 It is where many people live in cities, get

ASIA GENERAL REVIEWER their food from agriculture

Prepared by: RL
 It can refer to any distinct society,
whether complex and city-dwelling, or
OUTLINE: simple and tribal.
1. Asia as a continent………………………………….1
2. Southeast Asia……………………………………….2
- Characteristics:
3. Northeast Asia………………………………………..4  Agriculture
4. South Asia……………………………………………..6  Generally permanent settlements
5. West Asia………………………………………………7  Division of labor
6. Processes (Discussion from Farmer, et.al.)...….7  Control environment
 Social hierarchy
ASIA AS A CONTINENT  Government and bureaucracies
 Formal social institutions
 In a nutshell:
- Asia is not only a political concept but also a  Trade
cultural one  Technologies
- It is not only a geographical location but also  Arts
a measure of value judgment  Writing
- Theories of civilizations
 Role of physical geography:
 Circumscription theory (Robert
- Land forms present: mountains, plains,
Carniero)
plateaus
 Groups that are defeated in battle
 Serve as geographical boundaries
cannot easily just move away from
 Serve as barriers of climate entry
the conflict but instead remain on the
 Serve as barriers that prohibit, or at least
land as a population subservient to
impede, cross-region interaction and
the victors. The defeated groups
migration
become lower class. Hence, this
- Significance of the river:
process would result in a very rapid
 Economic purposes
formation of class society.
 Cultivation of agriculture
 Hydraulic hypothesis (Karl Wittfogel)
 Trade
 Small-scale agriculturalists submit to
 Transportation
a leader in order to build and
 Socio-religious purposes
maintain large-scale irrigation works
- Significance of climate:
and/or large projects to protect them
 Agriculture
from flooding.
 Housing
 Farmers become dependent upon
 Maritime explorations
artificial water supply and/or security
- Overall implications:
from flooding.
 Varied economies in the continent
 The leaders use their labor-
 Active participation in global markets
mobilizing power to construct non-
 Dictates density and sparseness of
hydraulic works, and eventually to
populations
conduct other activities such as
 Contrasts rural from urban settlements
manufacturing, trade, etc.
 Social tensions exist
 Social Surplus Theory (Gordon Childe)
 Religious diversity
 Agricultural technology appears, and
 Shapes the diet and culture
then improves.
 Influences the physical features, e.g.
 Improvements, then, lead to increase
eyes, ears
in production.
 Allows the formation of settlements-
 Increase in production then leads to
nucleated
the formation of larger populations
 Develops technology
and settlements.
 Creates new landscape- rice paddies,
 Success in competition theory (William
terracing of hilly areas
Sanders and Barbara Price)
 Considers mountains as sacred sites
 Population growth leads to
 Civilization
competition within and between
- Definitions
groups for members and territory.
 It is a complex society.
  Success means that the group
continues to exist and increases in
size relative to other groups.
 A group that is more complexly
organized and able to coordinate
complex actions by members of the
group is likely to do better in the
competition for continued existence.
SOUTHEAST ASIA
READINGS:
 Comparative History of Civilizations in Asia: Vol.
1 and 2 (Farmer, et.al. 1977)
 The Emergence of Modern Southeast Asia
(David Chandler, 2005)
 The Establishment of Colonial Regimes
(Nicholas Tarling, 1999)
 Sexual Affronts and Racial Frontiers (Ann Stoler,
1992)
 The Making of Race in Colonial Malaya (Charles
Hirschman, 1986)
 Night Watchman, Extractive, or Developmental
States (Anne Booth, 2007)
 Japan: The Light of Asia (Benedict Anderson,
1966)
 Toppling Democracy (Thongchai Winichakul,
2008)
 Decolonisation without Independence
(Christopher, 2002)
 The Role of the State in Managing Ethnic
Tensions (M. Shamsul Haque, 2002)
 Post-colonial states, ethnic minorities, and
separatist conflicts (Damien Kingsbury, 2011)
CORE CONCEPTS:
 Core processes pertinent to the emergence
and flourishing of Southeast Asian
civilizations and societies (Farmer, 1977)
- Formation of regional political entities
- Renaissance of regional cultures
- Growth of maritime centers
- Foundations of European domination through
seapower
 Maritime innovations and exploration
 Establishment of enclaves (trade)
- Culmination of Western European
dominance through imperialism
 Historical development can be characterized by
the following:
- Adaptation of social, political, cultural
elements from peripheral powers (India,
China) (Farmer, 1977)
- Fundamental processes of development that
took place in the cradles of civilization (i.e.
Mesopotamia, India, China) transpired in the
region in a much later period. (Farmer, 1977)
- Cultural and religious variety of monarchies
(Chandler, 2005)
- Mobilization of resources for further
urbanization and development (Farmer,
1977)
- Migration and cross-kingdom interactions as
central features of regional development
(Farmer, 1977)
 Colonizing the Region
- European entry in the region meant
introducing a new configuration of a socio-
political superstructure. (Chandler, 2005)
- The region was unprepared for the
commercial, political, and military competition
that the Europeans began to commence.
(Chandler, 2005)
- Political mapping (Tarling, 1999)
 It is the process of marking the presence
of colonial powers, characterized by the
drawing of boundaries from the outside.
Frontiers are drawn based on what the
hegemon can take over.
- The process of colonization, like other
transnational ones that have affected
Southeast Asia, was uneven, fragmented,
and contested, and its long-term effects
varied in scope and intensity from place to
place. (Chandler, 2005)
- Colonialism had many unintended effects in
the region, as it damaged, destroyed,
blended with, or was absorbed by local
people and traditions in a complex,
interactive process. (Chandler, 2005)
- One important effect of colonialism was that
the region was broken up into units that
seemed to many local people arbitrary and
irrational. (Chandler, 2005)
 They reified races or ethnicities as
distinct and presumably alien from each
other, officially determining who was a
native and who was not. Through
regulation they officially determined who
was subject to which rules, exaggerating
differences between categories and
obliterating differences within them.
 - In the long run, the newly created identities
may be colonialism’s lasting legacy in the
region. (Chandler, 2005)
 Governance in Colonies
- Indigenous collaboration: (Trocki, 1999)
 As control became more intensive, they
need more people to monitor everyday
affairs.
 Since hiring European specialists are
expensive, they hired locals for the more
menial jobs, however they had to
educate locals the Western way.
