Search

This paper presents an examination of processes of secondary state formation that occurred during the emergence of the Ryukyu Kingdom, in southwestern Japan, from the tenth to seventeenth centuries A.D. These processes include the influx of new populations, the appearance of new subsistence strategies and political groupings, shifting patterns of long-distance trade, the development of new patterns of foreign relations with China and Japan, the creation of indigenous culture and new ideology, and the transformation of gender hierarchy. I examine these processes from the perspective of political leadership and the nature of political hierarchy, concluding that the Okinawan case is distinctive in its heterarchical organization. The corporate, collective nature of Okinawan communities was overlain by a state-level network system that developed at the time of tributary linkages with China in the fourteenth century A.D. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The period roughly spanning the years 1900 to 1920 has been termed the "Progressive era" because of the extensive amount of thought and action directed at ill effects of massive urbanization, industrialization, and immigration. The argument advanced is that each historian projected back upon the Progressive era the dominant theoretical approaches and the salient societal features of his own period. In taking this line of approach, the author hopes to buttress the view that social and historical theory has developed not so much by processes wholly internal to the social sciences but rather in connection with the changing societal and historical circumstances in which theorists themselves work. In other words, this is a study in the sociology of knowledge; specifically, an examination of the social contexts of historical reinterpretation. The author deals with the subject, both by examining the empirical evidence which has been brought to bear upon theories of authors Hofstadter, Kolko, and Wiebe and by seeing how "incompatible" their conclusions really are.