Here you can listen to Gene being interviewed by East Asian Studies.

Listen to the interview with Gene Cooper here.

During the early communist period of the 1950s, temple fairs in China were both suppressed and secularized. Temples were closed down by the secular regime and their activities classified as feudal superstition and this process only intensified during the Cultural Revolution when even the surviving secular fairs, devoted exclusively to trade with no religious content of any kind, were suppressed. However, once China embarked on its path of free market reform and openness, secular commodity exchange fairs were again authorized, and sometimes encouraged in the name of political economy as a means of stimulating rural commodity circulation and commerce.

This book reveals how once these secular "temple-less temple fairs" were in place, they came to serve not only as venues for the proliferation of a great variety of popular cultural performance genres, but also as sites where a revival or recycling of popular religious symbols, already underway in many parts of China, found familiar and fertile ground in which to spread. Taking this shift in the Chinese state’s attitudes and policy towards temple fairs as its starting point, The Market and Temple Fairs of Rural China shows how state-led economic reforms in the early 1980s created a revival in secular commodity exchange fairs, which were granted both the geographic and metaphoric space to function. In turn, this book presents a comprehensive analysis of the temple fair phenomenon, examining its economic, popular cultural, popular religious and political dimensions and demonstrates the multifaceted significance of the fairs which have played a crucial role in expanding the boundaries of contemporary acceptable popular discourse and expression.

In the last two years India and Pakistan have managed to rebuild ties after the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks struck a devestating blow to bilateral relations between the two countries. However, the escalation of tensions over the latest incident on the Line of Control (LoC) threatens this normalization of ties.

In 2012, after much discussion and deliberation, both countries agreed to the easing of visa and trade regulations. Pakistan also agreed to grant India MFN (Most Favored Nation) status. To many it appeared as if the two countries would finally break the jinx that has plagued them since their independence.

However, while there is a civilian consensus in Pakistan for improving ties with India, until and unless there is a change in the mindset of Pakistan’s security establishment there will be repeated roadblocks.

India's civilian leadership, especially the current administration, has sought to improve ties with Pakistan notwithstanding the reality that incidents like these and others will keep occurring. For decades successive Indian leaders and administrations have tried to pursue with Pakistan what has happened on the India-China front. India and China still have a border dispute, but they have managed to carve out a relationship in other walks of life, especially economic relations. Further, while tensions on the border occur on a regular basis they are never allowed to irrevocably damage the Sino-Indian relationship. With Pakistan, the Indian argument has been to build economic, cultural, educational and other ties and keep issues like Kashmir on the backburner.

Pakistan’s policy, under various governments both civilian and military, however, has been the reverse. For decades Pakistan insisted that the Kashmir issue needed to be resolved before ties were regularized with India. Pakistan’s foreign and security policies are framed by the security establishment, which has benefited by adopting a policy of constant confrontation with India as justification for the existence of this establishment. The growth in civilian, and public, consensus on better ties with India helped the current Pakistani civilian administration to succeed to the extent it has in the areas of visa and trade with India. However, with an India-centric security establishment framing foreign and security policies that civilian initiative was sooner or later destined to hit a brick wall.

A few days ago India and Pakistan exchanged fire over the Line of Control. Trading of fire at the India-Pakistan border is a routine incident and has been occurring for the past few decades. In most cases all it results in is demarches issued by the two governments. The fact that soldiers have been killed on both sides led to ramping up of emotions and demands from the media and political parties. What actually happened will only unfold in the next few weeks or months. However, the reactions of both countries demonstrate how key players on each side view the long-term relationship.

The Indian reaction demonstrates the tightrope that the Indian administration has to walk on ties with Pakistan between those who advocate being tougher and those who would like to keep building ties. As External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid remarked, “we cannot and must not allow for an escalation of a very unwholesome event that has taken place.” National Security Advisor Shiv Shankar Menon’s comment, that there has been an increase in “infiltration” in recent years and incidents like these are “a fact” India has to deal with, means that as of now the Indian government will continue with its current policy of normalizing ties with Pakistan.

Pakistan’s reaction also reflects continuity, as demonstrated in Islamabad’s appeal to the UN Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) to investigate the incident. While India treats Kashmir as a bilateral issue, Pakistan has always preferred to internationalize the matter.