(assimilation)
 Indigenous collaborators were the
political elites.
- Direct rule: imposition of Western style of
governance (Trocki, 1999)
- Indirect rule: cooperative relationship
(Trocki, 1999)
- Political Economy (Booth, 2007)
 Night watchman – mode of colonial
governance characterized as a mode of
social overhead in which providing social
services and security is the main feature.
 Developmental state – assumes the
fairness of colonial rulers wherein it has
established effective administrative
structures that prioritized centralization
and reform of fiscal systems
 Extractive state – mode of colonial
governance characterized by the
regressive nature of tax systems, failure
to allocate expenditures, and adverse
macroeconomic effects of fiscal policies
 Colonies in Southeast Asia were, after
all, developmental. The priority was still
placed on metropolitan governments and
constituents. But nonetheless, colonial
governments did allocate budgetary
resources to selected sectors in order to
jumpstart development in their domains.*
- Japanese imperialism (Anderson, 1966)
 Characteristics:
 Emergency quality
 Racism
 Fundamentals of Japanese occupation
 Continuities of opinion
 Continuities of rule
 Political changes
 Differences between Western and
Japanese imperialism:
 Different approaches
 Arrival
 Social Cleavages and Internal Frontiers
- Frontier: Both a site of enclosure and
contact, of observed passage and exchange
(Balibar: as cited in Stoler, 1992)
- In colonial regimes:
 Sexual affronts:
 Determination of nationalities is
patriarchal.
 Colonized women who are mothers
to the metisse (dual national) are
mandated by their colonizers to give
up their children to the superior
environment of state institutions
(Stoler, 1992)
 Metis girls forced into prostitution by
native men who were the
subsequent lovers of the girls’ native
mothers. While metis boys should be
educated in special institutions for
modest employment in commerce or
in the state. (Stoler, 1992)
 Race and Ethnicity:
 There is an alarming increase in
poor Europeans born in the Indies or
of mixed parentage. This threatens
the social order of the colonies.
(Stoler, 1992)
 European-ness is something
learned, and preserved even if you
are not in the homeland. (Stoler,
1992)
 Shifting coalitions between
Southeast Asians and European
forces seem to be based not upon
cultural background or religion, but
on political expediency. (Hirschman,
1986)
 In terms of inter-ethnic relationships,
the British politicized racial relations
in Malaya. Differences in skin
pigmentation, initial cultural
differences, and existing belief
structures were of lesser importance
than the exploitative institutional
framework which required ideological
justification. The British collaborated
with the Malay aristocracy via
pensions and conciliatory diplomacy
by the colonial administrators.
(Hirschman, 1986)
 Racial tension in Southeast Asia is
not biological. With race comes
occupational segregation.*
  Democratization
- In the West, the Constitution serves as the
supreme law of the land. While in Thailand,
an unwritten cultural constitution prevails,
thereby consolidating their political
environment.**
- Monarchy as above politics: The monarchy
should not be involved in political affairs.
They should serve as a moral agent in
society. (Winichakul, 2008)
 Catalysts and Challenges toward State
formation and Nation-building
- Decolonisation (Christopher, 2002)
 Key question: how is decolonization
negotiated?
 Intra-imperial amalgamations: territorial
amalgamations carried out within the
confines of single empires (e.g. British
Malaya)
- Ethnic conflicts
 Preferential policies/affirmative action
exists. (Haque, 2003)
 There is the politicization of ethnicity
taking place.*
 There is failure to represent ethnic
minorities as full and equal citizens within
states. There is a political gap between
pre-independence expectations and
post-independence realities.
(Kingsbury, 2011)
 Ethnic configuration [in Malaysia] is quite
complex, that the outcomes of ethnic
preferential policies are ambiguous.
(Haque, 2003)
 There are concrete indicators and forces
of change in the state’s ethnic
preferential policies [in Malaysia], but
there are also strong constraints against
the reversal of these policies. (Haque,
2003)
 Political parties based on race exist:
UMNO, MCA, MIC. Moreover, an
alliance also brews between these three
parties. (Haque, 2003)
CASES TO LOOK INTO:
 Characterize Burma’s political system before the
advent of the West in Southeast Asia. What
changes were introduced upon the coming of
foreign powers?
 Discuss Siamese society and politics during the
Chakri rule. What are the features that delineate
it from its predecessors?
 Explain the case of Siam in light of Western
presence in the region.
 Characterize China’s substantial influence in
Vietnamese society and politics before the entry
of the French.
 Explain the social divisions that were exploited by
the West in the region. Cite three examples.
 Differentiate Western imperialism from Japanese
imperialism.
 Discuss the dynamics of democracy in
contemporary Thailand. Guide: Why are the
Shinawatras considered a threat to the Thai
political superstructure? Explain the popularity
garnered by the red shirt faction.
 How does ethnic/racial divide manifest in
contemporary Southeast Asian society? Explain
using two examples.
PEOPLE TO REMEMBER:
 Mongkut, Chulalongkorn, Bhumibol Adulyadej;
Shinawatra (Thaksin)
 Ho Chi Minh
 Mahathir Mohammed
 Jose Rizal
NORTHEAST ASIA
READINGS:
 Comparative History of Civilizations in Asia: Vol.
1 (Farmer, et.al. 1977)
 Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy
(Barrington Moore, 1966)
 Predatory, Developmental, and Other State
Apparatuses (Peter Evans, 1989)
 Japan in the 1960s: Conservative Politics and
Economic Growth (T.J. Pempel, 1998)
 South Korea’s Meandering Path to Globalization
(Lee You-il and Kim Wan-soon, 2010)
 Power and Production: Rethinking China’s Global
Economic Role (Shaun Breslin, 2005)
 The Myth of the Beijing Consensus (Scott
Kennedy, 2010)
CORE CONCEPTS:
 Core processes pertinent to the emergence
and flourishing of Northeast Asian
civilizations and societies (Farmer, 1977)
- Agricultural revolution
- Sedentarization
- Social stratification
- Religious sanction of stratified society
- Urbanization
- Division of labor
- Writing system
 - Warfare and the origins of militarism
- Legal codification
- Emergence of a monarchy
- Ethical dualism, moral sensitivity
- Universalism (empire)
- Standardization
- State ideology
- Popularization of traditions
- Domestication of foreign elements
- Regional fragmentation
- Barbarian-civilized frontiers and symbiosis
 Transitions to Modernity
- Revolution from below (Moore, 1966)
 Condition: absence of linkages
 Violent rupture is certain
 Easier overthrow (decaying of the
system)
- Revolution from above (Moore, 1966)
 There was interest in lifting up the
marginalized
 There is the ability of the state to pull out
sections of society gradually.
