| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 108.4

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 108.4 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Comparative/World

Robert H. Taylor, editor. The Idea of Freedom in Asia and Africa. (The Making of Modern Freedom.) Stanford: Stanford University Press. 2002. Pp. xii, 329. $60.00.
In this highly readable and intelligent book, Africa and Asia are united by the ideas of freedom, both local and "universal." The book is neither an intellectual history nor a history of ideas. Rather, it is essentially about how ideas of freedom have shaped histories in different parts of Africa and Asia. The strength of the book is its analysis of freedom as a universal idea. Since the nineteenth century, many European universalist ideas have influenced the political and intellectual traditions of Africa and Asia. Most of the essays deal with the translation of foreign ideas into local concepts and languages, adapting them to new social and political contexts. The ideas are not homogenous, and each author chooses a different set, while applying varying notions of freedom.	1
In analyzing the broad changes in the last two hundred years, the book is successful in presenting the reasons for the spread of ideas and their overall consequences. Focusing on Japan, Sheldon Garon analyzes the end of "unfree" prostitutes and the evolution of freedom of religion, press, and political association. An essay on China by Andrew J. Nathan identifies the similarities and differences between its ideas of political freedom and those of the West.	2
One clear objective of editor Robert H. Taylor is to demonstrate that Asians and Africans, like Westerners, had established indigenous ideas about state authority and individual autonomy. Two essays devoted to Africa explore the ideas of freedom over a long period of time: Crawford Young focuses on the period from the slave trade to the 1950s, and William J. Foltz pushes the analysis further to the current era. In Burma and Thailand, the history of the ideas of freedom reflects various phases, delineated by Taylor.	. . .

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