Strange Parallels: Volume 2, Mainland Mirrors: Europe, Japan, China, South Asia, and the Islands: Southeast Asia in Global Context, c.800-1830 (Studies in Comparative World History)

977 Pages·2009·8.02 MB·English

by  Lieberman Victor

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StrangeParallels:SoutheastAsiainGlobalContext,c.800–1830
Volume1:IntegrationontheMainland
WinneroftheWorldHistoryAssociationBookPrize
“Strange Parallels will certainly be seen for decades to come as one of
thoseintellectualenterprisesthathelpeddefineagenerationofthinking
aboutaparticulartimeandplace,innovelandoftenwonderfulways.”
EricTagliacozzo,CornellUniversity
“Thisbookthusrepresentsadramaticnewstageinthehistoriography
on early modern Southeast Asia (and Eurasia), setting a demanding
agenda for future researchers that makes earlier approaches appear
almostJurassicbycomparison.”
MichaelCharney,SchoolofOrientalandAfricanStudies,
UniversityofLondon
“Let me say again that this [book] is a masterpiece....It is extremely
importantandwill,Ipredict,becomealandmarknotonlyinthestudy
ofSoutheastAsiabutalsointhestudyofearlymodernworldhistory.”
LiTana,AustralianNationalUniversity
“Aresoundingscholarlyachievement....HisworkintegratesSoutheast
Asianhistoryintothepastmillenniumandputstheregionontheglobal
map.”
BenKiernan,YaleUniversity
“Thisisthemostambitiousandchallengingeffortanyscholarhasyet
madetobringSoutheastAsianhistoryintothemainstreamofthehuman
experienceincogentlypostcolonialterms.”
AlexanderWoodside,UniversityofBritishColumbia
“This work...has an originality which readers have come to expect
from Victor Lieberman....[It] will seal Victor Lieberman’s reputation
asoneofthefinesthistoriansofSouthEastAsiaand,indeed,oneofthe
mostoriginalhistoriansdealingwithworldwidecomparisons.”
M.C.Ricklefs,NationalUniversityofSingapore

StrangeParallels
SoutheastAsiainGlobalContext,c.800–1830
Volume2:MainlandMirrors:Europe,Japan,China,SouthAsia,
andtheIslands
Blendingfine-grainedcasestudieswithoverarchingtheory,thisbook
seeks both to integrate Southeast Asia into world history and to
rethink much of Eurasia’s premodern past. It argues that Southeast
Asia,Europe,Japan,China,andSouthAsiaallembodiedidiosyncratic
versionsofaEurasian-widepatternwherebylocalisolatescoheredto
form ever larger, more stable, more complex political and cultural
systems. With accelerating force, climatic, commercial, and military
stimuli joined to produce patterns of linear-cum-cyclic construction
thatbecameremarkablysynchronizedevenbetweenregionsthathad
nocontactwithoneanother.Yetthisstudyalsodistinguishesbetween
twozonesofintegration,onewhereindigenousgroupsremainedin
control and a second where agency gravitated to external conquest
elites.Here,then,isafundamentallyoriginalviewofEurasiaduringa
1,000-yearperiodthatspeakstobothhistoriansofindividualregions
andthoseinterestedinglobaltrends.
Both a specialist in precolonial Burma and a comparativist inter-
estedinglobalpatterns,VictorLiebermangraduatedfirstinhisclass
from Yale University and obtained his doctorate from the School of
Oriental and African Studies of the University of London. His pub-
licationsincludeBurmeseAdministrativeCycles:AnarchyandConquest,
c. 1580–1760, which won the Harry J. Benda Prize from the Associ-
ationforAsianStudies;BeyondBinaryHistories:Re-ImaginingEurasia
toc.1830,whichheeditedandanearlierversionofwhichappeared
as a special issue of Modern Asian Studies devoted to Lieberman’s
scholarship; and Strange Parallels: Southeast Asia in Global Context,
c. 800–1830, Volume 1: Integration on the Mainland, which won the
WorldHistoryAssociationBookPrize.HeistheMarvinB.BeckerCol-
legiateProfessorofHistoryandProfessorofSoutheastAsianHistory
attheUniversityofMichigan.

studies in comparative world history
Editors
MichaelAdas,RutgersUniversity
PatrickManning,UniversityofPittsburgh
PhilipD.Curtin,TheJohnsHopkinsUniversity
OtherBooksintheSeries
MichaelAdas,ProphetsofRebellion:MillenarianProtestMovementsAgainst
theEuropeanColonialOrder(1979)
PhilipD.Curtin,Cross-CulturalTradeinWorldHistory(1984)
LeoSpitzer,LivesinBetween:AssimilationandMarginalityinAustria,Brazil,
andWestAfrica,1780–1945(1989)
PhilipD.Curtin,TheRiseandFallofthePlantationComplex:Essaysin
AtlanticHistory(1990;secondedition,1998)
JohnThornton,AfricaandAfricansintheMakingoftheAtlanticWorld,
1400–1800(1992;secondedition,1998)
MarshallG.S.HodgsonandEdmundBurkeIII(eds.),RethinkingWorld
History:EssaysonEurope,IslamandWorldHistory(1993)
DavidNorthrup,IndenturedLaborintheAgeofImperialism,1834–1922(1995)
LaurenBenton,LawandColonialCultures:LegalRegimesinWorldHistory,
1400–1900(2002)
VictorLieberman,StrangeParallels:SoutheastAsiainGlobalContext,
c.800–1830,Vol.1:IntegrationontheMainland(2003)
KerryWard,NetworksofEmpire:ForcedMigrationintheDutchEastIndia
Company(2009)

Strange Parallels
Southeast Asia in Global Context, c. 800–1830
Volume 2
Mainland Mirrors: Europe, Japan, China,
South Asia, and the Islands
victor lieberman
UniversityofMichigan
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
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© Victor Lieberman 2009
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