 Economic Development
- The Developmental State (Evans, 1989)
 Meritocratic
 Practices embedded autonomy
- Embedded mercantilism (Pempel, 1999)
 Embeddedness: continuing agglutination
of the socio-economic alliance
undergirding the conservative regime
and the insulation of prevailing
institutional arrangements from serious
political challenges
 Mercantilism: directly in contrast with
laissez faire and economic liberalism.
 Effects:
 Transformation into a capital-
intensive economy that produced
ever more sophisticated products
 Production and organization
methods had to be upgraded to
make them internationally
competitive
- Components of a well-oiled regime (Pempel,
1999)
 Public policy profile
 Embedded mercantilism
 Consolidation of corporations in
pursuit of competitiveness
 Socioeconomic underpinnings
 Institutional framework
 Existence of business structures
 Agriculture
- Key traits of a conservative regime (Pempel,
1999)
 Protectionist
 Competitive
- Development and Globalization as a
Meandering Path (Lee and Kim, 2010)
 Development having no specific strategy,
but rather a phenomenon that is allowed
by the circumstances of a particular
period
 Factors that may contribute to
development
 Culture
 Timing
 Active state intervention (strong
state)
- Rapid economic development
 China as the largest economy of the
world in terms of size
 Characterizations of the Chinese market:
(Breslin, 2005)
 Government restrictions on who can
do business in which sectors were
specifically designed to protect
domestic producers from
international competition in order to
maintain production, profitability, and
jobs
 Remarkably liberal internationalized
export regime to encourage FDI to
produce exports
 Inspired by developmental states
 On China’s massive foreign currency
reserves: (Breslin, 2005)
 Power
+ What can China do with it is
significant.
+ Chinese authorities hold the US
economic fate in their hands
 Dependence
+ A crash in the US would have
devastating impact on Chinese
economic growth
+ If the rest of the world is in crisis,
China will also be affected
 Disaggregation of stages of production
and consumption across national
boundaries (Breslin, 2005)
 Beijing Consensus (Ramo, as cited in
Kennedy, 2010)
 Three postulates: Technological
innovation, Sustainability and
equality, Self-determination
  Serves as antithesis to the
Washington Consensus doctrine of
development
 China model (Kennedy, 2010)
 Synonymous to socialism with
Chinese characteristics
 Highlighting the strategy of rapid
economic reform while
simultaneously maintaining China’s
original political institutions
 Refers to China’s export oriented
growth strategy.
CASES TO LOOK INTO:
 Explain the gentry system that prevailed during
Manchu Qing, and argue how it did not answer to
the needs and demands of the Chinese people.
 How was Japan able to enter the modern period
without having to go through a violent form of
change?
 Discuss Japan’s path to economic development
from its defeat in World War II until the 1960s.
PEOPLE TO REMEMBER:
 Confucius, Mencius, Xun Zi, Lao Zi, Shang Yang,
Han Fei Zi, Sun Zi
 Emperor Yu (Xia), Shi Huang Di (Qin), Empress
Wu (Tang), Lin Zexu (Qing), Puyi (Qing), Sun
Yat-sen, Chiang Kai-shek, Mao Zedong
 Jimmu Tenno, Nobunaga Oda, Toyotomi
Hideyoshi, Tokugawa Ieyasu, Mutsuhito Meiji,
Hirohito, Akihito
 Kim il-Sung
 Park Chung-hee
SOUTH ASIA
READINGS:
 Comparative History of Civilizations in Asia: Vol.
1 (Farmer, et.al. 1977)
 Source Book in Indian Philosophy (Sarvepalli
Radhakrishnan, 1957)
 Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy
(Barrington Moore, 1966)
 Decolonisation without Independence
(Christopher, 2002)
 Post-colonial states, ethnic minorities, and
separatist conflicts (Damien Kingsbury, 2011)
CORE CONCEPTS:
 Core processes pertinent to the emergence
and flourishing of South Asian civilizations
and societies (Farmer, 1977)
- Agricultural revolution
- Sedentarization
- Social stratification
- Religious sanction of stratified society
- Urbanization
- Division of labor
- Writing system
- Warfare and the origins of militarism
- Legal codification
- Emergence of a monarchy
- Ethical dualism, moral sensitivity
- Universalism (empire)
- Standardization
- State ideology
- Popularization of traditions
- Domestication of foreign elements
- Regional fragmentation
- Barbarian-civilized frontiers and symbiosis
- Formation of regional political entities
- Renaissance of regional cultures
- Growth of maritime centers
- Foundations of European domination through
seapower
 Maritime innovations and exploration
 Establishment of enclaves (trade)
- Culmination of Western European
dominance through imperialism
 Transitions to Modernity
- Weak democracy and capitalism, peaceful
change (Moore, 1966)
 Well-entrenched culture and tradition
 Catalysts and Challenges toward State
formation and Nation-building
- Decolonisation (Christopher, 2002)
 Key question: how is decolonization
negotiated?
 Intra-imperial amalgamations: territorial
amalgamation carried out within the
confines of single empires (e.g. India)
 External intervention: incorporation of the
colony into a powerful neighbor, usually
on the grounds of reestablishing national
unity violated by colonialism (e.g. Sikkim)
- Ethnic conflict
 There is failure to represent ethnic
minorities as full and equal citizens within
states. There is a political gap between
pre-independence expectations and
post-independence realities.
(Kingsbury, 2011)
CASES TO LOOK INTO:
 Ancient and Imperial India
 British Raj
 Sri Lanka
 - Sinhalese vs. Tamil ethnic rift  Economic interests reflect even until
today (i.e. oil)*
PEOPLE TO REMEMBER:
 Mahavira, Siddharta Gautama  Catalysts and Challenges toward State
 Chandragupta Maurya, Chandra Gupta, formation and Nation-building
Qutubuddin Aibak, Akbar - Decolonisation (Christopher, 2002)
 Mahatma Gandhi, Indira Gandhi, Jawaharlal  Key question: how is decolonization
Nehru negotiated?
