Seeds Of Change Research Articles

China, 1898-1912: The Xinzheng Revolution and Japan (review)

212 China Review International: Vol. i, No. i, Spring 1994 successfully combined the concerns of the new labor history, which emphasizes popular culture and shop-floor conditions, with a more conventional focus on strikes and other forms oflabor collective action. Her documentary basis is solid and rich with library sources reinforced by archival items and oral interviews. Her comparative perspectives are pertinent and effective. Altogether, this book is a very significant contribution to comparative labor history and also to the social history ofthe modern Chinese revolution. This award-deserving first volume may only be a prelude to a magnum opus second volume, which should create a whole new dimension in our understanding of state-society interaction in revolutionary China, transcending the stereotyped 1949 demarcation. We all eagerly await Professor Perry's continuation ofher splendid Shanghai labor stories. Ming K. Chan Swarthmore College and University of Hong Kong Douglas R. Reynolds. China, 1898-1912: The Xinzheng Revolution and Japan Harvard East Asian Monographs, No. 60. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1993. xxi, 308 pp. $32.00. copyright1994 by University of Hawai'i Press During the summer of 1993, 1 was asked by Professor Shimada Kenji to present a report to his kenkyükai on Liang Qichao studies in the West. The study group had just begun translating the 1,200-plus-page Liang Qichao nianpu changbian, edited by Ding Wenjiang and Zhao Fangtian (Shanghai: Renmin Chubanshe, 1983). During the questions and answers, one member of the group who had spent a year as a Harvard-Yenching Fellow in the United States asked what I thought ofDouglas Reynolds' new book. Since no one else in the group knew of the book, I summarized its contents and stressed his major themes. I then mentioned its title and subtitle. "You mean Xinzheng Reforms, not Revolution," said the number two in command, Professor Hazama Naoki ofthe Jinbun Kagaku Kenkyujo at Kyoto University. No, I assured him; Reynolds clearly meant "Xinzheng Revolution," and I (incidentally) found the idea quite intriguing. "No, that's impossible," said Hazama, or words to that effect. This book is aimed at shaking up all of our (Chinese, Japanese, and Western) thinking about its subject matter. Reynolds claims that the "reforms" instituted in the last decade or so of the Qing dynasty—often almost smirkingly referred to as the Empress Dowager's Reforms—constituted nothing less than a revolution (the Chinese correlate of the Meiji Restoration) in numerous spheres of Chinese life, and that the inspiration and "active partner" (p. 5) in every one of these Reviews 213 spheres was Japan. The argument itselfis stunningly simple; its elucidation may take considerably more time to reach wide acceptance, but it deserves our concerted attention. Reynolds argues with a remarkably affecting naïveté, an almost boyish excitement at having discovered the historian's equivalent of a great hidden treasure trove of chocolate candy. The weight of twentieth-century historiography has militated against seeing China and Japan as friends. That, however, Reynolds correctly points to as a consequence ofour reading the history ofJapanese imperialism in China back into the decade under study. In a mere three years following the first Sino-Japanese War, Chinese and Japanese (for equally self-serving but nonetheless sincere reasons) launched a wide-ranging series of educational initiatives. Thousands of Chinese students came to study in Japanese institutions ofhigher learning, and hundreds ofJapanese teachers came to instruct many thousands more Chinese on the mainland. Some of this part ofthe story has been told in English, most recently in Paula Harrell's fine study, Sowing the Seeds ofChange: Chinese Students, Japanese Teachers, 1895-1905 (Stanford, 1992). Reynolds begins with the educational exchanges and then proceeds to examine their impact on many areas oflife in China. He looks at the Japanese coinage ofkanji neologisms that were imported back into Chinese, another subject frequently discussed (even by those who know no Japanese) in the literature but here dealt with in a full way that brings out the extraordinary impact that this newlanguage has had in China. He then moves to Chinese educational reforms, military modernization, police and penal institutions, legal, judicial, and constitutional innovations—all intricately tied up with Japanese...

Seeds of Change: A Quincentennial Commemoration ed. by Herman J. Viola, Carolyn Margolis

