Japan and China did not begin to emerge as unified political entities until the nineteenth century. Yet scholars and politicians persistently refer to "Japan" and "China" in discussions of earlier periods, as if the modern nation-state had long been established in these regions. Joshua Fogel here brings together essays by eight renowned East Asian scholars to demonstrate why this oversight distorts our historical analysis and understanding of both countries. The nation-states of Japan and China developed much later and, indeed, far less uniformly than usually conveyed in popular myth and political culture. Moreover, the false depiction of an earlier national identity not only alters the factual record; it serves the contemporary engines of nationalist mythology and propaganda. This interdisciplinary volume asks deceptively simple questions: When did "Japan" and "China" become Japan and China? When and why do inhabitants begin to define their identity and interests nationally rather than locally? Identifying the role of mitigating factors from disease and travel abroad to the subtleties of political language and aesthetic sensibility, the answers provided in these diverse and insightful essays are appropriately complex. By setting aside Western notions of the nation-state, the contributors approach each region on its own terms, while the thematic organization of the book provides a unique lens through which to view the challenges common to understanding both Japan and China. This highly readable collection will be important to scholars both inside and beyond the field of East Asian studies.

The issue of devolution has often been one for polemic rather than reasoned analysis. This book places recent developments in the United Kingdom in their historical context, examining political and constitutional aspects of devolution in Britain from Gladstone's espousal of Home Rule in 1886 right up to the 1998 legislation governing the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly.As well as considering what devolution will mean for Scotland and Wales, and how it will work in practice, Vernon Bogdanor discusses parallels with earlier devolution debates, giving special attention to the issue of Irish Home Rule which dominated British politics from 1886 to 1914. He also examines the experience of devolution in Northern Ireland and analyses the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, as well as considering the impact and implications of the new arrangements for the government of Londonunder the Mayoral system implemented in May 2000.Devolution in the United Kingdom cuts across the boundaries of disciplines such as history, political science, and law, and will be required reading for anyone seeking to understand the significance of the most important constitutional development of our time.