 Sirimavo Bandaranaike  Inter-imperial amalgamations: territorial
amalgamations across imperial
boundaries (e.g. Middle East and North
WEST ASIA
Africa)
- Prospects for peace (Bahgat, 2011)
READINGS:
 Resolve deep religious, sectarian and
 Comparative History of Civilizations in Asia: Vol.
ethnic divisions
1 (Farmer, et.al. 1977)
 Involvement of NGOs and civil society in
 State, Power and Politics in the Making of the the negotiations
Modern Middle East (Roger Owen, 1992)
 Decolonisation without Independence  Security issues
(Christopher, 2002) - Iran intends to build nuclear weapons
 A Nuclear Arms Race in the Middle East - Syrian crisis continues to affect stability in the
(Gawdat Bahgat, 2011) region
- Iran, and selected Arab countries, wish to
CORE CONCEPTS: implement civilian nuclear power.
 Core processes pertinent to the emergence
and flourishing of West Asian civilizations PEOPLE TO REMEMBER:
and societies (Farmer, 1977)  Hammurabi, Ashurbanipal, Nebuchadnezzar
- Agricultural revolution  Cyrus the Great
- Sedentarization
 Muhammad
- Social stratification
 Ayatollah Khomeini
- Religious sanction of stratified society
- Urbanization
- Division of labor PROCESSES (As discussed by Farmer,
- Writing system et.al.)
- Warfare and the origins of militarism
- Legal codification Ancient to Imperial/Early Modern Period
- Emergence of a monarchy
- Ethical dualism, moral sensitivity  The Birth of Civilizations in Asia (10,000 BC to
- Formation of regional political entities 1000 BC)
- Renaissance of regional cultures - Core Features
- Growth of maritime centers  A civilized society as one that is
- Foundations of European domination through organized around permanent seats of
seapower religious or political authority.
 Maritime innovations and exploration  Before societies became civilized, they
 Establishment of enclaves (trade) had long settled down in agricultural
- Culmination of Western European villages.
dominance through imperialism - Processes
 Antecedents to Civilization
 Colonial policy (Owen, 1992)  Agricultural revolution
- Alliance building (reflects indigenous + Domestication of plants and
collaboration of Southeast Asia) animals increased the production of
- Reinforcing/maintaining social divide food in a given area of land.
- Economic management + Domestication of plants and
 Security was more emphasized and animals led to the widening of diets
funded of people.
  Sedentarization
+ The domestication of plants and
animals made it possible for vastly
greater number of people to settle
down in villages and
systematically explore and learn to
exploit the resources of their kin
landscape.
 Social stratification
+ Civilized societies have been
characterized by division of the
population into classes and status
groups
+ Revealed in burial rites and
locations
 Birth of Civilizations
 Religious sanction of stratified
society
+ First cities formed around
ceremonial centers
+ It was an age of mythopoeic
thought, where people had not
conceptually detached themselves
from their setting and still
experienced a sense of intimacy with
the forces of nature
 Urbanization
+ The city as a geographically fixed
cultural focus and organizing center
of all the communities in its region.
 Division of labor
+ As society became more intricate,
the demand for new skills arose.
 Writing
+ Formation of a communication
system
+ Emergence of a learned class
(literati)
- Patterns
 Mesopotamia
 Tigris and Euphrates
 India
 Mohenjo Daro and Harappa
 China
 Yangshao and Lungshan cultures
 The Political Organization of Civilized
Societies (2334 BC to 400 BC)
- Core Features
 The essential function of early kingship
was military leadership.
 Early kingship also promoted social
values through codified laws and the
judicial process, and general welfare
through organizing projects.
 Kings were able to strengthen their
political authority by assuming the tasks
of law and order: police power,
lawmaking, and justice.
to  Rulers engaged in wars of aggression
either to enlarge their domains or to
reduce their rivals to tributary status.
- Processes
 Internal and external conflict
 Social conflict
+ Religious sanction of social order
can be effective only insofar as there
is a consensus on the sacred basis
of the society.
+ Interaction of large, urban-
centered communities with one
another may lead to conflict,
requiring an accommodation of their
specific beliefs.
 Cultural and stimulus diffusion
+ Civilizations expanded rapidly.
+ Migrations and interactions also
allowed for the diffusion of cultures.
+ Diffusion takes place in some
restricted regions through
acceptance and adoption.
 Conflict between steppe and sown
+ Disparity between established
farming kinship and pastoral nomads
is highlighted.
 Warfare and the origins of militarism
+ Institutional means for mobilization
of the resources of a society on a
large scale, existence of specific
cultural values and ideological
justifications that supported the war-
making enterprise are presupposed.
+ The cult of the military hero and
the creation and preservation of epic
literature appeared in association
with the institutionalization of
warfare.
 Formation of monarchies
 Political differentiation
+ The state maybe said to have
existed when two conditions were
satisfied: when authority over war
and justice was vested in a
permanent institution, and when the
ruler had at his disposal enough
coercive force to compel obedience
to his authority if it should be
challenged.
+ Since political authority had now
become specific and demonstrable,
 it was essential that the ruler be able
to distinguish precisely those who
were subject to his authority and
those who were not.
+ Distinctions could either be done
based on territorial or non-territorial
grounds.
 Hereditary monarchy
+ Making the monarchy hereditary in
order to make it more secure
 Legal codification
+ Aimed at stating permanently and
authoritatively the goals of the
monarchy as guardians of justice in
the society.
- Patterns
 Mesopotamia
 Sargon, Dark Age, Achaemenid
 Hammurabi, Ashurbanipal
 India
 Vedic period
 China
 Shang and Zhou Dynasties
 Crisis and Ethical Protest (600 BC to 450 BC)
- Core Features
 Reactions against perceived injustices or
immorality are pervasive phenomena.
 Ethical reformers were to form the
foundations of their basic ideologies that
continue to influence human lives even
until the present day.
 Radical changes that accompanied the
growth of civilizations in this age required
equally radical alterations in their
worldviews.
- Processes
 Crisis
 Militarism and materialism
+ As ancient civilizations developed
and became more highly organized
politically, they tended to become
more increasingly militaristic.
+ Economic growth and
technological development afforded
many, especially the military and
commercial elites, a new level of
affluence as a reward for success in
materialistic competition.
