China Books

The historical study of women and gender in Southeast Asia has received relatively little attention, despite the fact that ?female autonomy? is often cited as a distinguishing feature of the region. This pioneering collection brings together a number of international scholars distinguished by their knowledge of relevant primary sources and their willingness to ask new questions and apply new methodologies. Often challenging established generalisations, the essays highlight the changes and continuities in gender roles. Offering both a specialist and comparative perspective, the book will appeal to students as well as more senior scholars working on Southeast Asia, and will provide a useful supplement for cross-cultural courses on women and gender constructions. Barbara Watson Andaya is professor of Asian studies at the University of Hawai'i. Contributors: Barbara Watson Andaya, Leonard Y. Andaya, Carolyn Brewer, Helen Creese, Ruzy Hashim, Gerrit Knaap, Junko Koizumi, Ann Kumar, Hendrik E. Niemeijer, Dhiravat Na Pombejra, Ashley Thompson, John K. Whitmore. (For this item please quote stock ID 17097) ISBN: 9781930734005

[Indent] This volume analyses changes in governance processes in Southeast Asia, particularly those relating to democratic development, seeking to go beyond the often one-dimensional debate on democratisation in Asia. (For this item please quote stock ID 22709) ISBN: 9788791114441

An ethnomusical presentation of one person's vocal performance of rather highly varied sets of words, manners of performance, and the use of these competences in communication with other singers. Although this orally transmitted form of singing is unique to the Kammu of northern Laos, it is related to a much larger complex in Southeast Asia and thus will be of interest to a wide group of musicologists. Companion volume: Kammu Songs: The Songs of Kam Raw (For this item please quote stock ID 22713) ISBN: 9788791114328

[Indent] Kammu Songs builds on the contents of I Will Send My Song. It contains Kam Raw's repertoire of social adult songs in the Kammu language, with English translations, interpretations and commentary. (For this item please quote stock ID 22714) ISBN: 9788791114243

The modern states of Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, Myanmar, Malaysia, Singapore, Cambodia, Laos, Brunei, and East Timor were once a tapestry of kingdoms, colonies, and smaller polities linked by sporadic trade and occasional war. By the end of the nineteenth century, however, the United States and several European powers had come to control almost the entire region - only to depart dramatically in the decades following World War II. The Emergence of Modern Southeast Asia offers a new and up-to-date perspective on this complex region. Although it does not neglect nation-building (the central theme of its popular and long-lived predecessor, In Search of Southeast Asia), the present work focuses on economic and social history, gender, and ecology. It describes the long-term impact of global forces on the region and traces the spread and interplay of capitalism, nationalism, and socialism. It acknowledges that modernisation has produced substantial gains in such areas as life expectancy and education but has also spread dislocation and misery. (For this item please quote stock ID 23295) ISBN: 9780824828417

Scholars have long accepted the belief that a Theravada Buddhist Mon kingdom, Râmaññadesa, flourished in coastal Lower Burma until it was conquered in 1057 by King Aniruddha of Pagan - which then became, in essence, the new custodian and repository of Mon culture in the Upper Burmese interior. This scenario, which Aung-Thwin calls the 'Mon Paradigm', has circumscribed much of the scholarship on early Burma and significantly shaped the history of Southeast Asia for more than a century. Now, in a masterful reassessment of Burmese history, Michael Aung-Thwin reexamines the original contemporary accounts and sources without finding any evidence of an early Theravada Mon polity or a conquest by Aniruddha. The paradigm, he finds, cannot be sustained. How, when, and why did the Mon Paradigm emerge? Aung-Thwin meticulously traces the paradigm's creation to the merging of two temporally, causally, and contextually unrelated Mon and Burmese narratives, which were later synthesized in English by colonial officials and scholars. Thus there was no single originating source, only a late and mistaken conflation of sources. The conceptual, methodological, and empirical ramifications of these findings are significant. The prevalent view that state-formation began in the maritime regions of Southeast Asia with trade and commerce rather than in the interior with agriculture must now be reassessed. In addition, a more rigorous look at the actual scope and impact of a romanticised Mon culture in the region is required. Other issues important to the field of early Burma and Southeast Asian studies, including the process of 'Indianisation', the characterisation of 'classical' states, and the advent and spread of Theravada Buddhism, are also directly affected by Aung-Thwin's work. Finally, it provides a geo-political, cultural, and economic alternative to what has become an ethnic interpretation of Burma's history. Michael Aung-Thwin is professor of Asian studies at the University of Hawai`i. (For this item please quote stock ID 24889) ISBN: 9780824828868

'The Princess of the Flaming Womb', the Javanese legend that introduces this pioneering study, symbolises the many ambiguities attached to femaleness in Southeast Asian societies. Yet despite these ambiguities, the relatively egalitarian nature of male?female relations in Southeast Asia is central to arguments claiming a coherent identity for the region. This challenging work by senior scholar Barbara Watson Andaya considers such contradictions while offering a thought-provoking view of Southeast Asian history that focuses on women's roles and perceptions. Andaya explores the broad themes of the early modern era (1500?1800) ? the introduction of new religions, major economic shifts, changing patterns of state control, the impact of elite lifestyles and behaviours ? drawing on an extraordinary range of sources and citing numerous examples from Thai, Vietnamese, Burmese, Philippine, and Malay societies. In the process, she provides a timely and innovative model for putting women back into world history Andaya approaches the problematic issue of 'Southeast Asia' by considering ways in which topography helped describe a geo-cultural zone and contributed to regional distinctiveness in gender construction. She examines the degree to which world religions have been instrumental in (re)constructing conceptions of gender ? an issue especially pertinent to Southeast Asian societies because of the leading role so often played by women in indigenous ritual. She also considers the effects of the expansion of long-distance trade, the incorporation of the region into a global trading network, the beginnings of cash-cropping and wage labour, and the increase in slavery on the position of women. Erudite, nuanced, and accessible, The Flaming Womb makes a major contribution to a Southeast Asia history that is both regional and global in content and perspective. Barbara Watson Andaya is professor of Asian studies and director of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, University of Hawai'i. (For this item please quote stock ID 26817) ISBN: 9780824829551

