The Complexities of China

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32352, 18 July 1970, Page 4

The Complexities of China

Studies In The Social History of China And South-East Asia. Edited by Jerome Ch'en and Nicholas Tarling. Cambridge University Press. 405 pp. Index. There can be few students of China or South-East Asia in recent times who have not felt a great dept to the scholarly writings of Dr Victor Purcell, and been inspired by them to continue study in areas which Dr Purcell was among the first to open up to Western scholars. This collection of 16 essays has been produced as a memorial volume to Dr Purcell who died in 1965. It includes work by a number of his most distinguished friends, colleagues and pupils, sis well as a biographical memoir of Dr Purcell. Dr Purcell’s deep knowledge and respect for the Chinese people and culture grew out of his experience as a colonial administrator in Malaya. His voice was

raised on behalf of Malaya’s Chinese immigrants long before these people had learned to force their attention on governments by their numbers and political activity. After his colonial experience Dr Purcell went on to explore China and the Chinese with a scholar’s detachment. The practical sense and rational temper of much Chinese thinking was congenial to him; bis own life as a meritocratic scholar-official ran parallel to the Confucian ideal. As befits the memory of such a man these essays are highly specialised, and in their own way, sometimes highly controversial. This is not the stuff for the layman in search of a first approach to the complexities of China or eastern Asia: but as well as being a fund of scholarly activity it should serve to remind yet another generation of students of the diversity of the fields in which Dr Purcell once, so ably, held sway.