+ The crass pursuit of material
wealth and hedonistic comfort often
seemed the dominant motive as self-
interest took precedence over ethical
considerations.
 Elitism and political cynicism
+ Monarchs were more often allied
with the various elites and exercised
their royal power cynically.
 Traditionalism and ritualistic
formalism
+ There is failure of the religious and
intellectual leadership in the older
centers to create new ideas or
articulate moral doctrines that would
have been meaningful in the
conditions of the times.
 Proletariatization and cultural
alienation
+ The wealthy and the powerful
formed an elite that dominated
society through force and collusion.
The result was a widening of the
social and economic distance
between the privileged few and the
masses.
+ Impoverished as tenants or driven
off the land to become wage
laborers, these strata swelled the
ranks of the proletariat, people who
lost not only their former economic
status but also their legal and social
standing as participants in society,
thereby becoming alienated from the
civilized community.
+ Another cause of alienation was
the expansion of civilizations to
include new ethnic groups and
subcultures.
 Formulation of ethical protest
 Moral sensitivity and ethical dualism
+ Life in their view was more than
the hedonistic quest for personal
gratification or the aggrandizement
of the state at the expense of others.
+ Reformers stressed the necessity
of choice between good and evil.
 Existential humanism and internal
transformation
+ All of the reformers were primarily
concerned with human existence in
society.
+ All rejected the preoccupation of
established religious and intellectual
ideologies with metaphysical
systems.
+ Reality lies in human existence per
se and not in the substance of ideas
about that existence.
 + Closely associated with existential
humanism was a stress on self-
knowledge and internal
transformation as essential to moral
goodness.
+ Man has to look within himself for
the altar of truth. Only through self-
realization could he become a moral
being and thus end individual and
social suffering.
 Nemesis and the reinterpretation of
history
+ Repudiation of established
ideologies required a reinterpretation
of man’s past, a reevaluation of the
myths and historical beliefs that had
been embodied in the traditional
world views of these civilizations.
+ Their attack on tradition was an
attack on the misuse of the past by
traditionalists.
 Universalism and social amelioration
+ The ethical protest called for moral
reform rather than social change in
the sense of the egalitarianism of the
modern era.
- Patterns
 West Asia
 Zoroastrianism
 South Asia
 Buddhism
 Jainism
 Northeast Asia
 Hundred Schools of Thought
 The Rise of Universal Empires (539 BC to 9
AD)
- Core Features
 The crisis of civilization resolved
eventually by the formation of great
empires that unified rival states under a
single, centralized authority.
 They brought together the culture zones
of entire civilizations, the new political
entities may be termed universal
empires.
 Universal empires can be regarded as a
form of response to the crisis of
civilization.
 Universal empires resulted from action
on the level of military, power and
political organization.
- Processes
 Founding of universal empires
 Shift of power to the periphery
+ The old centers lost their ability to
control the outlying areas.
+ The old centers constituted a
precedent for unity and order, and
the charismatic hero who finally
conquered the center did so with the
claim that he was restoring order,
albeit in a new form.
 Mobilization of resources
+ Increase of trade
+ Regional specialization in major
commodities and luxury goods
developed markedly, and
nonagricultural technologies such as
iron production flourished.
 Military pacification
+ The military leader acts not just for
his own interest, but in order to
restore peace and, in some
instances, to preserve the heritage of
the old civilizations.
 The imperial order
 Emperorship
+ It was in the interest of leaders to
adopt titles and ceremonials different
from those of the discredited old
regimes.
 Universal imperialism
+ The universal empire was the
product of a prolonged process of
conquest in which rival powers were
eliminated and a new control was
exerted over the old centers of
civilization.
 Closure of the ecumene
+ The tendency for these territorially
acquisitive powers was to expand
until they either ran out of space, or
annexed more territory they could
effectively administer.
+ Empires expanded until the
frontiers of the major civilizations
made contact with each other.
 Bureaucracy
+ The rulers of empires had to find
new agents who could manage
government affairs and yet who were
loyal to the ruler’s interests and not
tied too closely to rival interests,
such as former ruling elites, a
religious authority, or local or
regional interests.
+ Formation of a governmental
bureaucracy, usually through the
modification of preexisting priestly or
 noble offices, and the codification or
standardization of regularized
procedures for the management of
governmental affairs.
+ The formation of a bureaucracy
was accompanied by the division of
the empire into provincial and other
units, colonies, and garrisons, each
with specified political, economic,
and military functions.
 Communication systems
+ Great attention was paid to
welding the empire together with a
communications network and
particularly to tying outlying areas to
the decision-making center at the
capital.
+ Communications network made
possible essential functions—
movement of troops, transportation
of supplies, and the transmission of
messages.
 The cultural impact of universal
empires
 Standardization
+ Standard language, state calendar,
currency, system of weights and
measures, tax structures, legal
codes.
+ The imposition of administrative
unity upon cultural diversity fostered
diffusion of standard forms.
 State ideology
+ Prolonged exercise of universal
authority eventually led away from
early policies of toleration of cultural
diversity and toward a common
cultural orientation.
 Capital cities
+ At symbolic terms, the capital often
represented a microcosm of the
empire, the world, or the universe,
embodying in physical form some of
the most important abstract concepts
in the elite world view.
- Patterns
 West Asia
 Cyrus (Persia)
 South Asia
 Chandragupta Maurya (India)
 Northeast Asia
 Shi Huang Di (Qin Dynasty)
 Persistence of Empire in the Face of Change
(350 BC to 650 AD)
- Core Features
 As political power came to be less
effectively exercised from the center, the
empires lost control over the subject
peoples along their cultural frontiers.
 Barbarian states were then formed in
frontier regions and sent invading armies
deep into the heartlands of the civilized
societies.
 New eclectic ideologies evolved from
both indigenous and alien traditions.
- Processes
 Disintegration of universal empires
 Private control of wealth and
resources
+ Local elites gained in power at the
expense of imperial authority, and
they used this power in their own
interest to refuse to contribute their
proper share of taxes and services.
+ The concentration of wealth in
private hands was accelerated by
the expansion of trade within and
across imperial frontiers.
 Regional organization of political and
military power: feudal tendencies
+ Great families used their wealth
and their economic control over large
segments of the population to
develop private armies.
+ Private armies were then used to
defy central government and to
engage one another in struggles for
regional domination.
