MARIUS B. JANSEN. The Japanese and Sun Yat-sen. Pp. viii, 274. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1954. $4.00
| Author | Herbert Passin |
| DOI | 10.1177/000271625530000174 |
| Published date | 01 July 1955 |
| Date | 01 July 1955 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
175
New
York;
Toronto:
Longmans,
Green,
and
Company,
1954.
$6.00.
Bandung,
the
name
of
a
mountain
city
in
Java,
suddenly
has
become
a
household
word.
Remotest
corners
of
the
Orient
have
emerged
from
story-book
land
into
the
realm
of
our
immediate
concerns.
It
is
op-
portune
that
there
should
appear
at
this
particular
moment
a
significant
book
on
the
fundamental,
geological,
economic,
and
cultural
structure
of
a
substantial
portion
of
Southeast
Asia
which
the
author
calls
Le
Monde
Malais.
It
is
to
be
hoped
that
it
will
reach
a
greater
audience than
its
rather
forbidding
scientific
outline
may
in-
vite.
The
author,
a
professor
of
colonial
geog-
raphy
at
the
Sorbonne,
has
reported
the
re-
sults
of
his
scholarly
research
in
Malaya,
Sumatra,
Java,
the
Celebes,
Borneo,
East-
ern
Indonesia,
and
the
Philippines.
These
areas,
from
the
evidences
of
geological
for-
mations
and
ethnic
relationships,
seem
to
be
a
unit
in
the
Asiatic
world,
each
part
bearing
a
closer
similarity
to
the
others
than
to
the
remainder
of
the
Far
East.
Statistical
details
involving
land
structures,
climate,
vegetation
and
fauna,
anthro-
pology,
and
movements
of
population
are
not
permitted
to
grow
boresome
through
the
generous
use
of
pictures
and
a
deft
literary
touch,
which
has
lost
very
little
in
the
excellent
translation
from
the
French
by
E.
D.
Laborde.
It
is
a
temptation
to
oversimplify
the
remedy
for
the
ills
of
Asia
in
terms
of
education
for
backward
people.
Education
is
a
two-edged
sword
which
should
also
cut
in
the
direction
of
those
who
are
striv-
ing
to
understand
and
help
their
less
en-
lightened
brethren.
This
book
on
advanced
geography
should
contribute
invaluably
to
the
equipment
of
those
who
are
charged
with
the
responsibility
of
cementing
friendly
relationships
between
the
Western
and
Eastern
worlds.
Above
all,
the
lessons
of
this
book
should
answer
the
occasional
contention
that
there
is
a
power
vacuum
in
the
Malayan
world
into
which
various
political
influences
may
be
sucked.
The
history
of
colonialism
and
the
current
displays
of
individual
national-
ism
should
form
a
strong
argument
in
the
negative.
Moreover,
a
geological
back-
ground
of
common
antiquity
with
the
rest
of
the
world:
ancient
customs,
deep-rooted
religious
beliefs
which
have
compromised
with
rather
than
yielded
to
outside
in-
fluences,
local
customs
responding
to
the
impulses
of
nature,
all
form
as
living
and
breathing
a
part
of
the
universe
in
the
Malayan
world
as
any
to
be
found
else-
where.
The
people
are
counterparts
of
other
populations.
In
such
a
place,
deal-
ings
with
local
groups
must
be
on
a
man-
to-man
basis
and
not
on
the
level
of
pa-
tronage.
As
the
author
points
out,
the
native
&dquo;should
be
regarded
as
a
human
being
and
should
be
treated
as
such.&dquo;
ERNEST
SCHEIN
Washington,
D.
C.
MARIUS
B.
JANSEN.
The
Japanese
and
Sun
Yat-sen.
Pp.
viii,
274.
Cambridge,
Mass.:
Harvard
University
Press,
1954.
$4.00.
The
West
has
never
fully
been
able
to
understand
how
the
Japanese
were
able
to
deceive
the
nations
of
Asia
into
believing,
even
for
a
moment,
her
Greater
East
Asia
Co-Prosperity
Sphere
propaganda.
For
Japanese
policy,
which
appeared
so
trans-
parently
expansionist
to
the
West,
looked
entirely
different
to
an
Asia
in
the throes
of
resentment
against
Western
imperialism.
Thus
the
idea
of
uniting
all
of
Asia
under
Japanese
leadership
in
order
to
combat
Western
imperialism
did
not
appear
such
a
farfetched
idea
to
Asians,
as
we
have
learned
to
our
dismay
over
and
over
again
-f rom
the
Aguinaldo
rebellion
of
the
1890’s
to
the
Japanese
New
Order
of
World
War
II.
Japan,
as
the
only
Asian
nation
to
meet
the
West
on
its
own
grounds,
held
a
great
fascination
for
an
Asia
suffering
under
the
complex
humiliations
of
colonial-
ism.
As
Sun
Yat-sen
once
said,
&dquo;the
day
when
the
unequal
treaties
were
abolished
by
Japan
was
a
day
of
regeneration
for
all
Asiatic
peoples.&dquo;
On
the
Japanese
side,
Pan-Asianism
has
always
been
the
point
of
intersection
of
di-
verse
political
views.
It
was
shared
by
re-
actionaries
and
expansionists
who
saw
a
united
Asia
under
Japanese
rule,
and
by
liberals
who
saw
a
united,
free,
and
To continue reading
Request your trial