ABSTRACT
It has long been the practice to analyze modern Asia from the viewpoint of nations and international relationships. Through this framework, much historio-graphical labor has been expended examining the degree of so-called “nation building” and the acceptance of “international” law in Asian countries. This approach has also been understood to reveal the degree of “modernization” of Asian countries. After much controversy concerning the adaptability of this Western-oriented modernization model to Asia, however, it has also been argued that “areas” or “regions”—an intermediate category between the nation and the world generally—should be analyzed in their full historical meaning.