 Popular unrest
+ The presence of large numbers of
uprooted people with no secure
place in the social order enlarged the
scope and increased the intensity of
disorders within the empire.
 Formation of frontier states
+ Through trade, politics, and war,
one group or another might take
advantage of the great distance from
the centers of imperial power to
establish frontier states.
+ The frontier states constituted a
formidable threat to the empires
when they were able to combine the
military skills and manpower of a
large section of the pastoral
population in the frontier region and
in the steppes beyond with the
 economic resources of a large
agricultural population.
+ Frontier states confined the
empires within constricted borders,
and in some cases they were able to
conquer and reorganize entire
civilized societies.
 Tradition and innovation
 Imperial successor states
+ A unified empire might be
dismembered among a number of
rival successor states, all claiming
exclusive right to legitimate authority
throughout the empire, and
conversely, once divided in this
fashion among several rival
legitimacies, an empire might be
reunified by still another successor
state.
 The hardening of imperial traditions
+ The idea of a golden age that
existed long before the
establishment of the first empires
now was transformed into an
anachronistic and pedantically
detailed blueprint.
 Unorthodox alternatives
+ Thinkers who were not committed
to the orthodoxies of their time had
rich and varied resources to draw
upon in their efforts to find
alternatives.
+ A cosmopolitan spirit flourished
and traditional concepts and values
were examined from new
perspectives, criticized, and refined.
- Patterns
 West Asia
 Achaemenid
 South Asia
 Maurya
 Northeast Asia
 Han Dynasty
 Three Kingdoms period
 Rise of Universal Religions (300 AD to 900 AD)
- Core Features
 The spread of religions served as
vehicles for the diffusion of social
institutions and cultural values that were
often foreign in style and substance as
well as origin.
- Processes
 The formation of universal religion
 Universal theism
+ New salvation ideologies were
unequivocally god centered.
+ The tone changed and man was
no longer at the center.
+ Salvation was attainable only
through devotion and obedience to
god’s divine will.
 Salvation through an intermediary
+ It was believed that god did
intervene in this world in order to
advance his divine purpose.
+ Numerous historical personages
and holy men acquired this
charismatic aura and were placed
alongside other saints in the
hagiography.
 Immortality in paradise
+ The concept of salvation in these
new universal religions was
formulated in far more concrete
terms than common in older
doctrines or ethical teachings.
+ In these religions, human life with
its earthly misery could be viewed as
but an interlude, and the promises of
immortality for the rightoeous were
made in terms understandable to all.
 Popularization of traditions
+ Theism and savior worship
seemed particularly attractive to the
masses, who saw in god’s
beneficence a hope that their state of
degradation would ultimately end—if
not in this world then in the next.
+ The openness of these universal
religions to popularization and
synthesis with preexisting traditions
was itself an important factor in their
spread from one culture area to
another.
 The spread of universal religions
 Initial diffusion of universal religions
+ New waves of nomadic intruders
and the establishment of political
dominance by aliens were both a
causal factor in shattering the self-
contained equilibrium of ancient
civilizations and a means by which
new religions were introduced.
 Adaptation of indigenous culture
+ Preexisting political principles such
as the concept of emperorship were
 reinterpreted in order to
accommodate to the new religious
theology.
+ Legal and bureaucratic institutions
were reordered and patterns of
economic behavior altered to adjust
to the new religious ethos and the
prominent position of religious
institutions.
 Domestication of foreign elements
+ The processes of adaptation and
domestication often worked to
produce totally new cultural
mixtures—artistic forms, institutional
arrangements, and value systems—
in which elements drawn from
foreign and indigenous sources were
combined in such a way as to lose
their separate identities in the new
synthesis.
- Patterns
 West Asia
 Christianity
 Islam
 Judaism
 South Asia
 Hinduism
 Northeast Asia
 Mahayana Buddhism (China and
Japan)
 Regional Fragmentation of Civilizations (750
to 1500 AD)
- Core Features
 The unity of each civilization was
severely challenged.
 In some cases, the most serious
challenge was posed from the outside as
new waves of invaders threatened to
carve up the areas of civilization into
disparate entities.
 More often, the challenge was as much
internal as external.
 The test of unity among the various
cultural and geographical subdivisions of
the civilization took place.
 The integration of each civilization had
achieved politically through the model of
a universal state and culturally through
the adoption of a universal religion was
shattered by centrifugal forces that
undermined its unity, diminished its
vitality, and weakened its ability to
control interaction with the societies of
Central Asia.
 The growing diversity, disunity, and
dissension within these once highly
integrated civilizations were paralleled by
the rise of new civilized cultures in the
heartland of Central Asia.
 Accompanying the weakening of the
older civilized centers inland there
emerged newly civilized societies on the
coastal periphery of the Eurasian
continent.
 The growth of these peripheral areas
marked the culmination of long-term
developments in maritime activity.
- Processes
 Fragmentation of the religious culture
area
 Earlier dynamism and flexibility of
institutionalized religious were often
lost.
 Creativity was often seen in periods
of disunity, as orthodoxy could not
be enforced as easy as before.
 Formation of regional political entities
 Regional diversity asserted its
influence.
 The old political centers lost control
over large portions of territory and
people, which were then regrouped
into new political entities.
 New states formed during this period
which differed from the older
universal empires.
 Small states relied on feudal
arrangements to maintain political
stability.
 Renaissance of regional cultures
 This period acted as vehicles for new
religious and cultural movements.
 The revival of subcultures also took
place.
 Growth of maritime centers
 The rise of universal religions and
the decline of inland political capitals
on the other combined to facilitate
the development of coastal cities as
centers for maritime trade and
interaction.
 Steppe-sown interaction
 Pastoral traditions were combined
with borrowed institutions.
 Mismatch of technological
advancement is highlighted.
- Patterns
 West Asia
 Seljuk Turks
  Mongol conquest
 South Asia
 Slave dynasty via Qutubuddin Aibak
 Northeast Asia
 China: Mongol conquest, Yuan
Dynasty
 Japan: Entry of the Shogunate
period
 Eurasian Integration under Central Asian
Dominance (1100 to 1500 AD)
- Core Features
 Most of the Eurasian continent was
brought under the rule of the Mongol
empire.
 The formation of the Mongol empire
marked the culmination of the processes
of steppe-sown interaction and the
political integration of pastoral-nomadic
peoples.
 Interaction between civilized and
pastoral-nomadic societies has been
recurrent.
