Asian Studies

Locating Southeast Asia
Geographies of Knowledge and Politics of Space
Edited by Paul H. Kratoska, Remco Raben, and Henk Schulte Nordholt

Southeast Asia summons images of tropical forests and mountains, islands and seas, and a multitude of languages, cultures, and religions. Yet the area has never formed a unified political vision nor has it developed cultural unity. Academics have defined Southeast Asia over the years as what is left over after subtracting Australia, the South Pacific islands, China and India.

Asian History · World and Comparative History · Asian Studies · Southeast Asian Studies

Islam and the State in Indonesia
By Bahtiar Effendy

Since the unraveling of Western colonialism in the mid-twentieth century, Muslim nations have struggled to reconcile Islamic ideas and political movements with the state. In Indonesia, in particular, Islam and the state have long been at an impasse. While the ritual dimension of Islam has been allowed to flourish, political Islam has been defeated by various means.Islam

Religion · Islam · History · Political Science · Asian History · Religion | Religion, Politics & State · Asia · Southeastern Asia · Indonesia · Asian Studies

Inventing Global Ecology
Tracking the Biodiversity Ideal in India, 1947–1997
By Michael L. Lewis

Inventing Global Ecology grapples with how we should understand the development of global ecology in the twentieth century. Using India as the case study, Professor Michael Lewis considers the development of conservation policies and conservation sciences since the end of World War II and the role of United States scientists, ideas, and institutions in this process.

Environmental Policy · World and Comparative History · Asian History · Asian Studies · Global Issues · History | Historical Geography

New Terrains in Southeast Asian History
Edited by Abu Talib Ahmad and Tan Liok Ee

At a watershed moment in the scholarly approach to the history of this important region, New Terrains in Southeast Asian History captures the richness and diversity of historical discourse among Southeast Asian scholars. Through the perspectives of scholars who live and work within the region, the book offers readers a rare opportunity to enter into the world of Southeast Asian historiography.

Asian History · Asian Studies · Southeast Asian Studies · Southeastern Asia

Tropical Pioneers
Human Agency and Ecological Change in the Highlands of Sri Lanka, 1800–1900
By James L. A. Webb Jr.

In 1800, the highlands of Sri Lanka had some of the most biologically diverse primary tropical rainforest ecosystems in the world. By 1900, only a few craggy corners and mountain caps had been spared the fire stick. Highland villagers, through the extension of slash-and-burn agriculture, and British managers, through the creation of plantations—first of coffee, then cinchona, and finally tea—had removed virtually the entire primary forest cover.Tropical

History | Historical Geography · Asian History · Environmental Policy · Colonialism and Decolonization · Asian Studies · Sri Lanka

Television, Nation, and Culture in Indonesia
By Philip Kitley

The culture of television in Indonesia began with its establishment in 1962 as a public broadcasting service. From that time, through the deregulation of television broadcasting in 1990 and the establishment of commercial channels, television can be understood, Philip Kitley argues, as a part of the New Order’s national culture project, designed to legitimate an idealized Indonesian national cultural identity.

History · History | Modern | 20th Century · Political Science · Media Studies · Television - History and Criticism · Asian History · Sociology · Asia · Southeastern Asia · Indonesia · Asian Studies · Southeast Asian Studies

Theater and Martial Arts in West Sumatra
Randai and Silek of the Minangkabau
By Kirstin Pauka

Randai, the popular folk theater tradition of the Minangkabau ethnic group in West Sumatra, has evolved to include influences of martial arts, storytelling, and folk songs. Theater and Martial Arts in West Sumatra describes the origin, development, and cultural background of randai and highlights two recent developments: the emergence of female performers and modern staging techniques.This

Theater - History and Criticism · Media Studies · Southeastern Asia · Indonesia · Asia · Asian Studies · Southeast Asian Studies

The Green Archipelago
Forestry in Preindustrial Japan
By Conrad Totman
· Foreword by James L. A. Webb Jr.