Pakistan’s decision to halt trade and travel across the Line of Control in Kashmir by closing its check posts in Poonch reflects a push back from the security establishment on the recent improvement of ties with India. There were signs all of last year that the military-intelligence establishment was uneasy about the easing of visa and trade ties. The repeated delay in signing the required declarations and memorandums were signs ignored by many. However, the security establishment faces a dilemma: Unlike in earlier decades, it is today easier to rile public opinion against the United States than against India. For that, an incident of the kind that happened at the Line of Control is required, one that draws on human emotions as well as vestigial emotions tied to Kashmir.

By Aparna Pande for Real Clear World.

Aparna Pande is Research fellow and Director, Hudson Institute’s Initiative on the Future of India and South Asia. Her book Explaining Pakistan’'s Foreign Policy: Escaping India was published in 2011.

Watch a video of the author talk about Governing Health in Contemporary China here.

The below review of Governing Health in Contemporary China is by Liz Economy for Asia Unbound on the Council on Foreign Relations website.

Trying to wrap one’s arms around China today is a significant challenge. It is a global power with a growing economy, rising military, and expanding diplomatic reach. Yet there continues to be a gnawing sense in and outside China that all is not quite right. Whether it is the 180,000 protests annually, the growing flight of capital and people to the West, or the potentially ruinous impact of corruption on the Communist Party’s legitimacy, uncertainty about China and its future is much greater than the country’s impressive global standing might suggest.

In the face of such uncertainty, what we need most is to understand better—issue by issue—what is happening on the ground in the country; and a terrific new book Governing Health in Contemporary China by my CFR colleague and renowned public health expert Huang Yanzhong provides precisely that kind of insight. It details Beijing’s efforts to tackle one critical and politically explosive issue—health care—and helps us understand where and why the country has succeeded and failed, and what more needs to be done.

The statistics are startling. China has one-third of the world’s smokers and suffers around one million tobacco-related deaths annually; the cardiovascular disease death rate is higher in China than in the United States; and close to one hundred million Chinese are believed to suffer from diabetes. Public anger over poor care, rising costs, and corruption in the health care system triggered over 17,000 violent attacks against hospital doctors and health care workers in 2010. Moreover, horrific stories of tainted food and drugs have further undermined the Chinese people’s faith in their government’s capacity to provide an effective health care regime. As Huang notes, over the past ten years, the Chinese people have come to refer to health care as one of the Three New Mountains—health care, education, and social security—modeled after the old Three Mountains (imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucratic-capitalism) that the Communist Party deployed to bring down the government of Chiang Kai-Shek.

Huang takes the reader on a fascinating journey through the twists and turns of the various efforts by Chinese leaders from Mao Zedong through Hu Jintao to tackle the country’s health care crisis. He explores the political battles surrounding three of the most pressing health care challenges the country faces: provision of good and affordable health care for all Chinese citizens, managing health care crises such as HIV/AIDs and the outbreaks of SARS and Avian flu; and developing an effective regulatory and enforcement system for food and drug safety. In each case, Huang finds evidence that Chinese leaders have learned from experience and from the outside world how to improve their practices. As a result, he can point to a number of advances in areas such as health insurance coverage or the strengthening of grassroots health care providers.

Yet as Huang amply demonstrates, these remain changes at the margin. He quotes a senior official from the Ministry of Health as noting that the most recent set of reforms launched in 2009 have not “solved the fundamental, systematic and structural problems [in China’s health sector].” Even president-elect Xi Jinping’s pledge to bring higher levels of health care to the Chinese people, coupled with increased investment in the health care sector (according to a recent McKinsey & Co. study, Beijing plans to triple its health care investment to $1 trillion by 2020), will not be enough to make the kind of difference in the country’s public health system that China’s leaders desire and its people demand.

Real change needs a far more radical set of political and institutional reforms that address how health care policy is made, financed, delivered, and evaluated. For Huang, that means health care policy “by fiat” cannot continue. What is needed, instead, he proposes, is reform in Beijing’s relations with local governments, greater democratic participation, a robust civil society, the rule of law, and a true market economy. Without such reform, Beijing will never get at the heart of its public health care crisis.

Asian films are now widely distributed and popular with western audiences. In response to this increasingly global audience, Routledge has recently published several new books that address the history, censorship problems and cultural variations of Asian cinema.

'Bollywood' is the dominant global term to refer to the prolific Hindi language film industry in Bombay (renamed Mumbai in 1995). Characterised by music, dance routines, melodrama, lavish production values and an emphasis on stars and spectacle, Bollywood films have met with box-office success and enthusiastic audiences from India to West Africa to Russia, and throughout the English-speaking world. Bollywood and Globalization outlines the theoretical issues relevant to the spread of popular Indian cinema and emergence of India’s growing soft power, while in Bollywood, anthropologist and film scholar Tejaswini Ganti provides a guide to the cultural, social and political significance of Hindi cinema, outlining the history and structure of the Bombay film industry, and the development of popular Hindi filmmaking since the 1930s.

