Culture and Society
Fu Manchu and the Third World
Jay Weinstein
he English author Sax Rohmer is best remembered
T for his series of international mysteries about Dr. Fu
Manchu, written during the period that began before
World War I and ended after World War II. The events
of this era are reflected vividly in these books. For, jux-
taposed with the continuing saga of confrontations--in
China, England, India, Burma, Egypt, Haiti, the United
States, and elsewhere--between Fu Manchu, "Master of
Evil," and Sir Denis Nayland Smith, British foreign
agent, is Rohmer's view of contemporary historical
events.
The Fu Manchu novels feature the emergence of a new
and independent "force of the East," one that will chal-
lenge for world domination the democratic and the to-
talitarian states of the West. According to Rohmer,
China will dominate this Eastern alliance; but countries
throughout the former British, French, and other Euro-
pean empires are involved. The politics of this force
from the East is neither fascist nor communist nor demo-
cratic; rather, it will make alliances with any group when
convenient. The purpose of this attempted takeover, ex-
pressed in Rohmer's work as Fu Manchu's motives, is to
reassert the supremacy of the nonwhite races. At the
conclusion of the Fu Manchu series, Sir Denis and the
Western world as a whole are still able to hold their own
against Fu Manchu, but it is clear that the powers of the
"Evil Doctor" are not yet exhausted: the Doctor himself
is contemplating the question of who will succeed the
premier of China. Throughout Rohmer's work, a
thorough and, in some respects, credible perspective on
the Third World is developed. His books were, and still
are, very popular.
In this essay, I focus on Rohmer's work in order to
explore some of the ways in which popular culture is
shaped by and acts to shape public and professional
views on current events. This problem is approached
from the perspective of the sociology of culture, a field
established by Karl Mannheim in the late 1920s. My
interest in Rohmer and in examining his work from a
sociological perspective stems not so much from a spe-
cial interest in popular culture or literature as from an
interest in the sources of public and professional views
on the events that Sax Rohmer discussed: namely, rela-
tions between England, other Western countries, and the
Third World.
For the past several years, I have been active in social
and demographic research on Third World countries,
particularly India, Nepal, and Jamaica. In attempting to
make sense of the data and other impressions that my
colleagues and I have gathered in this research, I came to
understand that such work is virtually pointless in the ab-
sence of a general overview of Third World social rela-
tions. At the same time, it became increasingly clear that
in the work of many other Third World specialists and in
the "public mind" (i.e., popular culture) a rather com-
prehensive understanding does exist. Thus, I turned my
attention to the ways in which others have interpreted the
Third World. I soon discovered that while this interpre-
tation has not been explicitly elaborated in any single
book or article, elements of it can be found throughout
current popular and scholarly literature as well. It does,
in often ironic ways, give considerable coherence to the
complex and often contradictory events, experiences,
and personalities familiar to students of Third World so-
ciety.
With some sense of the extensiveness and effective-
ness of this interpretation of the Third World, I began to
explore its sources, its chronology, and the major con-
tributors to it. I found that in some respects it resembles a
myth in Western culture; thus, its origins can be traced
78 / S O C I E T Y 9 J A N U A R Y / F E B R U A R Y 1984
very far back, indeed. In its current version, however,
the events and literature associated with the late Victori-
an-Edwardian era have had a particularly notable influ-
ence. During this period in England, the first series of
books about international relations, by Arthur Sarsfield
Ward alias Sax Rohmer, was published. These books
seem to embody the collective historical experience of
England and the West in relations with India, Turkey,
Africa, the Caribbean, and other regions of the vast
British empire. These books focused on then-current
events, and they expressed a profound sense of loss-of-
empire in a most effective way. Indeed, the sense of
England's past and present that Rohmer communicated
helped him to sell more than 20 million copies of his
books. Rohmer's views and themes influenced other au-
thors. Eventually, using Rohmer's plots and characters,
a series of movies was made. Because of the popularity
of a style of mustache, the name of Rohmer's principal
character has become part of our vocabulary.
Sax Rohmer's influence on popular culture has been
discussed and, to some extent, documented. His influ-
ence on scientific theory and public policy concerning
relations between the Third World and the West, how-
ever, has not been established. One reason for this lack
of attention to scholarly and applied aspects of Rohmer' s
views is that the influence of the Fu Manchu books has
been mediated by popular culture in general. Thus, the
idea of Fu Manchu and the events of the Third World in
which he plays a major role have been generalized and
depersonalized as they are represented in countless
books, comics, movies, and TV programs. These
sources of popular culture have had a discernible effect
on the views of scientists, technologists, and foreign
The army of the Si-Fan abides by no
conventions of war known to the West.
