Etemad, Bouda

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Book ReviewsASIA GENERALThe Dissolution of the Colonial Empire. By F R A N Z A N S P R E N G E R . NewYork: Routledge: Chapman and Hall, 1989. 336 pp. $45.00 (cloth);$16.95 (paper).The conclusions of this volume by Franz Ansprenger pick up the "lesson ofhistory" found in Karl Marx's 1853 diagnosis of colonization; the "lesson" of Marx'sgroundwork on world uniformization, in fact, becomes the highlight of this studyof the dissolution of colonial empires. Let us follow Ansprenger's process of thought.Ansprenger's introduction recalls the motivations and moral justifications ofEuropean colonization as well as its economic import. He questions the "dependentist"theories, stressing that, globally speaking, colonial possession has brought little tomotherland economies, but that, on the other hand, Western colonization hascontributed to "underdeveloping" Africa and Asia.In the twelve following chapters, the author endeavors to characterize thedecolonization process since World War I, reviewing first the colonial tenets andsystems of Great Britain and France and also those of the Netherlands, Belgium,Portugal, and Italy. He views the impact of World Wars I and II on the relationshipbetween the colonizers and colonized in the light of the nascent institutions,movements, and ideologies (right of self-determination, mandate system, pan-Islamism,pan-Africanism, communism). How then, he asks, are we to explain European retreat?Did it hinge on anti-colonial movements, on the growing nationalist tide, on Americanpressure, or on communist infiltration? Instead of answering his question globally,he chooses to point out that, in the case of Britain, withdrawal was essentially thereplacement of a former order by a new form of partnership. Although France hadmore trouble controlling the withdrawal of its empire, Ansprenger does not considerthat French decolonization was a failure. As for the Netherlands and Belgium, henotes that they happened to be more vulnerable to external pressures (in particularby the United States), the former being deeply affected by the "loss" of Indonesia,considered as a defeat. In his final pages, the author gives the background of Portugal'slate expulsion from Africa, assesses the threats of war in southern Africa, and delineatesthe discussion on the New International Economic Order and the North-Southrelationship.Ansprenger's intent was to cover a broad and intricate "problematique." Withso many studies already written on decolonization, this volume has the advantageof comparative history: differences, specificities, and similarities are brought out byconfronting specific experiences and cases. Nonetheless, the author's concern forcomparison could have been pushed to higher limits. He could have given moreweight to his analysis by presenting a typology of the pre-colonial and colonialsystems and of the takeover modes when independence occurred.113available at https:/www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.2307/2057478Downloaded from https:/www.cambridge.org/core. University of Basel Library, on 11 Jul 2017 at 07:42:42, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use,114 THE JOURNAL OF ASIAN STUDIESIt is unfortunate that the author did not approach his topic with a historiographythat enabled him to clarify his positions in the debates that have marked the academicproduction on decolonization for the last forty years. Since he does not make clearor justify his options, the reader is entitled to ask a few questions. Why does henot deal with the Japanese colonial empire—although, paradoxically, it appears ina specific section of his bibliography? Why in the periodization has he minimizedthe 1930s and the short but violent 1951—52 recession, which both correspondedwith phases of change in the decolonization process? Why has he not assessed thefall of the empires in the light of convergence or opposition between political powersand business groups in the "metropolis"? A mere glance at the bibliography isenough to see how the author shut himself off from such opportunities for analysis.The bibliography has the merit of collating other than English titles but still presentsglaring gaps. It is impossible to point out all of them, but here are the most blatant:publications by C. Coquery-Vidrovitch and by J. Marseille on the French colonialempire; by H. Baudet and by H. L. Wesseling on Dutch withdrawal from Indonesia;studies by J. Stengers and by J. P. Peemans on Belgium and the Belgian Congo.Despite these shortcomings and lacunae that might bother experts, Ansprenger'sstudy is nonetheless useful in that it provides an overview of one of the most prominentphenomena of twentieth-century history.BOUDA ETEMADUniversity of GenevaBouddhismes et societes asiatiques: clerges, socie'tes et pouvoirs. Edited by A L A I NFOREST, EIICHI K A T O , and LEON VANDERMEERSCH. Published withthe joint support of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique andthe Institute of Asian Cultures of Sophia University. Paris: EditionsL'Harmattan, 1990. 206 pp., 16 plates.Like many volumes emanating from academic symposia on broad topics, thisone—comprising papers presented at the second Franco-Japanese seminar on AsianReligions and Societies held in Paris in 1987—is marked by articles of widelyvarying subject matter and quality.The pieces range from historical surveys of Buddhism and political power inChina and Japan, to studies of the mixing of Buddhism with indigenous beliefs invarious cultures, to reports on the present-day situation of Buddhism in parts ofSoutheast Asia, to a personal autobiographical narrative by a contemporary JapaneseZen monk. Alain Forest, in his introduction, valiantly tries to explain how all thisfits together, but even he more or less admits that some of them do not (e.g.,Toshihiko Yazawa's paper on Christianity and popular religions in Ming-Qing China,which appears in an appendix). The value of the articles in this volume, then, liesnot in their ensemble but in their separateness.Leon Vandermeersch's "Bouddhisme et pouvoir dans la Chine confucianiste" islittle more than a standard review of the various persecutions suffered largely foreconomic reasons by Buddhism in China, and of the controversies over whether ornot monks should pay obeisance to the emperor. The piece is succinct and nicelywritten, but it breaks no new ground.In "Les deux roues: le bouddhisme et le pouvoir royal au Japon," Eiichi Katoattempts a similar survey of Buddhism's relationship to political authority in Japan,but ends up focusing on the Jodo Shinshu doctrine of 6bo-ihon that stresses theavailable at https:/www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.2307/2057478Downloaded from https:/www.cambridge.org/core. University of Basel Library, on 11 Jul 2017 at 07:42:42, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use,

Book Review: The Dissolution of the Colonial Empire: The Dissolution of the Colonial Empire. By AnsprengerFranz. New York: Routledge: Chapman and Hall, 1989. 336 pp. $45.00 (cloth); $16.95 (paper)

Book Review: The Dissolution of the Colonial Empire: The Dissolution of the Colonial Empire. By AnsprengerFranz. New York: Routledge: Chapman and Hall, 1989. 336 pp. $45.00 (cloth);$ 16.95 (paper)

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Book Review: The Dissolution of the Colonial Empire: The Dissolution of the Colonial Empire. By AnsprengerFranz. New York: Routledge: Chapman and Hall, 1989. 336 pp. 45.00(cloth);45.00 (cloth); 45.00(cloth);16.95 (paper)

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Book Review: The Dissolution of the Colonial Empire: The Dissolution of the Colonial Empire. By AnsprengerFranz. New York: Routledge: Chapman and Hall, 1989. 336 pp. $45.00 (cloth);$ 16.95 (paper)