How can a controversy about forms of deference (show of respect to the elite) in Java reveal tensions around colonial policies and the rise of nationalism? What was VietNamese about the French colonial governor's palace in Hanoi, and how did the VietNamese design partially French rural houses? What can the circulation of jazz in Asia tell us about ......
Money Politics, Patronage and Clientelism at the Grassroots
This new text provides a systematic analysis of grassroots level electioneering in the Philippines, using data gathered in the context of the 2016 elections, and combining in-depth ethnographic fieldwork with a national comparative scope. The chapters in this volume detail and analyse the electoral dynamics in a number of localities in order to ......
Humans and Other Animals in Colonial Singapore, 1819-1942
The environmental turn in the humanities and social sciences has meant a new focus on the history of animals. This is one of the first books to look across species at animals in a colonial, urban society. If imperialism is a series of power relationships, it involves not only the subjugation of human communities but also animals. What was the ......
Singapore had to build a military from scratch starting in 1965, with compulsory national service introduced in 1967. This is the story of the Singapore Armed Forces in the form of a collective portrait of its leaders. Tens of thousands of Singaporeans (overwhelmingly men) were commissioned as officers between 1965 and 2018, but only 170 ......
What is the modern in Southeast Asia's architecture and how do we approach its study critically? This pathbreaking multidisciplinary volume is the first critical survey of Southeast Asia's modern architecture. It looks at the challenges of studying this complex history through the conceptual frameworks of translation, epistemology, and power. ......
The countries that make up Southeast Asia are seeing an incredible resurgence in their economic power. Over the past fifty years, their combined wealth has reached the same level as the United Kingdom and, taken together, they are on track to become the fifth-largest world economy. But that stability and success has drawn the attention of the ......
Historians rely on Singapore's strategic position to explain its great success as a royal trading port in the 14th century, and as a British colony after 1819. What, then, accounts for the many centuries when it seemed not to thrive, and was seen in the words of John Crawfurd as "only the occasional resort of pirates"? This seeming paradox sits ......
Death and Survival in the Anti-Communist Violence in East Java, Indonesia
The wave of anti-communist violence that swept across Indonesia in 1965-66 produced a particularly high death toll in East Java. It also transformed the lives of hundreds of thousands of survivors, who faced decades of persecution, imprisonment and violence. In this book, Vannessa Hearman examines the human cost and the community impact of the ......
Mangkunagara I (1726-95) was one of the most flamboyant figures of 18th-century Java. A charismatic rebel from 1740 to 1757 and one of the foremost military commanders of his age, he won the loyalty of many followers. He was also a devout Muslim of the Mystic Synthesis style, a devotee of Javanese culture and a lover of beautiful women and Dutch ......
