A History of East Asia

Author(s):  
Charles Holcombe
Keyword(s):  
Author(s):  
Chun-chieh Huang

This chapter discusses types of Confucian humanism in East Asia, their manifestations, functions, and shared core value. First of all, it differentiates two types of Confucian humanism: (a) ethno-historical humanism, and (b) culturo-philosophical humanism. The former was baptized in the spirit of temporality while the latter stressed a return to the spontaneity of one’s mind-heart, which was considered to be supra-temporal and supra-spatial. Both types of Confucian humanism took humanity or ren (仁) as their core value. Throughout the history of Confucian humanism, the meaning of ren fell into four categories, namely: (a) ren as the locale of physical and mental relief; (b) ren as the inner awareness of value judgment: (c) ren as social ethics; and (d) ren as political career. Confucius and Zhu Xi were the two major architects of Confucian humanistic thinking. The spirit of Confucian humanism manifested itself in beliefs in a (a) mind-body continuum, (b) self-other harmony, (c) homo-cosmic resonation, and (d) past-present fusion. Moreover, Confucian humanism functioned as (a) socio-cultural nostalgia, (b) political counter-factuality, and (c) day-to-day “practical learning.”


1991 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 203-215 ◽  
Author(s):  
John C. England

The history of Eastern Christianity in central, south, and east Asia prior to A.D. 1500 is rich and extensive, yet has been largely ignored. Material evidence now available from southeast and northeast Asia shows that Christian communities were present in seven countries for different periods between the sixth and fifteenth centuries. Often termed “Nestorian,” or “Jacobite,” these communities have left a diversity of remains—epigraphical, architectural, sculptural, documentary—which testify to their presence, as far northeast as Japan and southeast as far as Indonesia. The glimpses of Christian churches in medieval Asia afforded by the evidence from these and other regions of Asia offer alternatives to Westernized patterns of mission, and question many assumptions concerning the history and character of Christian presence in the region.


2020 ◽  
Vol 190 (2) ◽  
pp. 709-736
Author(s):  
Jae-Cheon Sohn ◽  
Shigeki Kobayashi ◽  
Yutaka Yoshiyasu

Abstract A northward trans-Wallacean radiation is demonstrated for Chrysorthenches, a member of the Orthenches group. Here we review Chrysorthenches and allied genera resulting in a generic transfer of Diathryptica callibrya to Chrysorthenches and two new congeners: C. muraseaeSohn & Kobayashisp. nov. from Japan and C. smaragdinaSohnsp. nov. from Thailand. We review morphological characters of Chrysorthenches and allied genera, and find polyphyly of Diathryptica and the association of the Orthenches-group with Glyphipterigidae. These findings were supported in a maximum likelihood phylogeny of DNA barcodes from ten yponomeutoids. We analysed 30 morphological characters for 12 species of Chrysorthenches, plus one outgroup, via a cladistic approach. The resulting cladogram redefined two pre-existing Chrysorthenches species-groups and identified one novel lineage: the C. callibrya species-group. We review the host associations between Chrysorthenches and Podocarpaceae, based on mapping the working phylogenies. Our review suggests that ancestral Chrysorthenches colonized Podocarpus and later shifted to other podocarp genera. Biogeographical patterns of Chrysorthenches show that they evolved long after the Podocarpaceae radiation. Disjunctive trans-Wallacean distribution of the C. callibrya species-group is possibly related to the tracking of their host-plants and the complicated geological history of the island-arc system connecting Australia and East Asia.


1962 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 139-139

Readers of this Journal will recall the provocative article in Vol. 2, No. 2 by John Smail entitled An Autonomous History of South-East Asia. This article has aroused considerable comment. It is all-the-more unfortunate then that it was marred by fifty or more misprints and omissions. With this issue of the Journal we have changed to a new type and printing machine, and we hope such errors as committed before will remain merely the follies of our youth. We attach a list of the more important of the misprints in Mr. Smail's article.


2021 ◽  
pp. 127
Author(s):  
Bella Pak

This article provides an analysis of scientific research on the life and activities of the first Russian charge d’ affaires and consul general in Korea Karl I. Waeber, shows the specific contribution of scholars to the study of the professional biography of this outstanding diplomat. Despite the fact that the activity of K.I. Weber in Korea is partially reflected in the works of Boris D. Pak and Bella B. Pak on the history of Russo-Korean relations, as well as in several separate articles, the first special monographic work on this topic belongs to the pen of the author of this article. The monographic research focuses on a detailed coverage of the tasks, goals facing Waeber in Korea, the specific forms and conditions for their implementation, the impact he exerts on the course of the Russian government towards Korea; analysis of the most complex international circumstances, against the background of which he made certain decisions.   This article contains answers to T.M. Simbirtseva and S.V. Volkov’s critical remarks regarding some of the information and photographic documents given in the work concerning K.I. Waeber and the accusations against the author of the article in connection with the publication in Germany in the summer of 2021 of Dr. S. Braezel's photobook "Pictures of the life of a diplomat between Europe and East Asia: Karl von Waeber (1841-1910)". The author of the article drew attention to some erroneous judgments in the article by T.M. Simbirtseva and S.V. Volkov, formed due to ignorance and bias, analyzed and refuted the most unfounded accusations, clarified the position regarding new information about K.I. Waeber.


The destruction of Japan’s empire in August 1945 under the military onslaught of the Allied Powers produced a powerful rupture in the histories of modern East Asia. Everywhere imperial ruins from Manchuria to Taiwan bore memoires of a great run of upheavals and wars which in turn produced revolutionary uprisings and civil wars from China to Korea. The end of global Second World War did not bring peace and stability to East Asia. Power did not simply change hands swiftly and smoothly. Rather the disintegration of Japan’s imperium inaugurated a era of unprecedented bloodletting, state destruction, state creation, and reinvention of international order. In the ruins of Japan’s New Order, legal anarchy, personal revenge, ethnic displacement, and nationalist resentments were the crucible for decades of violence. As the circuits of empire went into meltdown in 1945, questions over the continuity of state and law, ideologies and the troubled inheritance of the Japanese empire could no longer be suppressed. In the Ruins of the Japanese Empire takes a transnational lens to this period, concluding that we need to write the violence of empire’s end – and empire itself - back into the global history of East Asia’s Cold War.


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