书》本,乃将"冝"误作"旦"。参酌《南唐书》《宋史》《续通志》的相关记载,"生"之本意当为"生徒""门生",故此语不可作为南唐时已有生旦脚色之依据。     

政策转变还是策略调整?——艾森豪威尔政府"解除台湾中立化"论析

1953年2月,艾森豪威尔对国会关于国情咨文的年度致辞中提出第七舰队要改变在台湾海峡的任务,从阻止海峡两岸的军事行动变为不再"遮掩"中国大陆.此语被视为"解除台湾中立化"的开始.不少研究据此认为新上台的共和党政府改变了对台政策,"放蒋出笼",台美关系由此进入"蜜月期".实际上,这一声明是形势发展的必然结果,是美国企图震慑、牵制中共之举,面上有"放蒋出笼"之势,内里却无"放蒋出笼"之实.在美国是否准备掩护台湾军队反攻大陆、是否封锁中国大陆全部海岸、是否对台扩大美援范围和种类等问题上,台美间无法形成共识.美政府以战斗机的交付为筹码,压迫台湾当局正式承诺不改变对大陆军事活动的"模式和节奏",重要军事行动前要征询美国.台湾"中立化"解而不除,美国对台湾的缰绳更加收紧,艾森豪威尔政府"解除台湾中立化"并非一次政策转变.     

Contemplating the history and future of radiocarbon dating in the American Southeast

We consider the history, present, and future of radiocarbon dating in the American Southeast. We point out some of the past and present flaws related to archaeological research and dating. Our approach to this review is rooted in the perspective that each radiocarbon date collectively adds to our knowledge of the region and not just a particular site. Based on our observations, we suggest some “good” practices with respect to certain aspects of radiocarbon dating. Our concluding discussion considers Bayesian chronological analysis and the growing contribution of chronological modeling to the Southeast.     

‘Assisting you to become a local’: NGOs and constructed foreign spouses in Eastern Taiwan

As social and cultural contexts change and globalization spreads, the number of transnational-marriage migrants mainly from Southeast Asia has increased in Taiwan. Using institutional ethnography, this article investigates the roles of local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and projects aimed at helping foreign spouses to adapt to their new life. I mainly elaborate that NGOs emerge as important actors in assisting and empowering transnational spouses to ‘become locals’. In empowerment projects, foreign spouses are given a voice to elaborate themselves. However, this article elaborates that these projects are a scheme of education to shape each such migrant into a proper ‘Taiwanese wife/mother/daughter-in-law’. Also, these projects particularly promote ‘exoticism’ of migrants and become key sources of how local people understand the images of ‘foreign spouses’. As a result, though NGOs play positive roles in empowering foreign spouses, we need to be aware that NGOs’ efforts may ironically become a mechanism to strengthen transnational spouses’ gender roles and cultural stereotypes.     

Narrated Desire: Reflections on Flaubert’s Sentimental Education

Flaubert’s Sentimental Education, published in 1869, is a novel about thwarted desires. My essay looks at some pathologies of desire the novel’s protagonist, Frédéric Moreau, may be said to exemplify in order to bring into view the conditions that make desire satisfaction possible. I take the tribulations of the protagonist not as mere consequences of his personal flaws but as significant clues about the mechanics of desire in general. I discuss the ways in which the style and form of the novel mirror the predicament of the desire-driven character, and I conclude by questioning the view that Flaubert’s aestheticism amounts to a banishment of desire.     

Party Ideologies and Regional Inequality: An Analysis of Party Manifestos in Japan

ABSTRACT

Regional inequality within Japan has been a key political issue in Japanese politics throughout the entire postwar period. In this analysis, we examine how Japanese parties have positioned themselves on the question of regional inequality, focusing on how the party system response has been shaped by ideas and ideologies. The article analyses two 15-year periods separated by a quarter of a century (1960–75 and 2000–15) during which regional inequalities became a particularly salient and pressing issue. We compare institutional and socioeconomic contexts, broader governing ideas, and policy responses to this issue by major parties in their election platforms (manifestos). We find that party ideology and broader paradigms continued to shape party responses to regional inequality during both periods.     

WELL-FORGED "WALKING GOLD"——THE SHEEP BREEDING INDUSTRY IN THE GAMPA COUNTY

正It is just the dawn,but the sheepfolds have already begun to move restlessly.Sunlight makes its way in.Tashi Tsedan and Redan open the sheepfolds one after another.Flocks of sheep suddenly gush out like an influx of water from an opened gate.These two herdsmen from Jirong Village in Drik Town of Gampa County are fulfilling their duty grazing these flocks of Gampa sheep,a well-known breed of Tibetan sheep.     

A geometric morphometric relationship predicts stone flake shape and size variability

The archaeological record represents a window onto the complex relationship between stone artefact variance and hominin behaviour. Differences in the shapes and sizes of stone flakes—the most abundant remains of past behaviours for much of human evolutionary history—may be underpinned by variation in a range of different environmental and behavioural factors. Controlled flake production experiments have drawn inferences between flake platform preparation behaviours, which have thus far been approximated by linear measurements, and different aspects of overall stone flake variability (Dibble and Rezek J Archaeol Sci 36:1945–1954, 2009; Lin et al. Am Antiq 724–745, 2013; Magnani et al. J Archaeol Sci 46:37–49, 2014; Rezek et al. J Archaeol Sci 38:1346–1359, 2011). However, when the results are applied to archaeological assemblages, there remains a substantial amount of unexplained variability. It is unclear whether this disparity between explanatory models and archaeological data is a result of measurement error on certain key variables, whether traditional analyses are somehow a general limiting factor, or whether there are additional flake shape and size drivers that remain unaccounted for. To try and circumvent these issues, here, we describe a shape analysis approach to assessing stone flake variability including a newly developed three-dimensional geometric morphometric method (‘3DGM’). We use 3DGM to demonstrate that a relationship between platform and flake body governs flake shape and size variability. Contingently, we show that by using this 3DGM approach, we can use flake platform attributes to both (1) make fairly accurate stone flake size predictions and (2) make relatively detailed predictions of stone flake shape. Whether conscious or instinctive, an understanding of this geometric relationship would have been critical to past knappers effectively controlling the production of desired stone flakes. However, despite being able to holistically and accurately incorporate three-dimensional flake variance into our analyses, the behavioural drivers of this variance remain elusive.