Their weapons include seduction by dark
women with magnificent bodies and hot,
black eyes. Death comes by poisoning
and other nefarious means.
policy specialists, and the work of these experts has, in
turn, affected the producers of popular culture. Thus,
Rohmer's views and the Fu Manchu theme have been
reinforced and elaborated through secondary and tertiary
processes.
Rohmer's commentary on the Third World has also
played only an implicit role in shaping public and profes-
sional views because, in a historical perspective, the idea
is not Rohmer's at all, nor was Fu Manchu created in
1913. The notion clearly predates Rohmer, although by
its nature it is, as mentioned, difficult to say by how
many centuries. Fu Manchu embodies an archetype fa-
miliar in the West since before Marco Polo's travels in
the thirteenth century. The Manichean notion of an "evil
force from the East" and the concept of an international
and highly organized outlaw organization, which
Rohmer exploited so effectively, appeared in European
literature and explorers' reports as early as the sixteenth
or seventeenth centuries. Even without Rohmer and his
books, then, these ideas might still have had their ef-
fects.
Nevertheless, Rohmer did live to set down in print a
comprehensive and organized summary of most of the
views formulated by the English-speaking world in its
attempt to penetrate the mysteries of the far reaches of
the Empire. These remarks focus on this writing (and
related literature) in order to isolate some themes which
have been particularly effective in expressing and in-
fluencing our ideas about the Third World. Rohmer died
in 1959; but, as the corpus of his work overwhelmingly
suggests, perhaps Fu Manchu still lives.
Sir Denis and the Si-Fan
The plots of the Fu Manchu novels involve a series of
confrontations between Denis (later Sir Denis) Nayland
Smith, his allies in Scotland Yard, and members of the
vast international force known as the Si-Fan. The Si-Fan
is headed by the Council of Seven, and the president of
the council is Dr. Fu Manchu. In The Drums of Fu Man-
chu, we learn that "the Si-Fan cannot be ignored. The
Chinese Tongs are powerful and there is a widespread
belief in the influence of the Jesuits; but the Si-Fan is the
most formidable secret society in the world; fully
twenty-five percent of the coloured races belong to it."
Sir Denis's mission is to defeat the Si-Fan--which
means, as he soon learns, to destroy Fu Manchu. In this
unenviable endeavor, Smith is provided with the full
cooperation of the Crown and governments throughout
the world. But the Si-Fan is so powerful and Fu Manchu
so brilliant that the best Smith can achieve is a holding
action. Each novel thus focuses on a single related series
of episodes in which the Si-Fan is thwarted in its attempt
to carry out a particular plan (e.g., a political assassina-
tion or a smuggling scheme), but in which Fu Manchu
himself avoids capture.
While Smith can call upon all the forces of national
and international law and order, Fu Manchu has at his
command followers of all the outlaw cults, castes, and
religions that the British came to know of during the ear-
lier days of the Empire: thugs, dacoits, lascars, voodoo
cultists, and so on. The army of the Si-Fan abides by no
conventions of war known to the West. Their weapons
include seduction by dark women with magnificent
bodies and hot, black eyes. Death comes by strangula-
tion, poisoning, and, perhaps most nefarious of all,
drugs whereby the victim's mind is rendered helpless and
wholly under the control of Fu Manchu. One account of

a victim who survived, a Mr. West, gives a good sense
of the type of enemy with which Sir Denis had to deal:
"Mr. Smith," [said West], "Someone doped
me with hashish!"
Smith nodded grimly.
"Cannabis indica," I said--"lndian Hemp.
That is what you were drugged with. I have no
doubt that now you experience a feeling of nausea
and intense thirst, with aching in the muscles, par-
ticularly the deltoid. I think you must have taken at
least fifteen grains."
Smith stopped his perambulations immediately
in front of West, looking into his dulled eyes.
"Someone visited your chambers last night," he
said slowly, "and for your chloral tabloids [i.e.,
malaria pills] substituted some containing hashish,
or perhaps not pure hashish. Fu Manchu is a pro-
found chemist."
Each of the Fu Manchu novels is set in an area of the
Third World and England. The Si-Fan network is espe-
cially active, for example, in China, Haiti, Egypt, and
Burma, but it encompasses members of the "coloured
races" in every part of the world. Its London head-
quarters are to be found in Limehouse, the docking area
where the ships that kept the Empire together loaded and
unloaded. Limehouse, a neighborhood traditionally
known as a refuge for deviant activity and "race mix-
ing" of every type, was given wide berth even by the
London police. Here, in an office beneath an opium den,
Fu Manchu keeps a hand in Si-Fan activities.
