In the last decade and a half, the historiography - though not the society - of South Africa has been transformed. In 1970, there was not the same vitality that then characterised much of the historical work north of the Zambesi. In 1984, Southern African historical studies are by far the most lively anywhere in the continent. Indeed, even if with their typical parochialism those who survey modern trends in historiography have not noticed it, many facets of the so-called “new” social history are peculiarly well represented in the South African literature. The spectacularly fast urbanisation of South Africa since the mineral revolution at the end of the last century and the concomittant intensification of capitalist agriculture have naturally provided subjects enough, and they have been worked out with an exemplary attention to detail and texture. Perhaps the driving force behind this work has been a concentration on the ways in which Africans, both in town and in the countryside, were able to make and remake their worlds, in conflict with and in the interstices provided by the racist white society and government.

The Cape Archives Depot is one of the largest research institutions in Cape Town. It is housed in the original building of the University of the Cape of Good Hope which was designed by Hawke and McKinlay and completed in 1910.

After spending two and a half months in the city-jungle of Johannesburg, I was finally able to go to Cape Town. The Cape Archives was one of the most important places for my research into the urban labour and race relations and the history of the Trade Union Movement in the Western Cape.

“Goa has never been other than fundamentally Indian …” J.M. Richards, 1982.

“The posteritie of the Portingales, both men and women being in the third degree, doe seeme to be naturall Indians, both in colour and fashion.” J.H. van Linschoten, c. 1590.

“Rich on trade and loot, Goa in the halcyon days of the sixteenth century was a handsome city of great houses and fine churches… In the eyes of stern moralists the city was another Babylon, but to men of the world it was a paradise where, with beautiful Eurasian girls readily available, life was a ceaseless round of amorous assignments and sexual delights”. G.V. Scammell, 1981.

In his article “Research on the 17th century Mission in China and the Chinese Reaction”, Prof. Eric Zürcher referred to Chinese documents owned by the Sinological Institute of Leiden University, including “some very interesting texts that show us “late Ming Christianity in action”, such as devotional texts, stories about miraculous happenings”; (p. 113 b). One of these was the Lixiu yijian, A Mirror to Encourage (self-)Improvement. In this paper, I intend to analyse this document in order to show the interaction between mission Catholicism and Chinese popular religion, to demonstrate one facet of the meeting of East and West.

In the production of tropical export crops, the factor labour has always overshadowed the two other factors, land and capital. In the days prior to the mechanisation of agriculture, that is to say, far into the second half of the 19th century, the factor capital almost coincided with labour. “Des bras, des bras, toujours des bras” as the saying went among the planters of the Mascareignes. However, it would be wrong to suggest that before the industrial revolution the relative importance of labour only manifested itself in the production of tropical export crops. There is a revered tradition in economic theory which considers labour to be the only source of wealth. Thus, Karl Marx proposed that the value produced by a labourer above the maintenance level should be designated as surplus value. For him, the control of this surplus lay at the basis of each “mode of production” (his term for a stage of development). Each mode of production was characterised by a specific set of social relations between the labourer, the ruling class that appropriates the surplus value, and the means of production. Labour and the labour process therefore were in his eyes a social phenomenon. One might add they are inherent to the tissue of authorities that constituate any social order.

After several attempts and failures, the Asociación Española de Americanistas was, at last, formally established in 1983. The association is now in the process of being affiliated to the European Council of Social Research on Latin America. In this way, Spain's americanistas are trying -with not much success, I would say - to organize themselves as a professional body, and also to create an institutional frame for coordination of their research, publications, library resources and representation of their common interests. There is no hope of the Asociación ever reaching the effectiveness of, for instance, the German Arbeitsgemeinschaft Deutsche Latinamerika–Forschung in the early 1970s, but at least we start to think - if not to move - in the right direction, namely, of solidarity and cooperation on a national scale.

The publishers “blurb” on the back cover informs us that Oral Historiography is a “major re-evaluation of the collection and interpretation of historical data.” This, it certainly is not. Rather, it is a concise re-statement of what can be found scattered elsewhere, much of the best of it in Professor Henige's own previous work and in History in Africa, the premier English language journal of historical fieldwork which Professor Henige edits. Characteristically Henige himself makes far more modest claims for the volume asking that “this should be regarded simply as an effort to draw together a few of the many strands relating to the prospects of oral historical research and the problems associated with carrying it out successfully.”

In 1980–81 the School of Social Science of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton (N.J.) selected as its special research topic “The Comparative Study of Colonialism”. On the invitation of Professors Albert Hirschman and Clifford Geertz a number of scholars from various countries came together representing the disciplines of anthropology, economy, political science and history. Although each scholar was of course mainly occupied with his or her own research, a number of seminars and discussions were also organised where different ideas and approaches were exchanged. One of the conclusions was that further elaboration of this subject was not only interesting historically but was also relevant to the present day situation. Another conclusion was that especially the comparative study of India and Indonesia would be a most promising possibility within this field. The reasons for selecting this particular topic were both political and scientific. India and Indonesia are two of the most important countries in Asia, both politically and economically; they used to be the two most important colonies in Asia. The colonial impact was of long duration in both countries and both experienced the transformation from commercial capitalist exploitation to full colonialism. Even in pre-colonial times the histories of these two nations are in many ways comparable,

As a result of these considerations Prof. Dharma Kumar (Delhi School of Economics) and Prof. H.L. Wesseling (Leiden University) decided to study the feasibility of a long term research project on the comparative study of India and Indonesia and implicating Indian, Indonesian, British and Dutch scholars.

As is well-known, between 1639 and 1853 the only officially allowed communication between Japan and the rest of the world flowed through the single Dutch trading post on Deshima island in the bay of Nagasaki. Even before this, and indeed for a short time thereafter, the Dutch trading establishment there provided a spyhole through which Europeans could observe some of what went on in the Land of the Rising Sun and through which Japanese could gain some insight into the rest of the world. It is therefore not surprising that since the 1880s the archives of the Dutch factory have been seen as an important source for the history of Japan. In particular the daily Daghregister (or Journal) which is unbroken between 1633 and 1860, forms the basic key to the records of the Deshima factory, especially during the annual journey to the court in Edo (Tokyo).