Untouchable agricultural servants in the Indian countryside are among the lowliest people on earth. Such illiterate folk leave no written record to enable historians to comprehend their world from their own angle of vision. To write their history from below, historians have to search for contemporaneous observations which—even though made by an outsider—show some degree of empathy with their consciousness. The gifted novelist is able to enter recesses of the mind which elude the most acute scientific investigator. Among the several Bengali novels which have taken for their theme the wretched of the earth, perhaps the most empathetic is the Kahar Chronicle of Tarashankar Banerjee which thankfully avoids painting their life in unrelieved black. In Hansuli Banker Upakatha, the novelist, a small landlord in Birbhum district, descends to the bottom of rural society to give us—as far as possible for a gifted novelist of gentry origin—a view from within.

From 1945 to 1947 the Communist Party led the impoverished Warli tribals of Bombay's Thana District in a movement for fair wages and freedom from forced labor and landlord violence. The immediate targets of the action were the local landed interests and moneylenders who dominated the region and held the tribals (known as ‘adivasis’) in virtual slavery. The longer range goal, however, was to build the Communist Party and challenge Congress dominance.

The jute mills of Bengal had witnessed communal violence as well as bursts of working men's unrest even in the late nineteenth century. In the eyes of the employers, however, they were merely localized and disorganized flashes of protest, which could be typically nipped by the arrival of the Scottish mill manager and his entourage of Nepali darwans. A quick arbitration by the sahib under the peepul tree, liberally laced with pidgin Hindi abuse, was followed by the protector's judgment. Some would be happy with the verdict, others would remain aggrieved while the bara sahib, after a few words with the European assistant and the native sirdar, would imperiously stride back to his office, acknowledging numerous salams on his way. With such powerful ma-baaps, the mills rarely felt the need to report what they considered were piffling matters to the local police or the district magistrate. Thus, in February 1886, the Indian Jute Mills' Association could rule that ‘all hands whose work stopped during the days the mills were closed [for short-time working] should cease to be paid for that time’ without the slightest fear of serious protest from the labouring people. And in the late 1920s, in spite of the Rowlatt satyagraha, the Khilafat and the non-cooperation movement, the Chairman of IJMA could note with great satisfaction that ‘for many years the jute mill industry has been more or less immune from industrial disputes’.

To what extent was the underdeveloped world caught up in the vortex of the Great Depression? Did the crisis of 1929–33 leave a particular imprint upon the course of the economic history of the Third World during the inter-war period? Can the years spanning this quinquennium be fairly regarded as constituting a distinctive phase within the broader perspective of much longer-run trends? These questions, together with a whole host of related issues concerning the experience of particular areas, communities and industries, have recently been brought into much sharper focus than has hitherto been so. Although this reawakening of concern can be partly put down to the usual workings of the ‘scholarly cycle’, a far more satisfactory explanation may be found in relating it to the current round of public and academic discussion on the impact of the present-day depression. It is surely no coincidence that since the late 1970s there has been a considerable upsurge of interest in the events of that time; indeed it would not be too much of an exaggeration to say that the subject is forcing its way up the agenda of research priorities at a rate that would have been unthinkable even a decade ago. Over the last few years an increasing number of scholars have been busily engaged in the twin task of purposively re-examiningand reassessing a segment of intellectual territory that was once taken very much for granted and virtually shunted off to the sidelines. Thus by the end of 1986 at least three major international conferences will have been convened on the subject, and no less than fifty separate papers will have been presented.