This inaugural volume in the Ohio University Press Series in Ecology and History is the paperback edition of Conrad Totman’s widely acclaimed study of Japan’s environmental policies over the centuries.Professor Totman raises the critical question of how Japan’s steeply mountainous woodland has remained biologically healthy despite centuries of intensive exploitation by a dense human population that has always been dependent on wood and other forest products.

History | Historical Geography · Japanese History · Japan · Asian Studies

Myth and History in the Historiography of Early Burma
Paradigms, Primary Sources, and Prejudices
By Michael A. Aung-Thwin

After careful re-reading and analysis of original Old Burmese and other primary sources, the author discovered that four out of the five events considered to be the most important in the history of early Burma, and believed to have been historically accurate, are actually late-nineteenth and twentieth-century inventions of colonial historians caught in their own intellectual and political world.Only

Asian History · Burma · Asian Studies · Southeast Asian Studies

Hands Across the Sea?
U.S.-Japan Relations, 1961–1981
By Timothy P. Maga

In 1961, the U.S. economy and military remained unassailable in the eyes of the world. Within twenty years, America faced defeat in Vietnam and its economy had been shaken. Japan was now considered the great economic superpower, while the U.S. and Japan reversed roles as surplus and debtor nations. Hands across the Sea? examines this reversal of roles, determining how and why America and Japan became the post-World War II era’s most argumentative allies.Through

Political Science · History | United States | 20th Century · World and Comparative History · United States · Japan · Asian Studies · Cold War

Language, Power, and Ideology in Brunei Darussalam
By Geoffrey C. Gunn

Contrary to modern theories of developing nations, Brunei Darussalam, which has a very high rate of literacy, is also one of the few countries where the traditional elite retains absolute political power.

Sociology · Political Science · Asian Literature · Journalism · Southeastern Asia · Brunei · Asia · Asian Studies · Literature · Southeast Asian Studies

Language Use and Language Change in Brunei Darussalam
Edited by Peter W. Martin, Conrad Ozóg, and Gloria Poedjosoedarmo

The oil-rich sultanate of Brunei Darussalam is located on the northern coast of Borneo between the two Malaysian states of Sarawak and Sabah. Though the country is small in size and in population, the variety of language use there provides a veritable laboratory for linguists in the fields of Austronesian linguistics, bilingual studies, and sociolinguistic studies, particularly those dealing with language shift.This

Asian Literature · Sociology · Brunei · Southeastern Asia · Asia · Asian Studies · Southeast Asian Studies · Literature

Violence and the Dream People
The Orang Asli in the Malayan Emergency, 1948-1960
By John D. Leary

Violence and the Dream People is an account of a little-known struggle by the Malayan government and the communist guerrillas, during the 1948-1960 Malayan Emergency, to win the allegiance of the Orang Asli, the indigenous people of the peninsular Malaya.

Violence in Society · Asian History · World and Comparative History · History · History | Modern | 20th Century · Asia · Southeastern Asia · Malaysia · Asian Studies · Southeast Asian Studies

Jan Compagnie in the Straits of Malacca, 1641–1795
By Dianne Lewis

In 1500 Malay Malacca was the queen city of the Malay Archipelago, one of the great trade centers of the world. Its rulers, said to be descendents of the ancient line of Srivijaya, dominated the lands east and west of the straits. The Portuguese, unable to compete in the marketplace, captured the town.

18th century · 17th century · European History · Asian History · World and Comparative History · History · Business and Economics · Southeastern Asia · Malaysia · Asia · Asian Studies · Southeast Asian Studies

Dictionary of Indonesian Islam
By Howard M. Federspiel

Drawing from an extensive list of writings about Indonesian Islam that have appeared over the past fifteen years, Federspiel defines approximately 1,800 terms, phrases, historical figures, religious books, and place names that relate to Islam and gives their Arabic sources.This dictionary will be indispensable to English–speaking students and researchers working in Indonesian or Southeast Asian studies.