Imagine a person, tall, lean, and feline, high-
shouldered, with a brow like Shakespeare and a
face like Satan, a close-shaven skull and long
magnetic eyes of the true cat-green. Invest him
with all the cruel cunning of an entire Eastern race,
accumulated in one giant intellect. With all the re-
sources, if you will, of a wealthy government--
which, however, already had denied all knowledge
of his existence. Imagine that awful being, and you
have a mental picture of Dr. Fu Manchu, the yel-
low peril incarnate in one man.
Sir Denis, who is endowed with "the logic and or-
dered knowledge of the civilized world," endures, be-
comes wiser, but eventually tires with age during his
forty years of activity against Fu Manchu. The Evil
Doctor, however, has in his "profound" chemical ex-
periments discovered the secret of prolonging life; he
does not age, or rather, when he does age, he can restore
himself (as in Re-Enter Fu Manchu). Thus, throughout a
period that extends from the Boer War to the Cold
War--a period that saw dramatic changes in interna-
tional relations--one factor remained constant in Sax
Rohmer's novels: Fu Manchu's single-minded quest for
world domination.
FU MANCHU AND THE THIRD WORLO [ 79
The juxtaposition of the rapidly changing international
situation and the constant growth of the "mysterious
force from the East" allowed Rohmer to develop an
explanation of what had become of the British Empire,
the countries that, along with the vestiges of the other
European empires, make up today's Third World or
"peripheral" areas. The reader is given insight into the
causes and consequences of two world wars, the rise of
fascism in Europe, the rise to world power of the Soviet
Union, and the rise to local power of "communist crimi-
nals" throughout the old empires. Impficated in all of
this is the Si-Fan, a group that, though independent of
Fascist, Communist, Conservative, or Liberal parties,
uses any and all of these for its own purposes; namely,
world domination by Fu Manchu and the reassertion of
the (pre-Empire) superiority of the "yellow race."
In the public mind of England during the
Victorian age is a belief--strongly
expressed in Rohmer's novelsmin the
sociogenetic association between being
white, rational, orderly, and fair.
Born in 1883, Arthur S. Ward pursued brief careers in
the city and on Fleet Street before publishing the first Fu
Manchu novel, under the name of Sax Rohmer, in 1913.
Through these experiences, he was able to keep abreast
of international affairs and to continue his boyhood inter-
est in Egyptology and exotic occult practices. Unlike
most other popular novelists of his time, however,
Rohmer's settings were not exclusively European.
Rather, from the first Fu Manchu adventure to the last,
Rohmer looked beyond Europe to trace the causes and
the consequences of the passing of the Victorian era, the
Great War, depression, and so on. By the late 1930s, the
influence of Fu Manchu (and his deeds) on popular cul-
ture was already widespread. Long before World War II,
before Hitler's horrifying demonstration of the power of
popular cultural symbolism, moviegoers and readers of
comics were familiar with the possibility that the social
and political turmoil occurring in Europe emanated ulti-
mately not from London, Paris, Munich, Venice, or New
York, but from Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Fol-
lowers of Rohmer's adventures and, eventually, all fans
of popular culture were prepared to accept the fact that
the dictator of dictators, the one ruler who would prove
that world domination still could occur after the fall of
the great empires, was not a white man at all, but rather a
"yellow-skinned genius" who leads an army of the
nonwhite races.
80 / SOCIETY 9 J A N U A R Y / FEBRUARY 1984
Of the several themes and subthemes that make up
Rohmer's views, the continued focus on the role of the
Third World in even apparently domestic European af-
fairs is central. The nature of this involvement is often
difficult to decipher, since the Si-Fan alternately sides
with, then against, England, Germany, the United
States, and the Soviets in intra-European conflict and in-
trigue. Yet this involvement is identifiable in its con-
tinuity of personnel and its methods of operation: "yel-
low races," "coloured races," "blacks," and "dark-
skinned people" striking with tactics that betray an utter
disregard for "civilized mores" and even human life. In
brief, the leading element of Rohmer's theory of the
Third World is this emphasis on international race
war--whites versus nonwhites--in which the Yellow
Peril and its allies (Rohmer classes Jews with nonwhites)
seek revenge for injuries allegedly sustained during the
colonial and imperial eras.