The social context of land endowed for the maintenance of temples in the Kandyan region of Sri Lanka has long been recognized by scholars as an important topic for historical and sociological research. Most historical writing on the subject is concerned with changes in government policy towards temple endowments after the imposition of British control in 1815. The first forty years of British rule have received more attention than any later period; consequently emphasis has been placed on the gradual of process British disengagement from the pre-colonial policy of close official involvement in the administration of temple land. This research has fruitfully illustrated tensions inherent to colonial rule in the early nineteenth century, especially the conflict between the religious beliefs of the colonizers and the desire to avoid unrest among non-Christians. However, little detailed research has been carried out on either official or popular attitudes towards temple endowments after the colonial government formally gave up its responsibility for their administration in the middle of the nineteenth century. As a result, the uneven and partial official movement towards a reassertion of government control in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is usually portrayed as official recognition of earlier mistakes concerning disestablishment. This view does not take into account the considerable economic importance of the endowments. Changing official attitudes towards religion, as well as internal developments within Buddhism, did indeed influence government policy, but changes in economic policy and in the control and use of land were also important.

Though local and international trade is a main point on the agenda of any government and though economists build elaborate models around trade statistics, the social consequences of trade have hardly ever been explored in full by social scientists. This is particularly the case in Thailand where only a few studies of limited scope exist on traders, businessmen and markets. There is a reason for this lack of attention to trade. The series of post-war village studies, carried out mainly by anthropologists in isolated villages, stressed intra-village relations and neglected as a consequence larger networks of trade. The most important study on trade during that time was probably the work of Skinner (1962, 1967) on the Bangkok Chinese in which, however, ethnic relations rather than trade and business constituted the main theme of the study.

Although often well-written and carefully researched, many recent studies of the political history of Colonial Malaya seem dated. This is not to say that they are generally pro-British; nevertheless, when considered alongside historical work on many other areas of Southeast Asia, the ‘British Malayan’ histories appear ‘colonial’ in their preoccupations and perspectives. Why does so much Malayan history have this character? One cannot point to a lack of talent.

A Common but curious sight of the Indian bazaar is the hijḍā, the ‘eunuch’ of Indian English. Obviously transvestites, the hijḍās beg from merchants who quickly, under threat of obscene abuse, respond to the silent demands of such detested individuals. On occasion, especially festival days, they press their claims with boisterous and ribald singing and dancing. Popular Indian opinion would label the hijḍās as nothing more than male prostitutes. Yet at the same time, and hinting at a more complex social function, they are expected if unwanted visitors at wedding parties and birth celebrations where they demand their share of the general largesse. Seen solely as one element in the fabric of contemporary society, the life of a hijḍā is surely ‘an alternative social role … which cater[s] not only for the temperamental misfits but also for disavowed yet persistent needs of the community as a whole’. However, such characterizations are made without much investigation of the ‘alternative social role’. The vast Indian underworld—the low caste and outcaste; the beggars, touts, petty criminals, and prostitutes; and also the hijḍā—has been much neglected as a subject of serious scholarship.

The movement to abolish the unequal treaties was the cause célèbre of Chinese nationalism after the First World War. It was an extension of the late Qing movement to retrieve the rights and interests (shouhui liquan yundong) that had been lost to the powers over the decades. Whereas the quintessence of the late Qing campaign was economic nationalism and the means it employed peaceful, the post-war drive was highly political and at times accompanied by a degree of violence. The Chinese determination, strengthened by Germany's and Austria's relinquishment of their treaty status, was a bond that united the whole nation from Beijing to Guangzhou (Canton) despite their domestic political differences.

M. N. Srinivas (1952) first introduced the concept of ‘Sanskritization’ for describing cultural and social change among the Coorgs of South India. More specifically, the term was used to explain the integration of Coorgs into Indian society through their adoption of various Sanskritbased beliefs and practices. It also referred to caste mobility, a process whereby the Coorgs attempted to raise their caste status by observing various rules of behavior as defined in Sanskritic scriptures and practiced by Brahmins. In elaborating this concept, Srinivas (1956, 1967) has sought to extend it to Indian society as a whole, focusing particularly on the problem of caste relations. He has emphasized that the extent of Sanskritization among the jātis of a region depends upon the character of the locally dominant caste. The latter provides an immediate model for the lower castes to emulate. In generalizing this concept, Srinivas has also attempted to assess the compatibility (and to some degree, conflict) between Sanskritization and Westernization.