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 177 reform. The expertise that went into the engineering aspects of irrigation would be applied to economic, agricultural, and social planning. Yet his two California colonies at Durham and Delhi were less than successful. Kluger notes the economic reasons for failure but tells us as well that Mead’s vision was probably doomed from the outset. How, after all, could one create a hearty independent farmer by regimented, dictatorial means? This focus on social conditions, however, stayed with Mead beyond Durham and Delhi. Kluger describes Mead’s final attempt at a model community, the town of Boulder City, Nevada, built by the Bureau of Reclamation for the workers constructing Boulder Dam, now known as Hoover Dam. Elwood Mead had a love for farming, order, and efficiency, but he looked beyond the technical aspects of dam and canal building for irrigated agriculture. To him, “the reclaiming of desert lands was more than an engineering problem; it encompassed all aspects of putting the land to use and settling it with family farmers” (p. 150). Federal reclamation, in its early years, was less than successful, because while federal engineers saw the relationship between building the dams and settling the land with family farmers, they could not construct it; it did not lend itself to formulaic solutions. And yet something drove men like Mead to continue the experiment, to hold to the vision of a West populated with family farms. Kluger has given us one man’s story in that quixotic adventure to make the desert bloom as a rose. It is well written, and, while Kluger clearly is a fan of Mead, he has attempted to give us a balanced portrait. Karen L. Smith Dr. Smith, manager of Customer Accounts—Power at the Salt River Project, Phoenix, Arizona, and adjunct professor of history at Arizona State University, is the author of The Magnificent Experiment: Building the Salt River Reclamation Project, 1890-1917 (University of Arizona Press, 1986). Seeds of Change: A Quincentennial Commemoration. Edited by Herman J. Viola and Carolyn Margolis. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Insti­ tution Press, 1991. Pp. 278; illustrations, bibliography, index. $39.95 (cloth); $24.95 (paper). “Seeds of Change” is the name of a Smithsonian Institution exhibition prompted by the quincentenary of Christopher Colum­ bus’s arrival in the Caribbean in 1492. The curators selected five central “seeds,” or agents of change—maize, diseases, potatoes, horses, and sugar. Columbus did not discover an unknown world, but the consequences of his four voyages created a new world. The exhibition examines the exchange of peoples, animals, plants, and microorganisms that is still occurring. This collection offifteen essays is the trade book for 178 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE the exhibition. Although the essays lack the cohesion of an exhibition catalog, the book is profuse with color illustrations and suggested readings. The paperback edition is a steal and will remain a valuable resource long after the Columbian quincentenary is old hat. These kudos notwithstanding, this volume would have benefited from a better-defined focus. Were the editors rushed to get the work through press by the time of the exhibit opening? If so, it is a pity, for the result lacks the full impact of the diverse scholarship represented. The phrase “seeds of change” is appealing, but this volume deals with sweeping global changes rather than with the intriguing seeds of the title. Just what were those persistent agents, or seeds of change? The five mentioned above, those selected for exhibition purposes, cannot carry the full weight of the story these essays tell, and, given the level of scholarship, there are some surprising omissions. Although at least three of the essays discuss Africans and persons of African descent, the Taino are barely mentioned. Surely the first Caribbean people to see the Spaniards merit more space. On that fateful October day of 1492 it was the Taino who began the relationship of trade and exchange basic to the theme of “seeds of change.” The last five essays stand out because they voice concerns about the present as it relates to the past, and they contain tough seeds of change. Placing these essays first would have given a better...

Seeds of Change, Seeds of Chance

Seeds of Change, Seeds of Chance

Seeds of Change: A Quincentennial Commemoration

Seeds of Change: A Quincentennial Commemoration

Sowing the Seeds of Change: Chinese Students, Japanese Teachers, 1895–1905

Sowing the Seeds of Change: Chinese Students, Japanese Teachers, 1895–1905

Sowing the Seeds of Change: Chinese Students, Japanese Teachers, 1895-1905.

Sowing the Seeds of Change: Chinese Students, Japanese Teachers, 1895-1905.

Sowing the seeds of change: The role of business in education

Sowing the seeds of change: The role of business in education

The Role of the Anthropologist in Conceptualizing Seeds of Change

The Role of the Anthropologist in Conceptualizing Seeds of Change

Seeds of Change: A Quincentennial Commemoration

Seeds of Change: A Quincentennial Commemoration

Sowing the Seeds of Change: Chinese Students, Japanese Teachers, 1895-1905.

Sowing the Seeds of Change: Chinese Students, Japanese Teachers, 1895-1905.

Seeds of Change: A Quincentennial Commemoration:Seeds of Change: A Quincentennial Commemoration.

Seeds of Change: A Quincentennial Commemoration:Seeds of Change: A Quincentennial Commemoration.

Seeds of Change: A Quincentennial Commemoration:Seeds of Change: A Quincentennial Commemoration.

Seeds of Change: A Quincentennial Commemoration:Seeds of Change: A Quincentennial Commemoration.

Review: Seeds of Change, by Herman J. Viola and Seeds of Change: A Quincentennial Commemoration [Exhibition Catalog], by Herman J. Viola and Carolyn Margolis

Review: <i>Seeds of Change</i>, by Herman J. Viola and <i>Seeds of Change: A Quincentennial Commemoration [Exhibition Catalog]</i>, by Herman J. Viola and Carolyn Margolis

Seeds of Change: A Quincentennial Commemoration

Seeds of Change: A Quincentennial Commemoration

Book Review

Seeds of Change: 500 Years of Encounter and Exchange. Seeds of Change: A Quincentennial Commemoration. Herman J. Viola and Carolyn Margolis, eds.

Review: Seeds of Change: A Quincentennial Commemoration edited by Herman J. Viola and Carolyn Margolis

Review: <i>Seeds of Change: A Quincentennial Commemoration</i> edited by Herman J. Viola and Carolyn Margolis

Sowing the seeds of change

Examines the adoption of TQM by SGS‐Thomson, which first created a semiconductor user reliability evaluation (SURE) quality policy in the late 1970s. Charts the development of statistical process control (SPC) steering committees and the introduction of failure mode effect analysis (FMEA); covers the publication of corporate standards for quality, manufacturing and service; looks at the suggestion schemes launched at each site. Summarizes the SGS‐Thomson quality journey as of 1991, when the organization formally recognised the need to become a TQM company; includes the problems incurred and the lessons learned.

Seeds of Change: A Quincentennial Commemoration.

Seeds of Change: A Quincentennial Commemoration.

Seeds of Change: A visit to the Smithsonian Exhibition on the Columbus Quincentennial

Seeds of Change: A visit to the Smithsonian Exhibition on the Columbus Quincentennial

Seeds of Change: A Quincentennial Commemoration

Seeds of Change: A Quincentennial Commemoration