A Neo-Freudian Interpretation
Sociologists of culture, especially students of popular
culture associated with the Frankfurt School, have
gained insight into such literary themes through an appli-
cation of Freudian and neo-Freudian perspectives. While
I do not suggest that this is the only, or even the best,
type of metatheory with which to examine Sax Rohmer's
views on the Third World, I do believe that a brief neo-
Freudian digression here can help point the way to future
directions for the analysis of popular culture themes.
From this perspective, we see a profound component
of guilt-related projection in Rohmer's views. Racial
explanations of the English domestic social order and of
the order of the Empire were, of course, the coin of the
realm during Rohmer's boyhood. These, after all, were
the years subsequent to the Darwinian revolution, the era
of social Darwinism, and of Herbert Spencer's socio-
logical theories. Rohmer's boyhood years also coincided
with the twilight, but golden, era of white supremacy.
And while historians, economists, and sociologists pre-
fer political and economic explanations of the rise of the
temperate-zone empires, popular explanations strongly
favored the influence of race itself. In the public mind of
England (and other European countries) during the Vic-
torian age, is a belief--strongly expressed in Rohmer's
novels--in the sociogenetic association between being
white and being rational, orderly, and fair. Thus, during
prosperous times for the Empire, both the prosperity and
obvious political inequalities were "explained"--i.e.,
justified--in racial terms.
When the empires began to come upon hard times,
first through the competition with one another that
eventuated in World Wars I and II, then through formal
dissolution brought about by local Third World forces,
race was again called upon to explain these changes, in
Rohmer's novels and elsewhere. In Rohmer's work, the
struggle for political supremacy of other-than-white
races is expressed as the Si-Fan's organizational goal.
But, as the reader is often reminded, the motives of the
Si-Fan are quite the opposite of those which led the Eng-
lish to establish their (now-waning) hegemony: "The
Chinese still believe that the yellow race can dominate
The visual contrast between white and
dark people is, in Rohmer's view,
reflected in the contrast between their
respective degrees of cultural
enlightenment.
the world, and the Oriental mind spells out the means in
a manner altogether opposite to Western ideas." The
Si-Fan seeks rule by yellow men, aided and abetted by
black, brown, and Eurasian races, with no concern for
human welfare or civilized values. The English, on the
other hand, sought to spread well-being and civilized
virtues, and they subsequently rose to power because of
their special capacities stemming from Anglo-Saxon
heritage and blood. Perhaps most significant, as Rohmer
saw the difference, beneath the Oriental myth of racial
superiority and the solidarity of the Si-Fan (as opposed to
its "reality" in the case of the British and other Euro-
pean empires), lay the selfish aspirations for personal
power of one brilliant but mad Mandarin.
It may be apparent from these contrasts, which run
throughout the Fu Manchu novels, that Rohmer had
created a partly preposterous conspiracy of the Yellow
(etc.) Peril which corresponded rather closely with an
unfavorable "Eastern" interpretation of England's ac-
tivities during and after the colonial era. Did not the
English seek and eventually gain dominion over the yel-
low (etc.) races through the introduction of strange
weapons, chemicals, religious practices, and ethical
systems? Would it not stand to reason (albeit Eastern,
"twisted" reason) that England and Europe sought dom-
ination by the white races per se rather than dominion by
political and economic systems which just happened to
be inventions of white genius?
Such possibilities were, of course, not unfamiliar to
Sax Rohmer and his European contemporaries. They
were, however, largely suppressed and rationalized in
European society and culture through a continued em-
phasis on, first, the goals of the empires to spread en-
lightenment and, secondly, the evolutionary and imper-
sonal character of "the force from the West." In these
two respects, the old empires and the Si-Fan differ con-
siderably. Even an "Eastern" interpretation must distin-
guish between the two types of world rule. The aim of
the Si-Fan is to spread darkness, slavery, drug addiction,
and illicit sex wherever it can; its hallmark is its absolute
subservience to one group, the Council of Seven, and the
subservience of that group to the evil will of one man, Fu
Manchu.

By carefully detailing such contrasts, Rohmer is able
to explain, with the same formulation, the fall of the
Empire as well as the difference between good racial
hegemony and bad racial hegemony. Rohmer's explana-
tion of the fall of the Empire, like the popular explana-
tion of its rise, relies on an essential dichotomy between
white and nonwhite races, one which remains indepen-
dent of authoritarian-democratic, fascist-communist, and
even literal East-West distinctions. Such a dichotomy
persists in the present polarizations, theoretical and ac-
tual, between the Third versus the First and Second
worlds, the North-South axis in international relations.
