Book Reviews and Notices : Agrarian Unrest in Southeast Asia. BY EHRICH H. JACOBY. (New York: Columbia University Press. 1949. Pp. xiv, 287, $4.00.)

• DOI: 10.1177/106591294900200333
• Date: 01 September 1949
• Published date: 01 September 1949
• Subject Matter: Articles

451
reviewer his analysis of &dquo;Government in China&dquo; (Chapter 30) has today
a value primarily historical. Can the Chinese Communists be dismissed
as &dquo;a competing government?&dquo; Of course, events yet to occur may still
prove Dr. Linebarger to be perfectly correct.
Any other criticism of the book would serve only to reveal further
the present writer’s particular interests. Special praise must be given,
however, to John N. Hazard’s section on &dquo;The Socialist State&dquo; and to
Andrew Gyorgy’s chapter on Danubian governments.
CHARLES O. LERCHE, JR.
Knox College
.
Agrarian Unrest in Southeast Asia. BY EHRICH H. JACOBY. (New York:
Columbia University Press. 1949. Pp. xiv, 287, $4.00.)
There has been a growing awareness that Southeast Asia may become
one of the world’s critical areas in the conflict between Soviet Russia
and the West. There has not been a corresponding increase in scholarly
analysis of the area’s problems. This volume is an excellent contribution
toward overcoming the lack. The author has combined field work in the
Philippine Islands during the period of the Japanese occupation (as a
.
Swedish neutral) with thorough research in the literature concerning the
area.
Mr. Jacoby has a thesis which he documents carefully country by
country. Culminating in the nineteenth century, Southeast Asia was the
originating point of the large empires of trade which fed the factories of
Western Europe. Conditions in the area were bettered and specialized
production levels rose because of better agricultural methods, modern
sanitation, and settled, honest government. Improved conditions did not
bring about the rise in living standards that Europe experienced because
with more food more people survived. A phenomenal increase in popu,
lation took place.
The cycle has not been completed. Population normally will increase
steadily during this century. At the same time, the skeleton forces that
held these empires together are no longer competent for...