Description
Book SynopsisUniversal ideas of freedom are to be found throughout the world's diverse intellectual and political traditions, spread by the global trade in ideas which has grown exponentially during the past 200 years. In Africa and Asia, the conceptualization of freedom for individuals and societies has been heavily influenced by the translation of specific European or American ideas of freedom into new political and social contexts. This volume represents a pioneering preliminary assessment of some of the causes and consequences of this process.
Africa and Asia have too often been portrayed in Western accounts as having no historical purchase on ideas of freedom, but the chapters in this volume reveal that these societies have long had their own ideas about the proper degree of individual autonomy relative to the authority exercised by the state and other institutions.
The topics covered here are ideas of freedom in Africa from the slave trade era through colonialism to the natio
Trade Review
"Extensive documentation distinguishes every chapter. An excellent, indeed unique, monograph, The Idea of Freedom in Asia and Africa should appeal to advanced students and all lovers of freedom." -- History: Reviews of New Books
"...The Idea of Freedom in Asia and Africa is a very useful, well-written, and well-edited compilation, which is worth reading for anyone interested in the discourse on freedom in the non-Western world." -- Jennifer Lofkrantz * York University *
Table of Contents
Contributors xv Introduction I ROBERT H. TAYLOR I. Itineraries of Ideas of Freedom in Africa: Precolonial to Postcolonial 9 CRAWFORD YOUNG 2. African States and the Search for Freedom 40 WILLIAM J. FOLTZ 3. Developmentalism, Revolution, and Freedom in the Arab East: The Cases of Egypt, Syria, and Iraq 62 JAMES L. GELVIN 4. Ideas of Freedom in Modem India 97 SUDIPTA KAVIRAJ 5. Freedom in Burma and Thailand: Inside or Outside the State? I43 ROBERT H. TAYLOR 6. Reverberations of Freedom in the Philippines and Vietnam 182 BENEDICT J. TRIA KERKVLIET 7. Japan: State, Society, and Collective Goods versus the Individual 214 SHELDON GARON 8. Redefinitions of Freedom in China 248 ANDREW J. NATHAN Notes 275 Index 317
