‘The rise of Japan is surely one of the great epics of modern world history’. Yet it is not easy to obtain an overview of the development of Japanese civilization. Since the 1960s there has been an explosion of research which has overturned many of the older orthodoxies. The Cambridge History of Japan provides us with an unique chance to take stock. Here I will consider the four volumes covering the period from the twelfth to the later twentieth century.

In the midst of Pol Pot's struggle for the control of the Cambodian Communist Party in the 1970s, the subject of the Party's history came to assume a crucial importance. In 1976, the date of the foundation of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) became so important an issue that veteran Party members who remembered that the Party had been founded at a date previous to that claimed by Pol Pot, were tortured and killed for that reason. History was rewritten to suit the interests of Pol Pot's faction and the political circumstances of the time. A particularly sensitive subject was the role played by the Vietnamese in the formation of the Khmer People's Revolutionary Party, the predecessor of the CPK in the 1950s. After the relations between the Vietnamese and Cambodian Parties turned sour in the mid-1970s, the CPK deleted all allusions to the Vietnamese role from its official Party History.

The medical profession in modern China comprised two radically different schools—modern (Western) medicine and native medicine. The difference in philosophy, theory, and technique made a conflict between the two schools almost inevitable, and the conflict was intensified by the modernization process that was quickened during the Republican period. Western-trained or modern doctors advocated national salvation through science and denounced native medicine as superstitious, unscientific, and an impediment to the development of medical science in China. On the other hand, native medical practitioners insisted that what they learned and practiced was part of the national essence (guocui) and should be protected against the cultural invasion of imperialism (diguo zhuyi wenhua qinlue) including Western medicine. To be sure, both sides used such rhetoric to camouflage the business competition between them, but this rivalry and its implications did point to a profound cultural conflict between Chinese tradition and Western influence in China's modernization. It epitomized a burning issue of the day: whether or not China's modernization meant Westernization and whether a respectable position for China in the modern world was to be achieved through Westernization or preservation of what was regarded or claimed as national heritage.

The north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh has the dubious distinction of being the heartland of communalism in India. The years between the two world wars, in particular, saw the most widespread and unprecedented outbreak of communal conflict in this state. One of the significant factors underlying this escalation of communal tensions was Hindu religious resurgence and a gradual, but radical, transformation in the nature of Hinduism. Hinduism became increasingly militant and martial in its public expression. Indeed, some of the roots of so-called ‘muscular Hinduism’ that characterizes Hindu nationalism of recent years can be traced back to the 1920s and '30s. The public face of Hinduism, from this period, appeared less and less to be that of devotion and religious worship and more and more that of aggressive chants and armed displays. The dominant image of Hinduism emerged to be one of very large crowds of people, wielding staffs, flags, swords and other arms, marching in processions during religious festivals. These festivals imparted an aura of triumphant and aggressive expansionism to Hinduism, which in turn, elicited counter Muslim reactions, and contributed to the aggravation of communal tension and violence. The spread of communalism in north India in this period was marked by another, equally significant, development. Communal conflicts came to be increasingly concentrated in urban centres and a section of the urban poor came to play a pivotal role in the upsurge of Hindu martial militancy.

In 1880, the area north of Calcutta was a ‘jungle’, an area with swamps and marshes and a few scattered villages. With the expansion of the jute industry, the area was rapidly transformed. Factories were set up, and large numbers of people came to the area in search of work. Until the late 1920s, the industry prospered and the population of the industrial area increased enormously, but since then employment growth has stagnated and the population has increased only moderately. At present, the industrial area still shows the features described in the reports at the beginning of this century: ‘mill lines’ crowded with migrant labourers, bad housing conditions, particularly in the private bastis, small houses with little ventilation and light, open drains, public bathing places.

It is widely believed that nationalism in India stemmed from European domination. Imperialism, for the first time, generated the sentiment of ‘nationhood’ that brought together people of diverse religions, languages, and lifestyles to demand home rule. The process involved cultural revivalism, yet retained strong ties with the inheritance of two centuries of foreign domination. The spur to the writing of cultural tracts was sharp and the attempt to rewrite the ‘true’ history of their country became the leading preoccupation of intellectuals. Consequently, indigenous histories of different kinds emerged over a period of years preceding independence and in the years after 1947. Different generic models were used in an attempt to replace the ‘inauthentic’ historical accounts compiled by Europeans, featuring instead themes or motifs of writing that emphasized an assertion of a culture which was comparable, if not superior, to that of their European peers. Correspondingly, historiography and fiction-writing depicted national heroes, full of deeds of valour and bravery, engaged in wresting their ‘nation’ from the aggressor by an emphasis on indigenous themes. Models of writing structured around the earlier epics, the use of local dialects, the emphasis on ancient rituals and practices, all went into the making of a ‘pure’ tradition.

Monuments, memorials and statues, so commonplace in squares and parks of late twentieth-century cities, have interesting histories and convey particular historiographies. In public arenas planned and maintained by state administrations, symbolic representations situated for the purpose of communicating messages to passersby, visitors, and residents often mark the state's attempt to control space, history and popular memory. By extension, changes in statuary or monumental architecture over time may reflect shifts in rulers and their representations of rule. As Hung (1991) demonstrates, the ‘war of monuments’ in Tiananmen Square reflected struggles for power and demands by those excluded from power for rights and access. The ‘statumania’ of post-revolutionary France personalized contests for power and representation (Agulhon 1985). On the other hand, monuments that remain fixed on landscapes can be variously interpreted over time, forming, as Young (1989:70) has noted, ‘a kind of screen across which the projected shadows of a world's preoccupations continue to flicker and dance.’

The former princely state of Hunza (now part of Pakistan's Northern Areas District) commands one of the largest and most complex irrigation systems in the whole of the western Karakoram mountain range. Built during the 18th century, Hunza's hydraulic works contributed significantly to the emergence of this small Central Asian state. Few writers, however, have explored the role of irrigation in Hunza's political evolution. Müller-Stellrecht (1981:55) has made some passing observations about the economic importance of irrigation in her paper on traditional Hunzakut society, Kreutzmann (1988) has provided some historical facts concerning the building of the canals and the present-day water distribution system in Hunza, while the French geographer Charles (1985) presents a significant body of data on Hunza's hydraulic works, but entirely from a physical perspective. In this paper, which is based on ethnohistorical data gathered during field research in Hunza, in 1990 and 1991, I examine the role of irrigation in the process of state formation in Hunza.