 All of the major civilizations were in a
state of political fragmentation and were
vulnerable to attack from across their
frontiers.
 In order to bind their immense people
together, the khaqans relied in part upon
the skills, experience, and learning of the
mercantile and religious communities
that were spread throughout Eurasia.
 The unity of the pastoral-nomadic
political core of the empire was eroded
as the Mongol and Turkish conquering
elites gradually adopted the urban life-
style and culture of the conquered
peoples.
 The empire gave way to a revival of
imperial polities in the conquered areas:
the early modern empires.
 The spread of universal religions had
created a measure of cultural and
religious community that survived
regional fragmentation within and among
the civilizations.
- Processes
 Formation of a Eurasian community of
civilizations
 Trade
+ Trade generated merchant
classes. These merchants were
naturally in association with the
wealthy and powerful in the several
societies in question.
 Religious community
+ The breakdown of the universal
states involved a disintegration of the
value systems associated with them.
+ The spread of universal religions
contributed to the formation of a
Eurasian community of civilizations
as it gave rise to cosmopolitan
classes of monks or religious
scholars who were devoted to the
study, translation, and interpretation
of foreign religious literature.
 Formation of hybrid barbarian-
civilized empires
 Differential adaptation: steppe and
sown
+ Nomadic or farming people had
arrived at their form of culture as an
efficient adaptation to their
geographic setting.
+ Civilized societies based on
agriculture were characterized by
extensive urbanization and by a
proliferation of technological skills.
 War and trade: barbarian-civilized
frontiers and symbiosis
+ There are two ways in which
societies obtained what they needed
or wanted: through trade or war.
+ Peaceful trading relationships
existed, but were often interrupted
and replaced by armed raids.
+ Armed conflict was a common
alternative means of effecting the
necessary exchanges between
societies.
 Adaptation of political institutions by
nomadic societies
+ For large scale organization to
occur, charismatic leadership, the
presence near at hand opportunities,
presence within the emerging steppe
polity of men were required.
 Steppe imperialism
+ Steppe societies were remarkably
uniform in forms and values.
+ Shamans were typically an
important element in the structure of
steppe polity.
 Mixed feudal-bureaucratic polities
+ States of this type arose as the
result of either domination of some
part of the steppe society by a
civilized empire, or the incorporation
 of some part of a civilized society
within a conquering steppe empire.
- Patterns
 Khanates in the different regions
 Early Modern Empires in Asia (1350 to 1850)
- Core Features
 Early modern empires resembled the
universal empires of the ancient period in
the sense that they were built upon a
pre-industrial agricultural base by
hereditary military regimes employing
foot soldiers and horsemen.
 They differed from their predecessors in
that civilized society had grown in scale
and complexity, considerable advances
had been made in technology, and the
passage of centuries had deepened the
cultural traditions of each civilization.
 Early modern empires can be variously
characterized as culturalistic or
pluralistic, depending on their cultural
policy and the foreign or indigenous
origin of their rulers.
 Early modern empires may be regarded
as agents of cultural conservatism,
reviving and preserving traditional values
after the Mongol conquests.
- Processes
 The creation and maintenance of early
modern empires
 Military conquest
+ Early modern empires were
founded by military conquest.
+ The goals of the ruler were
paramount and the viability of the
new regime depended on the ruler’s
ability to accomplish his goals within
the conditions of the society he
conquered.
 Reunification of the culture area:
control of frontiers
+ The empire was the instrument for
the preservation of civilization, the
defense of its perimeter may be
considered to have been its
paramount function.
+ The ability to control territory and
define frontiers—essential for any
political system—was a function of
power.
 Domination of the economy and
society
+ Unification of the physical territory
of an entire culture area under a
single political authority—which was
the continuing task of the ruler of an
early modern empire—was possible
only so long as the ruler could draw
on the energies of the people under
his rule.
 The cultural legitimation of early
modern empires
 Promotion of the cultural tradition:
culturalism and pluralism
+ The rallying cry around which the
society was to be united and a new
polity formed was a sense of
common culture either in the form of
a religion or a state ideology.
+ Empires could either be culturally
homogenous (culturalistic) or diverse
(pluralistic).
+ Cultural policy in these empires
had to be flexible enough to
accommodate to the differences of
mixed society and yet support the
position of rulers.
 Manipulation and modification of
cultural forms
+ The patronage of culture by a
bureaucratic state led inevitably to
the modification of cultural forms.
+ This modification of cultural values
by political influences might have
been nothing more than a reflection
of the personal whims of a given
monarch.
 Consequences of the formation of
early modern empires
+ The result of this prolonged experience
of political union was often to freeze the
cultural forms of an area in such a
manner that core values of the
civilization became imbedded in the
institutions of the empire.
- Patterns
 West Asia
 Ottoman Empire
 Safavids in Iran
 South Asia
 Mughal Empire
 Northeast Asia
 China: Ming Dynasty, Qing Dynasty
 Japan: Tokugawa shogunate
Modern Period
 Decline of Early Modern Empires (1650 to
1850)
- Core Features
 Polities were weakened by corrosive
internal forces long before they
collapsed.
- Processes
 Institutional decline
 Degeneration of hereditary rule
+ Political authority was still
centralized about the throne of a
hereditary ruler.
+ This leaves the possibility that
successors to his line might prove
less capable both in military and
administrative responsibilities.
 Administrative inefficiency
+ Over time, bureaucracies have
developed self-serving interests
where accumulating wealth at the
expense of the ruler and the ruled
takes place.
 Weakening of the military
establishment
+ Often it was the creation of new
military forces, in the midst of
conflict, that introduced instability
into the empire. Such forces might
upset the delicate balance of central
and regional power.
 Social and cultural change
 Ethnic and class conflict
+ At the inception of the empire, the
founder usually granted hereditary
positions to reward his closest
military supporters. Over decades
and centuries, other groups such as
officials, religious leaders, and
merchants might emerge to
challenge the position of the old elite.
 Ideological change
+ When aberrant doctrines and
interpretations were expressed, they
presented challenges to the regime’s
ability to exercise thought control.
+ Cultural change, in some
instances, involved a shift of political
loyalties and was often tied to
rebellion.
 Population growth
+ Rapid increase in population had
disrupting influence on social and
political structures wherever it
occurred.
