Since the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, most of the topics associated with the study of urban history have languished largely unstudied beneath a pall of ideologically based neglect. The list of understudied subjects includes urban population, physical structure, social structure, economic activity, urban politics, urban planning and the environment, and urban culture. This lack of interest in urban history directly reflects the emphasis on the role of the peasantry as a creative force in Chinese history. The history of Chinese peasant uprisings and wars became the focus of attention and left little interest for what changes might have taken place in urban settings. Today, a combination of forces has generated considerable changes in the institutional structure of historical studies in China, as well as compelling historians to reconsider established research preferences. In this atmosphere it appears that for the first time since 1949 topics that concern urban historians in the West and Japan are receiving serious attention in the People's Republic of China. While it is still too early to speak of urban history in China, continuation of current trends in historical research over the next five to ten years will almost certainly bring this specialization into existence.

Jane Elliott presents a strongly revisionist thesis about the Boxer War of 1900 embedded in a labyrinthine book. Her main topic is the war waged by eight foreign powers against the Boxers in 1900, but the book contains byways where Elliott beckons readers to follow through discussions of images of warfare that are tangential to this main thesis.

One of my goals as editor has been to develop cross-regional consideration in the pages of this journal of major issues drawing scholarly attention in both the social sciences and humanities. The most common approach for such projects is to bring groups of scholars together at a conference and then to publish a conference volume. Indeed, JAS has published groups of papers from such conferences, most recently the four articles on vernacular Muslim literature in Asia organized by John Bowen (JAS 52.3 [August 1993]). In a variation on that approach, other academic journals, such as Daedalus, assemble groups of articles around a common theme. Many scholarly journals have some or even all of their issues organized around special topics.

How to establish and transmit understanding across the boundaries of language, geography, culture, and time lies at the very heart of Asian Studies. Ours is a highly refined form of cross-cultural activity, but one that places the highest value on this understanding. To engage in this activity, individuals undergo long periods of training to master other languages, to produce, and then to present their knowledge in certain rigorously defined forms. The scholar works in this way both to establish some particular understanding and then to transmit that understanding to other Asianists, students, various other specialists, and the public at large.