Unlike its white and Anglo-Saxon counterpart, however,
the force from the East (i.e., the South) succeeds through
trickery, conspiracy, and leadership by "The Devil In-
carnate." The setbacks suffered by the white empires,
then, can be seen as resulting from an organized attempt
by the yellow (etc.) races to rule the world through un-
ethical and secret means. Ironically, in the genre of
Rohmer's views, the moral supremacy of the white races
has led to their downfall in the face of challenges by the
morally inferior, but more treacherous and numerically
superior, nonwhites. It might be noted that the selection
of the yellow races to lead the other nonwhites corre-
sponds closely to the British colonial experiences with
the more resistant (and thus "cleverer") Chinese.
In making this connection between an empire lost and
" e v i l " (as opposed to "progressive") racial domination,
As personified in Fu Manchu, the
nonwhite races can intellectually master
science and technology, but it will
always be mixed with the occult (i.e.,
the antiscientific) and used for evil
purposes.
Rohmer is able to express a deep wish of European cul-
ture: the wish that racism and world domination be, in
themselves, morally neutral activities. If the English
people and other Westerners (i.e., Northerners) can be-
lieve this, then they can feel guiltless about their past and
at the same time oppose the rise to power of Third World
peoples--a rise that contrasts so ironically with the past.
It is in this way that a neo-Freudian perspective can shed
light on Sax Rohmer's views. The views themselves and
the impact they have had can be understood as popular
culture phenomena that satisfy a need. Characteristi-
cally, this is a need stemming from general contradic-
tions in culture and society: in this case, contradictions
such as those between democratic ideals and imperial
FU MANCHU AND THE THIRD WORLD / 81
realities, social facts and racial explanations, and the
greatness and the decline of nations.
This type of explanation has its limits. Clearly it sheds
light on only some aspects of Rohmer's focus on the new
Third World involvement in international relations. In
addition, it is only marginally useful in understanding
other (albeit secondary) themes in the Fu Manchu
novels. With these limits noted, a brief discussion of two
additional elements in Sax Rohmer's theory is offered.
The first is the frequent association of "loose women"
and illicit sex, mystical religions, and illegal drugs with
the activities of the Si-Fan; the second is the connection
Rohmer makes between science and technology, on the
one hand, and a conspiracy led by an evil scientist, Fu
Manchu, Ph.D., on the other.
Immorality, Paganism, and Technology
In light of the opposition stressed by Rohmer between
the morals of the white world and those of the "coloured
races," it is not difficult to understand the role that de-
viant sex, drugs, and religious practices play in his
perspective on the Third World. The spread of English
and European rule was justified, if not motivated, by an
interest in the universal distribution of the Enlighten-
ment. By the last few decades of the nineteenth century,
"Enlightenment" was practically interpreted to mean a
Victorian sexual code, a general stress on "modera-
tion," and the partly paradoxical abhorrence of unfa-
miliar drugs (Sir Denis and his companions relished
"safe" drugs such as alcohol, tobacco, coffee, and tea).
By 1883 or so, Enlightenment religion meant " c o o l "
Protestant Christianity. An interest in preserving and
spreading these values gave coherence and moral justifi-
cation to imperialist activities of England and Europe, at
least in the public mind. From the point of view of the
English, the last holdouts against these values were to be
found in the far reaches of the Empire, in the laboratories
of Chinese mandarins above the law, in the secret settle-
ments of thugs and dacoits outside the law, and, ironi-
cally, in Limehouse, the section of London avoided by
the law.
When the challenge came to the imperial will, it came
from the nonwhite races at the periphery of the European
world system. And, according to Rohmer, their moral
armament included sexual perversion and intrigue,
opium and hashish (the two drugs were equally heinous
to Sir Denis), and every sort of ecstatic Dionysian reli-
gious activity. The visual contrast between white and
dark people is, in Rohmer's view, reflected in the con-
trast between their respective degrees of cultural en-
lightenment.
The Si-Fan association with these illicit activities is
effective in lending an exotic atmosphere and more than
a small measure of titillation to the Fu Manchu novels.
At another level, however, sex, drugs, and ecstatic reli-
gion are used to illustrate the evil inherent in a certain
type of racial domination and to draw a sharp contrast
between it and the good qualities of the fading hegemony
 82 / SOCIETY 9 J A N U A R Y / F E B R U A R Y 1984
of the white races. Such activities reflect a morality that,
as Sir Denis notes several times in each novel, "must be
stopped at all costs."