Film censorship has always been a controversial matter, particularly in jurisdictions with restrictive state-based censorship systems. Film Censorship in the Asia-Pacific Region reviews the film censorship system in the Asia-Pacific by comparing the systems used in Malaysia, Hong Kong and Australia.

To find out more about these titles and more on Asian Cinema, click on the links below.
 

Dafydd Fell is the Senior Lecturer in Taiwan Studies at the Centre for Financial and Management Studies and the Department of Political and International Studies of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. He is also the Deputy Director of the SOAS Centre of Taiwan Studies and is the coordinator for the European Association of Taiwan Studies.

Muslims have been present in South Asia for 14 centuries. Nearly 40% of the people of this vast land mass follow the religion of Islam, and Muslim contribution to the cultural heritage of the sub-continent has been extensive.

Using a chronological framework, the book discusses the main events in each period between c. 600 CE and the present day, along with the key social and cultural themes. It discusses a range of topics, including:

•How power was secured, and how was it exercised

•The crisis of confidence caused by the arrival of the West in the sub-continent

•How the Indo-Islamic synthesis in various facets of life and culture came about

Excerpts at the end of each chapter allow for further discussion, and detailed maps alongside the text help visualise the changes through each time period. Introducing the reader to the issues concerning the Islamic past of South Asia, the book is a useful text for students and scholars of South Asian History and Religious Studies.
 

Consumers and Individuals in China confronts the – still widespread – notion that Chinese consumers are not "real" individuals, and in doing so represents an ambitious attempt to give a new twist to the structure versus agency debates in social theory. To this end, Michael B. Griffiths shows how claims to virtues such as authenticity, knowledge, civility, sociable character, moral proprietary and self-cultivation emerge from and give shape to social interaction. Data material for this path-breaking analysis is drawn from informants as diverse as consumerist youths, dissident intellectuals, enterprising farmers, retired Party cadres, the rural migrant staff of an inner-city restaurant, the urban families dependent on a machine-repair workshop, and a range of white-collar professionals.

Consumers and Individuals in China will appeal to sociologists, anthropologists, and cultural studies scholars, China Studies generalists, and professionals working at the intersection of culture and business in China. The vivid descriptions of living and doing fieldwork in China also mean that those travelling there will find the book stimulating and useful.
 

Routledge Major Works WINTER BACKLIST OFFER! (from 12/12/12 – 12/3/13)

There is a fantastic range of titles on offer from subject areas such as Allied Health, Asian Studies, Business, Economics, Education, History, Linguistics, Literature, Media, Philosophy, Politics, Psychology, Religion and Sociology.

This eclectic mix of titles includes collections on Mao Zedong, Sufism, Marketing Research, Journalism, Radio, French Feminists, War and Human Rights.

Click here to download our list of 50 titles currently available to purchase!

To receive 20% off simply add your selection of books to your cart, place MWINTER20 into the Discount code field and then “Update Cart”!

This particular offer really shows the scope and range of Routledge Major Works-an essential reference teaching programme for your library.

AUTHOR
Shiba Ryōtarō - (1923-1996) is one of Japan’s best-known writers, famous for his direct tone and unflinching depictions of war. He was drafted into the Japanese Army, served in the Second World War and subsequently worked for the newspaper Sankei Shimbun. He is most famous for his numerous works of historical fiction.

TRANSLATORS AND EDITOR
To introduce Shiba’s Clouds above the Hill to English readers, Japan Documents has brought together three of the best translators of Japanese work today.

Juliet Winters Carpenter has translated more than fifty Japanese works into English on a wide variety of topics, among them Shiba’s The Last Shogun, Abe Kōbōs Secret Rendezvous, and Waiting on the Weather: Making Movies with Akira Kurosawa, a memoir by Kurosawa’s assistant, Nogami Teruyo. Carpenter has won numerous awards over her long illustrated career. 

Andrew Cobbing, Lecturer in Japanese history at the University of Nottingham, U.K, is the author of The Japanese Discovery of Victorian Britain: Early Travel Encounters in the Far East. He was one of the translators of The Iwakura Embassy, 1871-3: A True Account of the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary’s Journey of Observation through the United States of America and Europe, The monumental account of the first overseas diplomatic mission undertaken by Meiji officials after Japan’s centuries of isolation (published by Japan Documents in 2002 and Cambridge University Press in 2009). 