Asian Literature · Religion · Islam · Asian Studies · Southeast Asian Studies · Literature

Text/Politics in Island Southeast Asia
Essays in Interpretation
By David M. E. Roskies

How does the language of poetry conspire with the language of power? This question is at the heart of this volume which deals with Indonesia and the Philippines in the early modern and post-1945 periods. These two nations have been shaped by the forces of nationalism, revolution, and metropolitan hegemony. Whether written in Malay, Tagalog, English, or Dutch the writings coming from them carry the contradictions of their time and place in the milieu of race and class.

Asian Studies · Southeast Asian Studies · Literature · Asian Literature · Literary Criticism · Political Science · History

The Tale of Prince Samuttakote
A Buddhist Epic from Thailand
By Thomas Hudak

During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Thai poets produced epics depicting elaborate myths and legends which intermingled the human, natural, and supernatural worlds. One of the most famous of these classical compositions is the Samuttakhoot kham chan, presented here in English for the first time as The Tale of Prince Samuttakote.

Poetry · Asian Literature · Buddhism · Asian Studies · Southeast Asian Studies · Literature · Thailand

The Voice of the Night
Complete Poetry and Prose of Chairil Anwar
By Chairil Anwar
· Translation by Burton Raffel

Chairil Anway (1922–1949) was the primary architect of the Indonesian literary revolution in both poetry and prose. In a few intense years he forged almost ingle-handedly a vital, mature literary language in Bahasa Indonesia, a language which formally came to exist in 1928. Anway led the way for the many Indonesian writers who have emerged during the past fifty years.This volume contains all that has survived of Anwar’s writing.

Poetry · Asian Literature · Asian Studies · Southeast Asian Studies · Literature · Indonesia

The Indigenization of Pali Meters in Thai Poetry
By Thomas Hudak

During the Ayutthaya period in Thailand (1350-1767), a group of meters based upon specific types and arrangements of syllables became a significant part of the Thai literary corpus. Known as chan in Thai literature, these meters, and the stanzas created from them, were adapted and transformed so that they corresponded in structure to other Thai verse forms.

Asian Literature · Thailand · Asian Studies · Southeast Asian Studies · Literature

Financing Local Government in Indonesia
By Nick Devas

Considering the size and importance of Indonesia, remarkably little has been published in the West about the society and government of that country. With over 160 million people, it is the fifth most populous country in the world. It is an archipelago of some 13,000 islands, stretching over 5,000 kilometers from from east to west, and contains within it an amazing array of cultures, as well as ethnic, economic, and religious variations.Not

Business and Economics · Political Science · Asian Studies · Southeast Asian Studies

Military Ascendancy and Political Culture
A Study of Indonesia’s Golkar
By Leo Suryadinata

Most of the earlier studies on the Indonesian political party, Golkar, tend to view the organization solely as an electoral machine used by the military to legitimize its power. However, this study is different in that it considers Golkar less an electoral machine and more as a political organization which inherited the political traditions of the nominal Muslim parties and the Javanese governing elite pre-1965, before the inauguration of Indonesia’s New Order.

Asian History · Political Science · History · Military History · Indonesia · Southeastern Asia · Asia · Asian Studies · Southeast Asian Studies

Studies in Austronesian Linguistics
By Richard Mcginn

This volume consists of seventeen articles by scholars including Robert Blust, Paul Hopper, A. L. Becker, Sarah Bell, J. C. Catford, Talmy Givón, J. W. M. Verharr and John U. Wolff. Tagalog, Cebuano, Ilokano, Chamorro, Malay, Old Malay, Javanese, Old Javanese, Indonesian, Niases, Loniu, and Niuean are some of the languages discussed in the study. The essays explore the issues of ergativity in Western Austronesian languages, historical morphology, phonology, phonetics and morphophonemics.

