In July 1976, slightly more than five years after the collapse of the 1971 insurrection in Sri Lanka (then Ceylon), the protracted series of trials of alleged insurgents wound to a conclusion. Except for the cases of a small number of suspects not in custody, some of whom are probably dead, and a handful of cases the disposition of which was postponed, the complex and painful process of determining guilt and imposing punishments for the armed rebellion had come to an end. The uprising that erupted on 5 April 1971 had been staged by an organization called the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna QVP), which had been formed five years earlier as a revolutionary movement by a small clique of young dissidents who had broken away from the tiny pro-Peking Communist Party, but which by 1970 had attracted a significant following among rural Sinhalese Buddhist youths.

A number of English-language scholarly studies of medieval Japanese institutional history have appeared in print in the past few years. This seems a fitting time to appraise their contribution to our understanding of Japanese history from late Heian through the Muromachi period, ca. A.D. 1100 to 1600. I do not intend to evaluate the works as individual monographs, but rather to consider their larger cumulative historiographical significance. After summarizing the main interpretive constructs used by scholars writing in English I will discuss ways in which the recent works have and have not enriched these constructs or suggested helpful new ones.

The first census of the Philippines during the period of American occupation was taken on March 2,1903. About sixteen years later, the second census was taken. The need for a new census became apparent as the Philippines entered the Commonwealth period and approached final independence. The National Assembly passed a bill providing for the taking of a census which was approved and became Commonwealth Act No. 170, on November 12, 1936. President Quezon requested the services of an expert on census matters from the United States Government on August 17, 1937. The services of Mr. Ray Hurley, Acting Chief Statistician of Territorial, Insular, and Foreign Statistics of the United States Bureau, of the Census, were secured and upon his arrival in Manila he was appointed Expert on Census Matters effective as of October 9, 1937.

One of the weaknesses of comparative studies of the development of an entrepreneurial class is the lack of detailed data. Often such studies make use of census data which indicate the growth of this class in general but fail to show clearly the origins of new entrepreneurs. Available case studies, on the other hand, do not cover enough ground thus precluding generalizations.

Dr. Hermann Lautensach has made an outstanding contribution to the study of Korea. Since his publications are mainly in German geographical periodicals, they may have escaped the attention of many Korean and American scholars.

Dr. Lautensach is one of the best trained German geographers. His reputation was established by his classic work on Portugal. He became closely associated with German geopoliticians and wrote articles for the Zeitschrift für geopolitik. He was one of the authors with Haushofer, Obst and Maull of the Bausteine zar geopolitik (Berlin: Kurt Vonwinckel Vertag., 1928).

Until the arrival of the Europeans, sea traffic to the Indies was merely coastal. Sailing ships went from port to port along the coasts. As the Strait of Malacca was, of old, the gateway to the Indonesian Archipelago, it is no wonder that Islam was introduced first in the settlements along the coast of this Strait.

In all probability, Moslem merchants from Hindustan, especially from Gujarat, brought Islam to the Indonesian Archipelago. They arrived in the same way and by the same means as their ancestors who brought Hindu civilization twelve centuries earlier. Islam was introduced by merchants and not by conquering Arab legions, or even by missionaries.