Henk. Schulte Nordholt – författare

In Spectacular Accumulation, Morgan Pitelka investigates the significance of material culture and sociability in late sixteenth-century Japan, focusing in particular on the career and afterlife of Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543–1616), the founder of the Tokugawa shogunate. The story of Ieyasu illustrates the close ties between people, things, and politics and offers us insight into the role of material culture in the shift from medieval to early modern Japan and in shaping our knowledge of history. This innovative and eloquent history of a transitional age in Japan reframes the relationship between culture and politics. Like the collection of meibutsu, or ""famous objects,"" exchanging hostages, collecting heads, and commanding massive armies were part of a strategy Pitelka calls """"spectacular accumulation,"""" which profoundly affected the creation and character of Japan's early modern polity. Pitelka uses the notion of spectacular accumulation to contextualize the acquisition of """"art"""" within a larger complex of practices aimed at establishing governmental authority, demonstrating military dominance, reifying hierarchy, and advertising wealth. He avoids the artificial distinction between cultural history and political history, arguing that the famed cultural efflorescence of these years was not subsidiary to the landscape of political conflict, but constitutive of it. Employing a wide range of thoroughly researched visual and material evidence, including letters, diaries, historical chronicles, and art, Pitelka links the increasing violence of civil and international war to the increasing importance of samurai social rituals and cultural practices. Moving from the Ashikaga palaces of Kyoto to the tea utensil collections of Ieyasu, from the exchange of military hostages to the gift-giving rituals of Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Spectacular Accumulation traces Japanese military rulers' power plays over famous artworks as well as objectified human bodies.

Under the slogan 'Merdeka!' the Republic of Indonesia rushed into a battle for independence, a struggle of which no one could predict the outcome. Harry Poeze and Henk Schulte Nordholt provide a new narrative about the revolution, one that focuses not only on the fight against the Dutch but also on the precarious rise of the Republic. After the horrors of the Japanese occupation, the Republican leaders needed to somehow build a new state. From the Dutch side, they had to deal with short-sighted politicians and warmongering soldiers. On its own side, the Republic was confronted with wayward and combative youths, autonomous military leaders, conservative federalists, revolutionary communists, and radical Muslims. Coup d'états, a civil war and two Dutch military attacks threatened the survival of the Republic. That is why the victory finally achieved by the Indonesian leaders is the revolution's greatest miracle.

Von Bali bis Singapur, von Myanmar bis Vietnam – die faszinierende Geschichte der meerumspülten Welt zwischen Australien und ChinaVon den sagenumwobenen Reichen wie Siam oder dem Reich der Khmer über die Kolonialzeit mit dem blutigen Krieg in Vietnam bis zum Aufstieg moderner Metropolen wie Singapur: Der niederländische Historiker Henk Schulte Nordholt erzählt die vielfältige Geschichte Südostasiens, einer faszinierenden Welt mit unzähligen Inseln, geprägt von Seefahrt und Handel, gefährdet durch Vulkane und Tsunamis. Der Blick zurück erklärt, warum der König in Thailand wie ein Heiliger verehrt wird, die Frauen in der Region seit jeher recht autonom waren und in Teilen Indonesiens ein gemäßigter Islam gelebt wird. Heute nehmen die religiösen Konflikte zu, der Kontrast zwischen Arm und Reich ist so extrem wie nie, der steigende Meeresspiegel existenzbedrohend. Die Chance für die Zukunft, so zeigt Schulte Nordholt, liegt in der Zusammenarbeit – in der Region und weltweit.

Trade flows, cities and kinship relations can all be seen as elements of complex networks. In this collection of essays, all of which deal with Asia, we argue that there are good reasons to envisage them as various dimensions of the same networks. Nevertheless, it is fairly rare to find trade, cities and kinship relations as intimately linked as we have portrayed them in this volume, because they are usually classified within different sub-disciplines of history, whose practitioners are all too often not inclined to talk to people outside their own field. The Australian born historian Heather Sutherland, who recently retired from the VU university in Amsterdam, is an exception in this respect because most of her work gravitates towards an approach which aims to integrate this trinity of topics.This collection of essays, written by a number of her students and close colleagues, has taken its cue from her approach. It is not the case that all the contributions deal with all three topics but they as a collective demonstrate how flows of trade, cities-both as urban centres and nodes in wider networks-and kinship relations hang together, and how the study of one topic opens new vistas on the other two, revealing causal links that otherwise would have remained hidden. Thus, the essays in this collective volume support the idea that trade, towns and kin-although often dealt with quite separately-can be viewed as various aspects of the same networks, connecting people, places and commodities.

Under the slogan ‘Merdeka!’ the Republic of Indonesia rushed into a battle for independence – a struggle of which no one could predict the outcome. Harry Poeze and Henk Schulte Nordholt provide a new narrative about the revolution, one that focuses not only on the fight against the Dutch but also on the precarious rise of the Republic. After the horrors of the Japanese occupation, the Republican leaders needed to somehow build a new state. From the Dutch side, they had to deal with short-sighted politicians and warmongering soldiers. On its own side, the Republic was confronted with wayward and combative youths, autonomous military leaders, conservative federalists, revolutionary communists, and radical Muslims. Coup d’états, a civil war and two Dutch military attacks threatened the survival of the Republic. That is why the victory finally achieved by the Indonesian leaders is the revolution’s greatest miracle.

Since times immemorial China regarded its culture, philosophy and statecraft as superior to all other nations, hence the saying Hua Yi Zhi Bian ( ....)- China and the barbarians are different. In the so-called 'Age of Humiliation' (1839-1949), Western and Japanese imperialists reduced the old empire to a semi-colony. China has now regained its economic and military strength, but what drives its domestic and foreign policy? President Xi Jinping has declared that 'Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era' is at hand, but China can better be described as a country in search of a new identity. The philosopher Tu Weiming sees China as a battlefield of Socialism, Liberalism and Confucianism. The outcome of this struggle will have profound repercussions. Continuation of the present policy will only lead to increased tensions with its neighbours, because the Communist Party claims that only she can restore China's rightful position under heaven. Beijing's land reclamation in the South China Sea and the 'One Belt, One Road' initiative are foremost driven by a yearning to restore the days of China's imperial grandeur. If China choses the 'third way' of blending the Confucian meritocratic tradition with a western style representative government, a clash with its neighbours and the United States can be avoided. China and the Barbarians offers a fascinating insight into the thinking of China's philosophers and powerbrokers of the past and present. Interviews with eight prominent Chinese intellectuals add an authentic ring to this book.