11-12 December 1997
Leiden, the Netherlands
40th Anniversary of JESHO
The aim of this Symposium, entitled 'History, Modernity and Economic/Social Development in the Premodern World: Dialogues across Civilizations' was to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of the Journal of The Economic and Social History Of The Orient (JESHO), a 550-page quarterly publication. The convenor of the Symposium was Dr H.T. Zurndorfer, JESHO's Managing Editor since 1991.
By Harriet T. Zurndorfer
JESHO was founded in 1957 by Nicholas Posthumous, the well-known Dutch scholar responsible for the establishment of International Institute of Social History and the National Institute for War Documentation, and became one of the first international scholarly periodicals to focus exclusively on the history of societies outside Europe and North America.
The first session of the Symposium was a discussion of five papers printed in the November 1997 issue (volume 40 no.4) by members of the JESHO Editorial Board: '"Modern" Features in Old Assyrian Trade', by Klaas Veenhof (Leiden); 'Historicising "Modernity" in Southeast Asia', by Barbara W. Andaya (Honolulu); 'From Comparative Sociology to Global History: Britain and India in the Pre-History of Modernity', by David Washbrook (Oxford); 'Islamic Revival and Modernity: The Contemporary Movements and the Historical Paradigms', by Ira M. Lapidus (Berkeley); and 'China and "Modernity": The Uses of the Study of Chinese History in the Past and the Present', by Harriet T. Zurndorfer (Leiden). All these papers dealt in one way or another with how the concept of 'modernity' has affected understanding of non-Western societies in prior epochs. The contributors, each in his or her own way, set out to challenge Eurocentric and deterministic conceptions of modernity received from the Western social sciences over the last century, and to question their provenance and pedigree, and not least, to seek alternative ways of understanding what this concept has meant for his or her area specialization.
The first discussant, Jack Goldstone (Davis, California), commented on the definition of 'modernity' and the specific historical contexts where European and non-European societies may have experienced 'modernity'. He reminded the audience of the particular processes which Europeans may claim have led to 'modernity', but argued that these same transformations may have also happened in regions outside Europe in other historical societies. Peter van der Veer (Amsterdam), the second discussant, challenged the idea of a 'multiplicity of modernities' as expressed in these JESHO articles, preferring a formulation of the concept which would account for only one kind of modernity (grounded in the Western experience). He argued that non-Western societies may have their own histories, but not the history of the singular experience of 'modernity' based on the European Enlightenment project.
During the next two sessions a number of authors presented new studies of particular themes pursued in JESHO's forty year history. Norman Yoffee's (Ann Arbor) paper 'Kish and Tells (in the Old Babylonian Period)' focused both on city-states and issues of gender in the Ancient Near East. 'Javanese Markets and the Asian Sea Trade Boom of the Tenth to Thirteenth Centuries A.D.' by Jan W. Christie (Hull) recounted how the trade linking the seas of maritime Southeast Asia to the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea affected the Javanese domestic economy, resulting in changes in local agricultural practices, patterns of domestic marketing and regional trade, and the state's monetary and tax system. Sanjay Subrahmanyam's (Paris) 'Aspects of State-Making and History-Making in South India, 1500-1800' examined a series of texts originating in Southern India. Subrahmanyam demonstrated that these texts revealed the emergence of a certain historical consciousness expressed in both the Perso-Islamic and vernacular traditions which do not necessarily displace other historiographical evidence.
And last, Joanna H. Smith (Cambridge, Mass.) presented a study of philanthropic and religious endowment in China, entitled 'Gentry and Merchant Models of Philanthropy in the Late Ming and Early Ch'ing Dynasties'. One of the discussants of her paper, the Islamicist Jean-Claude Garcin (Aix-en-Provence), noted the importance of understanding the relationship between philanthropy and social class; he contrasted state involvement of charity in the Islamic experience with that of giving by private individuals in imperial China.
Besides members of the JESHO Editorial Board, other commentators for these papers included the Leiden-based participants: G. van Driel, Hans de Casparis, Dirk Kolff, and Wim Boot. The first session discussants' comments plus a rebuttal by David Washbrook, and the second session papers, in revised form, appear in JESHO volume 41 no.3 (August 1998).
The Symposium was sponsored by Leiden University's Research School CNWS, the International Institute for Asian Studies, and Brill Academic Publishers.