Books in the Nordic Institute of Asian Stud series

This volume examines the careers and intellectual positions of three prominent Japanese "dissidents" in the later Imperial period--Minobe Tatsukichi, Sakai Toshihiko, and Saitō Takao--as individual responses to the new forms of authority that appeared after the Meiji Restoration of 1868. The principles to which each adhered--the rule of law, socialist egalitarianism, and representative government--contributed to the new ideas about authority and the individual in post-Restoration Japan. They also remain fundamental (at least in theory) in today's Japanese polity and society. The study reaffirms the serious limitations of the pre-war Japanese political system, its structural and institutional problems, and deep-rooted ambivalence about democratic change.

Southeast Asia contains some of the world's busiest shipping waters, particularly the Indonesian archipelago, the Straits of Malacca and the South China Sea. The natural geography and human ecology of maritime Southeast Asia makes the area particularly apt for piracy, which has a long history in the region. In several instances during the last 250 years, pirates have disrupted peaceful trade and communications. Pirates in Paradise traces the shifting character and development of Southeast Asian piracy from the eighteenth century to the present day, demonstrating how political, economic, social, and technological factors have contributed to change--but have by no means exterminated--the phenomenon.