(For this item please quote stock ID 16417) ISBN: 9780824816285

'Intelligent and illuminating ... One of the most comprehensive of existing anthropological surveys of Southeast Asian cultures; certainly it is the most sophisticated in the quality of its treatment' - Journal of Asian Studies. (For this item please quote stock ID 8825) ISBN: 9780824816964

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'Lockard has made a huge contribution to the study of both popular music and contemporary Southeast Asia with this carefully researched, lovingly assembled book ... The entire book should be quite accessible for upper-level students and others with little background in the region, politics, or music' - Indonesia, October 2000. (For this item please quote stock ID 10076) ISBN: 9780824819187

'Soul of the Tiger makes an impassioned case for conservation based on rural self-sufficiency and responsibility. It is a marvellous book, unique, intelligent, attuned to other cultures, and filled with stimulating ideas and insights; it offers an important and innovative approach to conservation' - George B. Schaller, director, Wildlife Conservation International. 'Well-written ... a magnificent book. The authors have some wonderful tales to tell about people and their connections to the environment in Southeast Asia' - Journal of Asian Studies. (For this item please quote stock ID 10751) ISBN: 9780824816698

Fluid Iron is the first extended treatment of state formation in Southeast Asia from early to contemporary times and the first book-length analysis of Western historical and ethnographic writing on the region. It includes critical assessments of the work of Clifford Geertz, O.W. Wolters, Benedict Anderson, and other major scholars who have written on early, colonial, and modern Southeast Asian history and culture. Making use of the ideas of Weber, Marx, Foucault, and postmodern and postcolonial theory, Tony Day argues that culture must be restored to the study of Southeast Asian history so that the state and historical developments in the region can be returned to their own 'alternative' historical contexts and trajectories. He employs a wide range of contemporary scholarship, as well as Southeast Asian literary and historical texts, inscriptions, and temples to explore the kinds of concepts and practices - kinship networks, cosmologies, gender identities, bureaucracies, rituals, violence and aesthetics - that have been used for centuries to build states. Highly readable and accessibly written, Fluid Iron demonstrates that Southeast Asian state building has taken place in a part of the world that has always been a crossroads of cultural and transcultural change. Day urges Southeast Asians to learn more about the history of their own state formations so they can safeguard not only human freedom, but also the 'incongruity' of their unique region in the years ahead. Tony Day taught Southeast Asian and performance studies at the University of Sydney from 1978 to 1998. He is currently an independent scholar and visiting lecturer in history and comparative literature at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. (For this item please quote stock ID 19867) ISBN: 9780824826178

This is the first study in a half century of one of the least known societies in the contemporary world. Burma at the Turn of the 21st Century provides insight into the everyday lives, concerns, and values of the people of this reclusive nation. Prominent anthropologists and religion scholars with in-depth, long-term knowledge of central Burma offer detailed analyses of the ways in which Burmese actively manage and create lives for themselves in the shadow of a military dictatorship. Their research crosses the domains of religious, political, and social life, examining public festivals and performance, local-state relations, literary life, lottery frenzies, mass meditators, political rumours and black humour, the value of children, changing male identities, and more in this impressive, wide-ranging collection. Contributors: Bénédicte Brac de la Perrière, Gavin Douglas, Gustaaf Houtman, Ingrid Jordt, Ward Keeler, Jennifer Leehey, Guilaume Rozenberg, Mandy Sadan, Juliane Schober, Monique Skidmore, Keiko Tosa. Monique Skidmore is an Australian Research Council scholar at the Centre for Cross Cultural Research, Australian National University. (For this item please quote stock ID 25094) ISBN: 9780824828974

The modern states of Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, Myanmar, Malaysia, Singapore, Cambodia, Laos, Brunei, and East Timor were once a tapestry of kingdoms, colonies, and smaller polities linked by sporadic trade and occasional war. By the end of the nineteenth century, however, the United States and several European powers had come to control almost the entire region - only to depart dramatically in the decades following World War II. The Emergence of Modern Southeast Asia offers a new and up-to-date perspective on this complex region. Although it does not neglect nation-building (the central theme of its popular and long-lived predecessor, In Search of Southeast Asia), the present work focuses on economic and social history, gender, and ecology. It describes the long-term impact of global forces on the region and traces the spread and interplay of capitalism, nationalism, and socialism. It acknowledges that modernisation has produced substantial gains in such areas as life expectancy and education but has also spread dislocation and misery. Organisationally, the book shifts between thematic chapters that describe social, economic, and cultural change, and 'country' chapters emphasising developments within specific areas. Enhanced by scores of illustrations, The Emergence of Modern Southeast Asia will establish a new standard for the history of this dynamic and radically transformed region of the world. Contributors: David Chandler, Norman Owen, William Roff, David Joel Steinberg, Jean Gelman Taylor, Robert Taylor, Alexander Woodside & David Wyatt. (For this item please quote stock ID 23294) ISBN: 9780824828905