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Rating: 
Summary: Ambitious comparative history.
Review: As the author explains, there are two different positions in historiography dealing with the European understanding of the world: i) That stressing European exceptionalism (see e.g., David Landes's "The Wealth and Poverty of Nations"; [also -I think-, Angus Maddison, "The West and the Rest", forthcoming]); and ii) another current insisting that contingency and structural constraints are the key variables (see, e.g. Kenneth Pomeranz's "The Great Divergence"; [also -I think- "The Eastern Origins of Western Civilisation" by John M. Hobson, forthcoming]) Lieberman's book critiques the first approach, and contributes to strengthen the second by offering structured comparisons between Southeast Asia (region routinely omitted from world histories) and France, Russia, Japan and (more briefly) China and South Asia. In that sense, Volume One of this work focuses on sustained political and cultural integration in each of the three chief sectors of continental Southeast Asia. I would point out that the author not only explains what happened in this region, but why it happened (showing with opinions full of nuances the state of the art on this matter). Nevertheless, although the content is very interesting, the book often happens to be a tough reading; therefore I have rated the book as a 4 start book (content: 5 starts; pleasure of reading: 3 to 1). Volume two (in principle to be published by the end of 2005 or early 2006) is to argue that (in terms of linear-cum-cyclic trajectories, chronology and dynamics) mainland Southeast Asia resembled much of Europe and Japan but diverged significantly from South Asia and island Southeast Asia.
Rating:
Summary: Ambitious comparative history.
Review: As the author explains, there are two different positions in historiography dealing with the European understanding of the world: i)That stressing European exceptionalism (see e.g., David Landes's "The Wealth and Poverty of Nations"; [also -I think-, Angus Maddison, "The West and the Rest", forthcoming]); and ii)another current insisting that contingency and structural constraints are the key variables (see, e.g. Kenneth Pomeranz's "The Great Divergence"; [also -I think- "The Eastern Origins of Western Civilisation" by John M. Hobson, forthcoming]) Lieberman's book critiques the first approach, and contributes to strengthen the second by offering structured comparisons between Southeast Asia (region routinely omitted from world histories) and France, Russia, Japan and (more briefly) China and South Asia. In that sense, Volume One of this work focuses on sustained political and cultural integration in each of the three chief sectors of continental Southeast Asia. I would point out that the author not only explains what happened in this region, but why it happened (showing with opinions full of nuances the state of the art on this matter). Nevertheless, although the content is very interesting, the book often happens to be a tough reading; therefore I have rated the book as a 4 start book (content: 5 starts; pleasure of reading: 3 to 1). Volume two (in principle to be published by the end of 2005 or early 2006) is to argue that (in terms of linear-cum-cyclic trajectories, chronology and dynamics) mainland Southeast Asia resembled much of Europe and Japan but diverged significantly from South Asia and island Southeast Asia.
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