natural forces themselves. Men passed that stage hundreds of years ago—possibly many thousands of years ago when they first mastered the use of fire, invented the bow and arrow, and developed agriculture. Even the economic problems posed by the present explosive expansion of the world’s population could probably be met with ease by a normal rate of scientific progress without any frenetic sense of urgency.
Our most pressing scientific problems are all man-made. That is to say, they do not arise from our natural environment but grow out of unsatisfactory relations between human groups. The demand for a sense of urgency has resulted not from a fear of natural forces but from the fear that other men will use their scientific knowledge unwisely. Even the more mundane scientific problems involving man’s livelihood and well-being have been greatly complicated by this same fear of other men, for it is this fear that has drained a large proportion of mankind’s energy and wealth into non-productive undertakings. The basic malady, as throughout most human history, is the inability of men to cooperate successfully with each other. A major symptom of the disease is the frantic race to achieve superiority in weapons of destruction. Until the disease itself is cured, we obviously must devote attention to this very dangerous symptom, but a more basic need is to find the causes and cures of the underlying malady.
The complex problems of human society can be approached in a variety of ways—through the techniques of the philosopher, the psychologist, the sociologist, the economist, and the political scientist, and through the geographic and cultural focus of the area specialist. Anthropology, which has been such a distinguished part of the work of the University of Arizona, has thrown great light on the so-called advanced cultures of the world by studying intensively some of the supposedly primitive cultures. No one would deny that the study of the Soviet Union and its Russian inhabitants is a subject of prime importance. But I would maintain that, among all these fields, none is more important than the study of Asia and its peoples, both as a subject in itself and as an aspect of the humanities and the various social science disciplines. Here undoubtedly lies one of the largest, least explored, and most crucial of all the frontiers of human knowledge.
The case for the study of Asia is based in part on its size in human terms. Roughly half the people of the entire world live in geographic Asia. If we use the term, as it is often used, in a looser, cultural sense to indicate the whole non-Western part of the world, then Asia comprises well over half of the world’s population. This in recent times has been a relatively weak segment of mankind, and no one would claim that within the next few years Asians might themselves determine the fate of the world. But Asia will undoubtedly continue to be, as it already
