More than one hundred textbooks in American and world history, geography, modern problems and civics were examined recently by social studies and Asiatic specialists to evaluate the accuracy and adequacy of the material included on the Far East. Their report, Treatment of Asia in American textbooks (104 p. 40¢), has been published by the American Council, Institute of Pacific Relations, New York. Dr. Howard E. Wilson, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, coordinator and editor of the report, writes that “There may be arguments over what pupils need most to be taught about Asia; there can no longer be argument over the necessity of their being well informed.” One significant recommendation made by all the analysts was that experts in Asiatic affairs should be consulted more frequently by textbook authors and publishers to insure “accuracy, relevancy, and comprehensiveness of information included” on Asia.

In China during the Ch'ing period, as before, many Confucian values were so family-centered as to tolerate degrees of nepotism not acceptable in some other societies. Ideally, of course, Confucian values admitted of no conflict between loyalty to the Emperor and loyalty to close relatives and friends. Nevertheless, conflicts between public and private interests were recognized at least as early as the Meng-tzu and were typified in such expressions as “robbing the public to help the private” (chiakung chi-ssu) and “putting the family first and the nation last” (hsien chia-tsu erh hou kuo-chia). But whatever may have been the nepotistic intent of officials, there was during the Ch'ing period, at least before the Taiping rebellion, a great centralization of imperial authority.

In his review of Mr. Chiang Yung-ching's Bo-lot'ing yü Wu-Han cheng-ch'üan [Borodin and the Wu-Han Regime], Professor C. Martin Wilbur has said that “the Chung-shun Gunboat Incident of March 20, 1926, is treated hastily and categorically, simply as a plot of the Communists involving Wang Ching-wei. This is, of course, a delicate subject.” Because of the highly controversial nature of the event, as it involved Chiang Kai-shek and the Communists, no serious and scholarly study on the subject has ever been undertaken in either Mainland China or Taiwan. Historians in the West are generally interested in the event because it was pivotal to Chiang's ascendancy, and Chiang's career is a part of modern Chinese history. Except for the study of the Soviet advisers' view on the Incident, a thorough investigation of the various aspects of the event and all the parties concerned is still wanting.

Experiments in the field of technological change and rural community development in many underdeveloped areas of the world have brought into sharp focus the importance of cultural factors in the acceptance or rejection of the programs of directed change sponsored by external agencies. There has been a growing realization among rural extension experts and technical assistance workers that even some of the less involved technological or economic innovations have latent cultural and social dimensions that need careful consideration if the success of these programs is to be assured. Detailed case studies of specific action programs have revealed that the secondary and tertiary ramifications of given innovations are of critical significance in determining their ultimate acceptability. With this understanding planners and their staff members no longer approach an underdeveloped community with the naive assumption that it will enthusiastically adopt superior tools and techniques when they are placed within its reach; instead, considerable emphasis is now laid on adapting modern techniques to the culture and values of the community in which the program has to operate.

The 1953 Chinese census reported a total population on the Chinese mainland of 582.6 million. This figure came as a surprise to Western observers, since the population figures most frequently quoted for China during the preceding twenty years had been on the order of magnitude of “about 450 million,” the 1933 estimate of the League of Nations. Although the inadequacies of Chinese population statistics and their controversial nature are well known, some understanding of the latest figure is possible by viewing it in historical perspective. Such an analysis is here presented, and is confined to the 1953 census data referring to the size of the population and its distribution among the provinces.