Paul McCarthy, also an award-winner, is the distinguished translator of three works by Tanizaki Junichirō, the internationally renowned novelist: Childhood Years; A Cat, a Man and Two Women; and The Gourmet Club. Recently, McCarthy has turned his talents to the translation of poetry and fiction by other distinctive writers like Nakajima Atsushi and Kanai Mieko.

Phyllis Birnbaum, acclaimed biographer, novelist, and translator, is the editor of these volumes. Her most recent book is Glory in a Line: A Life of Foujita, the Artist Caught between East and West.

With the ever growing contact between Japan and the rest of the world comes an increasingly important need to understand a society that is fascinating but still often confusing to the outsider. In this brand new fourth edition of Understanding Japanese Society, Joy Hendry brings the reader up to date both with recent changes as Japan hit the world headlines under the triple 2011 disasters, and with underlying continuities in ways of thinking that have matured over a long history of dealing with foreign influences and an unpredictable environment.

This welcome new edition of Hendry’s bestselling introductory textbook provides a clear, accessible and readable introduction to Japanese society which does not require any previous knowledge of the country. Fully updated, revised and expanded, the fourth edition contains new material on:

•the effects of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disasters of 2011

•a renewed interest in politics and popular participation

•increased frequency of local spiritual support as unemployment continues to grow, and marriage gets later and later

•the effects of a dramatic drop in the birth rate on Japan’s education system

•the continuing global success of Japanese animation, manga and computer games despite a turn away from international travel

•the cool new Ainu, the attraction of healing Okinawa, and changes among other Japanese minorities

•a new role for Japanese fathers in child-rearing

This book will be invaluable to all students studying Japan. It will also enlighten those travellers and business people wishing to gain an understanding of the Japanese people.
 

Providing a cutting-edge review of the economies of South Asia, the Handbook analyzes key growth areas as well as key structural weaknesses and policy challenges facing these economies. Furthermore, it anticipates trends and suggests corrective measures for the South Asian economic region. Sections focus on issues of human development, such as inequality, poverty and quality of schooling, and monetary and fiscal issues, particularly in light of the ongoing global financial crisis. Further sections discuss issues relating to employment and infrastructure, and on the experience of the region with international trade and financial flows, and environmental challenges.

Written by renowned and respected experts on South Asian economics, this Handbook will be an invaluable reference work for students and academics as well as policy makers interested in South Asian Studies, Economics and Development Studies.

John Garrick is a solicitor of the Supreme Court of New South Wales and former judge’s associate of the Supreme Court. He is currently Senior Research Fellow at MGSM and convenor of the Business Law and Corporations Law programs at Macquarie University, Australia. Please follow the links below to view his titles published by Routledge.
 

Routledge is proud to publish the biggest and broadest range of Asian Studies titles in the academic market. Our comprehensive list consists of high quality research monographs, key textbooks, supplementary reading and reference works across all disciplines throughout the humanities and social sciences, and spanning the entire Asian region.

Learn more about our latest titles in:

• General Asia: Politics
• General Asia: Law
• General Asia: History
• General Asia: Culture & Society
• General Asia: Religion & Philosophy
• General Asia: Business & Economics
• China: Politics
• China: Security Studies
• China: Religion & Philosophy
• China: History
• China: Culture & Society
• China: Business & Economics
• Taiwan
• Japan: Politics
• Japan: History
• Japan: Culture & Society
• Korean Studies
• Southeast Asia: Politics
• Southeast Asia: Religion & Philosophy
• Southeast Asia: History
• Southeast Asia: Culture & Society
• Southeast Asia: Business & Economics
• South Asia: Politics
• South Asia: Religion & Philosophy
• South Asia: History
• South Asia: Culture & Society
• South Asia: Business & Economics
• Central Asia
• Language Learning

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Taking a critical approach, Dafydd Fell provides students with the essential background to the history and development of the political system as well as an explanation of the key structures, processes and institutions that have shaped Taiwan over the last few decades. Topics covered include: the transition to democracy, party politics, cross-strait relations, foreign policy, electoral politics and voting, political economy, national identity and social welfare.

Key features of this text are:

◦Suggestions for further reading

◦End of chapter study questions

◦Discussion points

◦Graphs, tables and figures

◦A series of case studies highlighting the vibrancy of Taiwanese politics.
Government and Politics in Taiwan is an essential text for any course on Taiwanese politics, Chinese politics and East Asian Politics. It is also important supplementary reading for courses covering the process of democratisation.