Similarly, it is not coincidental that "the force from
the East" is led by a man who has mastered all the
legitimate and the occult sciences and technologies
known to the world. As much as late-Victorian England
identified enlightenment with a particular moral-reli-
gious code, it also reserved a special role for scientific
and technological innovation in the Pax Britannica. In
order to sustain his general views on the threat posed by
the Yellow Peril, Rohmer included a discussion of its
antienlightenment orientation to science and technology.
As personified in Fu Manchu, the nonwhite races can in-
Because of the popularity of a style of
mustache, the name of Rohmer's
principal character has become part of
our vocabulary.
tellectually master science and technology, but it will al-
ways be mixed with the occult (i.e., the antiscientific) and
used for evil purposes.
The English and European pride and sense of power in
their science and technology have always been moder-
ated by a characteristic fear that these harbored the power
to turn on their creators. The Prometheus-Frankenstein
theme pervades European and many other cultures. Yet,
during the late-nineteenth and earlier-twentieth cen-
turies, science and technology were, despite their "run-
away" potential, felt to be fundamentally under the con-
trol of Western scientists of goodwill. Today, views
seem to have shifted toward an autonomous-technology
perspective, expressed so forcefully in Jacques Ellul's
widely read works. Between then and now, the empires
have been dismantled and the Third World has begun to
assert its claim on science and technology. Sensing this,
Rohmer was voicing a fear that should the "coloured
races" take power, technology's potential for going out
of control would be realized. As part of the moral crisis
identified in other ways by Rohmer, Fu Manchu's evil
inventions express once more the ironic theme of imperi-
al-failure-through-superiority. (See, especially, The
D r u m s o f Fu M a n c h u , in which communication
technologies are stolen by the Si-Fan.) The white races
would not use science and technology for evil; but since
the nonwhites have no such scruples, they are making
inroads--such as prolonging life and developing ex-
tremely potent drugs and weapons--that the West never
achieved.
Fu Manchu's mastery of science and technology
makes him a fascinatingly modern literary villain. He
both embodied and gave new meaning to the "evil sci-
entist" archetype in our culture. But beyond this, the as-
sociation of nonwhite science and technology with de-
struction and domination serves as a specific explanation
of loss of empire and as a key illustration of the danger-
ous possibilities inherent in a nonwhite victory over the
guardians of the Enlightenment.
I have discussed only a sample of the themes to be
found in Rohmer's Fu Manchu books. A more detailed
analysis would identify other themes and compare them
with other writings by Arthur S. Ward. The implications
of these admittedly tentative findings for future work in
the sociology of culture go beyond more detailed work
on Sax Rohmer's writings per se. I have contended that
Rohmer's perspective on the Third World--and its ele-
ments, such as the focus on racial explanation, conspi-
racy, deviant morality, and the destructive use of science
and technology--has played a role in forming current
public and professional views. Rohmer's interpretation,
along with its cognates and successors, has served and
still serves to organize Western understanding of Third
World cultural and social change (though I have not tried
to support this contention in any but an informal and sug-
gestive way here).
A valuable contribution would be a more formal ex-
amination of the correspondences (and differences) be-
tween Sax Rohmer's and current views. Foreign pol-
icy statements, scientific studies of the Third World, and
popular media content might be analyzed for the pres-
ence, absence, and degree of reliance on various ele-
ments of Rohmer's perspective. Similarly, other Victo-
rian literature about Third World relations can be studied
to determine how they might have influenced Rohmer. In
brief, there are many potentially fruitful paths to be fol-
lowed in seeking current and past expression of Sax
Rohmer's remarkable views on the Third World.
While the study of Rohmer's work and related themes
in popular culture is a fascinating activity, there are other
reasons why I would like to see some of this work con-
tinued. As one who has met with Rohmer's views---or
elements and vestiges of them--in scholarly studies, I
look forward to the day when anyone will recognize
them for the fantastic, guilt-motivated, rationalizing bit
of fiction that they are. When Sax Rohmer's interpreta-
tions can be identified even in disguised forms, then the
way may be clear for establishing a bit more truth about
what is (and what should be) the nature of relations be-
tween Europeans, Americans, and the peoples of the
Third World. []
Jay Weinstein is professor of social sciences at the Georgia
Institute of Technology, Atlanta. Since 1979, he has been
editor-in-chief of Studies in Comparative International Devel-
opment. He has twice served as Fulbright Professor of Sociol-
ogy in India and is the author of numerous reviews, articles,
and books.