 External pressures
 External economic pressures
+ Developments in interregional
trade were difficult to counter.
 Invasion
+ Foreign war made harsh demands
on the ruler, the military apparatus,
and the resources of the empire, in
such a way that the ruler had to
make substantial concessions in
order to mobilize support.
- Patterns
 West Asia
 Decline of the Ottomans
 Decline of the Safavids
 South Asia
 Decline of the Mughals
 Northeast Asia
 China: Decline of the Manchu Qing
 Japan: Decline of the Shogunate
 Maritime Integration Under Western European
Domination (1500 to 1920)
- Core Features
 One of the forces that transformed the
nature and the conditions of the
civilizations in Asia is the expansion of
European power to a world scale.
 Another is the accelerating change in the
nature and volume of human knowledge.
- Processes
 Foundation of European domination
through seapower
 Maritime innovations and exploration
+ The development improved
vessels, sailing techniques, and
naval gunnery, which made possible
the circumnavigation of Africa, and
the subsequent destruction of rival
Islamic naval forces in the Indian
Ocean.
 Establishment of enclaves: the
factory-fort stage
+ The establishment of small trading
posts, called factories, were usually
fortified for protection.
+ Westerners came largely as
traders to purchase spices and
manufactured goods unobtainable in
Europe.
 Economic penetration and political
intervention
+ European rivalries, national and
religious, which intensified from the
 sixteenth century onward, were
accompanied by a steady
rationalization of economic policy.
 Culmination of European dominance
in imperialism
 Imperialist technology
+ Industrial and technological
advances made possible
increasingly large and rapid
steamships, the construction of the
Suez Canal, and the laying of
telegraphy cables, which in effect
brought the imperialist powers and
the Asian colonies closer together.
 Colonial administration
+ A consequence of improved
communication and transportation
was that decision making in colonial
empires became centralized in the
home country.
 Economic imperialism
+ Under mercantilism, colonies were
developed as sources of goods and
raw materials for the controlling
country, to whose markets its
exports were largely confined, and
the growth of the industry in the
colony were seldom encouraged.
+ The governments of the industrial
powers became involved in
guaranteeing stability in the
developing economy by advancing
further into the control of the
country’s affairs, whether in a
colonial or semicolonial situation.
 Cultural imperialism
+ The global domination that
industrialized Westerners came to
enjoy in the nineteenth century
inevitably produeced a need for
explanation of so unprecedented a
turn of historical events.
 The Crisis of Social and Cultural
Disintegration (1700 to 1950)
- Core Features
 Old elites in the social and economic
spheres as well as in active politics found
their positions becoming seriously
threatened or untenable.
 The general populace, whether under
colonial rule or that of indigenous
governments, experienced various forms
of disruption to the preexisting patterns
of daily life.
 Dislocations of the political, social, and
economic systems tended to erode and
undermine cultural self-confidence.
- Processes
 Commercialization and
proletarianization
+ Influx of cheaper and/or superior
manufactured goods had a most direct
effect on the economic life.
+ Not only did diversion of resources
render the conditions favoring famine
more likely, it also placed the
agriculturalist at the mercy of market
fluctuations and phalanxes of middlemen
over which he had virtually no control.
 Population change and colonial
urbanization
+ One important demographic change is
the emergence of port cities.
+ A cultural gap is created between
those coastal sectors locked into a new
international order and the hinterland,
where change differend in both pace and
direction.
 Social demoralization and cultural
imperialism
+ Family ties are strained as old roles
became inappropriate, former
expectations were frustrated by new
circumstances in the work place,
community relations underwent stress as
their functions were altered, and
traditional truths were no longer
confirmed by everyday experience.
+ Missionary activity constituted one
form of cultural imperialism that
challenged Asian culture with alien views
of history and religion.
+ Western bureaucracy also intensified
cultural imperialism, highlighting
drastically different conceptualization of
political ideas.
 Displacement of old elites and
formation of new counterelites
+ Some colonial areas simply stripped off
the old elite of its decision-making power.
+ Some retained indigenous rulers, but
were circumscribed by definite limitations
or subject to foreign veto.
 Challenge to cultural symbols and
worldview
+ Traditional order was subjected to
attack on the abstract level of symbols of
value and truth.
 + Traditions being well-entrenched made  Nationalism as a salvation ideology
the impact of the emergence and + Nationalism is sufficiently broad in
development of scientific thought more terms of scope to encompass many of
intensified. the diverse themes in the responses
 Emergence of Nationalism (1800 to 1950) towards the West.
- Core Features + Nationalism is a defense of a past
 Nationalist movements embraced both culture than an assertion of a present
the conservative point-of-view of identity as an Asian in the face of threat
preserving cultural traditions of the past, and oppression.
and the reformer’s conviction of + Nationalism appealed to a single ethnic
clamoring for fundamental changes in or linguistic community.
the system in order to survive. + Nationalists are typically more
 Resulting nationalist movements were defensive.
usually committed to social and + Nationalists are generally more
economic reforms, entailing dramatic flexible.
changes within the existing patterns of  Emergence of revolutionary
civilization. nationalist movements
 Nationalism was most clearly perceived + One type aimed primarily at national
as a reaction to foreign domination. liberation, the overthrown of the old
- Processes political order, the ouster of foreign
 Nativist reaction oppressors, and the establishment of an
+ Nativists are labeled as cultural independent state. A second type
conservatives who clung tenaciously to focused more on a social revolution,
the old order. characterized by the displacement of
 Dilemma of the Westernizer elites and ruling classes and the
+ On assimilating Westernized Asians, achievement of political freedom and
Westernizers, on one side, were economic justice for all strata.
vehemently attacked by their fellow
countrymen, while on the other they were
snubbed by representatives of the very
civilization they admired.
 Quest for cultural renaissance
+ A clamor for cultural renaissance is
deeply rooted in the rejection of both
nativism and Westernization.
+ It retained a commitment to the past
yet utilized elements of that heritage to
sanction change within the tradition.
+ Such movement highlights that the
problem is moral, than a political or
economic one.
 Appeal of Marxism
+ It is another movement that debunks
both nativism and Westernization. View
on native tradition is negative one, where
little to no room for compromise is
present.
+ Marxist-Leninist views escape the
issue of Western superiority, while
transcending the dilemma of cultural
identity, and devote their attention to
national liberation and social revolution in
the quest of universal salvation through
socialism.