Asian Studies Book List

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Cover of Javanese

Javanese

A Cultural Approach

By Ward Keeler

Foreign language lessons often provide translations into a foreign language of phrases students would normally use in their native language and cultural setting. Particularly when studying a non-Western language, such direct translation is very misleading.…

Cover of The Komedie Stamboel

The Komedie Stamboel

Popular Theater in Colonial Indonesia, 1891–1903

By Matthew Isaac Cohen

Originating in 1891 in the port city of Surabaya, the Komedie Stamboel, or Istanbul-style theater, toured colonial Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia by rail and steamship. The company performed musical versions of the Arabian Nights and European fairy tales and operas such as Sleeping Beauty and Aida, as well as Indian and Persian romances, Southeast Asian chronicles, true crime stories, and political allegories.…


Cover of Language and Social Change in Java

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.…

Cover of Language Use and Language Change in Brunei Darussalam

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.…


Cover of Language, Power, and Ideology in Brunei Darussalam

Language, Power, and Ideology in Brunei DarussalamOn Sale

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.…

Cover of The Lê  Code

The Lê Code

Law in Traditional Vietnam

By Ngọc Huy Nguyễn, Tài Văn Ta and Binh Tu Tran

The Lê Code: Law in Traditional Vietnam is the first English translation of the penal code produced by Vietnam’s Lê Dynasty (1428-1788). The code itself was the culmination of a long process of political, social and legal development that extended into the period of the succeeding Nguyen Dynasty and, in many respects, into the twentieth century.…


Cover of Locating Southeast Asia

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.…

Cover of Memoirs of an Indo Woman

Memoirs of an Indo Woman

Twentieth Century Life in the East Indies and Abroad

Edited by Lizelot Stout van Balgooy
By Marguérite Schenkhuizen

The memoirs of Marguérite Schenkhuizen provide an overview of practically the whole of the twentieth century as experienced by persons of mixed Dutch and Indonesian ancestry who lived in the former Dutch East Indies.…


Cover of Military Ascendancy and Political Culture

Military Ascendancy and Political CultureOn Sale

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.…

Cover of Mode in Javanese Music

Mode in Javanese Music

By Susan Pratt Walton

One of the most controversial aspects of Javanese gamelan music is its musical mode, pathet. From her experience as a performer of sindhenan, or female singing, Walton analyses the melodies and defines the basic laws of mode for sindhenan.…


Cover of Myth and History in the Historiography of Early Burma

Myth and History in the Historiography of Early BurmaOn Sale

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.…

Cover of New Terrains in Southeast Asian History

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.…


Cover of Not Out of Hate

Not Out of Hate

A Novel of Burma

By Ma Ma Lay
Edited by William Frederick

Not Out of Hate is the first Burmese novel to be translated into English and published outside of Myanmar. It offers unusual insights into the social history of the late colonial period. Set in pre-World War II Burmese society, the story centers on the relationship and marriage of seventeen-year-old Way Way with U Saw Han, a much older Burmese agent for a British trading company.…

Cover of Power Plays

Power Plays

Wayang Golek Puppet Theater of West Java

By Andrew N. Weintraub

Based on ethnographic fieldwork spanning twenty years, Power Plays is the first scholarly book in English on wayang golek, the Sundanese rod-puppet theater of West Java. It is a detailed and lively account of the ways in which performers of this major Asian theatrical form have engaged with political discourses in Indonesia.…


Cover of The Red Earth

The Red Earth

A Vietnamese Memoir of Life on a Colonial Rubber Plantation

By Binh Tu Tran
Edited by David G. Marr

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.…

Cover of Report on Brunei in 1904

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.…


Cover of Secrets Need Words

Secrets Need Words

Indonesian Poetry, 1966-1998

Edited by Harry Aveling

The period from 1966 to 1999 represents a distinct era in Indonesian history. Throughout the "New Order" regime of President Suharto, the policies of economic development and political stability were dominant.…

Cover of Studies in Austronesian Linguistics

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.…


Cover of Surabaya, City of Work

Surabaya, City of WorkOn Sale

A Socioeconomic History, 1900–2000

By Howard Dick

Surabaya is Indonesia's second largest city but is not well known to the outside world. Yet in 1900, Surabaya was a bigger city than Jakarta and one of the main commercial centers of Asia. Collapse of sugar exports during the 1930s depression, followed by the Japanese occupation, revolution, and independence, brought on a long period of stagnation and retreat from the international economy.…

Cover of The Tale of Prince Samuttakote

The Tale of Prince SamuttakoteOn Sale

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.…



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