Asian Studies · Southeast Asian Studies · Literature · Asian Literature · Linguistics

Running Amok
An Historical Inquiry
By John C. Spores

Amok, one of the few Malay words commonly appearing in English, names a syndrome of unpredictable and indiscriminate homicidal behavior with suicidal intent. In tracing the development of this behavioral pattern, Spores examines historical data, including frequently colorful colonialist accounts of such episodes, from British Malaya and the Netherlands East Indies during the period 1800–1925.Spores

History · Southeast Asian Studies · Asian Studies · Malaysia · Southeastern Asia · Asia · 19th century · History | Modern | 20th Century · Violence in Society

Spectator Society
The Philippines Under Martial Rule
By Benjamin N. Muego

As the first post-war president of the Philippines to win reelection, Ferdinand Marcos enjoyed grassroots popularity and was also highly esteemed by the officer corps and rand-and-file of the armed forces. Even more important, he was decisive, ruthless, and without equal as a political tactician. This study traces chronologically and topically the events which led to Marcos’ declaration of martial law in 1972 and calls for a return to participatory democracy.

Southeast Asian History · Military History · Philippines · Southeast Asian Studies · Asian Studies · History | Modern | 20th Century

From Kampung to City
A Social History of Kucing Malaysia, 1820-1970
By Craig Lockard

One of the major processes in modern Southeast Asian history has been the development of ethnically heterogeneous towns and cities. Kucing, an intermediate-sized urban center in Sarawak, Malaysia, is today an institutionally complex, predominantly Chinese city of 100,000 led by modern political leaders. Lockard’s account of the development and growth of Kucing over 150 years devotes particular attention to the remarkable absence of ethnic conflict in the mixed society of Kucing.

Asian Studies · 19th century · Asia · Southeastern Asia · Malaysia · Sociology · Asian History · World and Comparative History · History · Southeast Asian Studies · History | Modern | 20th Century

Report on Brunei in 1904
By M. S. H. McArthur

In 1904 the British Protectorate of Brunei had reached the nadir of its fortunes. Reduced to two small strips of territory, bankrupt, and threatened with takeover by the Rajah of Sarawak (Sir Charles Brooke), Brunei received M. S. H. McArthur who was dispatched to make recommendations for Brunei’s future administration.

History · World and Comparative History · Asian History · History | Modern | 20th Century · Brunei · Southeastern Asia · Asia · Asian Studies · Southeast Asian Studies

The Japanese Experience in Indonesia
Selected Memoirs of 1942-1945
By Anthony Reid
· Edited by Oki Akira

Although the wartime Japanese military administration of Indonesia was critical to the making of modern Indonesia, it remains shrouded in mystery, in part because of the systematic destruction of records following the Japanese surrender.

Japanese History · Memoir · World War II · Asian Studies

Essays on Contemporary Chinese Poetry
By Julia Lin

This first critical study of major contemporary Chinese poets in English treats the work of Chi Hsien, Cheng Ch’ou–yu, Chou Mengtieh, Lomen, Yungtzu, Ya Hsien, Yip Wai–lim, Wu Sheng, and Yu Kuang-chung. Ranging from the classically inspired to the highly experimental, their works represent some of the most important poetry written in the post–1949 period in China.Beginning

Asian Studies · Literature · Asian Literature

The Red Earth
A Vietnamese Memoir of Life on a Colonial Rubber Plantation
By Binh Tu Tran
· Edited by David G. Marr
· Translation by John Spragens

Phu Rieng was one of many French rubber plantations in colonial Vietnam; Tran Tu Binh was one of 17,606 laborers brought to work there in 1927, and his memoir is a straightforward, emotionally searing account of how one Vietnamese youth became involved in revolutionary politics. The connection between this early experience and later activities of the author becomes clear as we learn that Tran Tu Binh survived imprisonment on Con Son island to help engineer the general uprising in Hanoi in 1945.

Asian History · Memoir · World and Comparative History · Vietnam · Asian Studies · Southeast Asian Studies

Language and Social Change in Java
Linguistic Reflexes of Modernization in a Traditional Royal Polity
By J. Joseph Errington

Errington explores linguistic evidence of social change among the traditional priyayi elite of Surakarta in south-central Java. Employing data from texts, interviews, observed speech, and questionnaires, he shows a progressive leveling in the language used to denote traditional status differences, and he demonstrates how perceptions of speech styles reflect etiquette and the views of the users.Errington

Asian Literature · Sociology · Asian Studies · Southeast Asian Studies · Literature