Asian Studies Book List · 
Asian Studies titles sorted by book title (or by release date):
Between Frontiers
Nation and Identity in a Southeast Asian Borderland
A staple of postwar academic writing, “nationalism” is a contentious and often unanalyzed abstraction. It is generally treated as something “imagined,” “fashioned,” and “disseminated,” as an idea located in the mind, in printed matter, on maps, in symbols such as flags and anthems, and in collective memory.…
Beyond the Archipelago
Selected Poems
A collections of 70 poems from one of Malaya’s leading poets, that depict longing, loneliness, modernization, and insights in Malaysian culture.
Burma’s Mass Lay Meditation Movement
Buddhism and the Cultural Construction of Power
By Ingrid Jordt
Burma's Mass Lay Meditation Movement: Buddhism and the Cultural Construction of Power describes a transformation in Buddhist practice in contemporary Burma. This revitalization movement has had real consequences for how the oppressive military junta, in power since the early 1960s, governs the country.…
Change and Continuity in Minangkabau
Local, Regional, and Historical Perspectives on West Sumatra
By Lynn L. Thomas and Franz Von Benda-Beckmann
Social scientists have long recognized many apparent contradictions in the Minangkabau. The world’s largest matrilineal people, they are also strongly Islamic and, as a society, remarkably modern and outward looking.…
Communism, Religion, and Revolt in Banten in the Early Twentieth Century
Twice in this century popular revolts against colonial rule have occured in the Banten district of West Java. These revolts, conducted largely under an Islamic leadership, also proclaimed themselves Communist.…
A Comprehensive Indonesian-English Dictionary
By Alan M. Stevens and A. Ed. Schmidgall-Tellings
This major new dictionary is the most modern and inclusive Indonesian-English dictionary available. The product of more than twenty years of research and documentation of the Indonesian language and culture, A Comprehensive Indonesian-English Dictionary is designed to be as user-friendly as possible.…
Dictionary of Indonesian Islam
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.…
Dumpling Field
Haiku of Issa
Edited by Lucien Stryk and Noboru Fujiwara
Koyashi Issa (1763-1827), long considered amoung Japan’s four greatest haiku poets (along with Basho, Buson, and Shiki) is probably the best loved. This collection of more than 360 haiku, arranged seasonally and many rendered into English for the first time, attempts to reveal the full range of the poet’s extraordinary life as if it were concentrated within a year.…
Eight Prison Camps
A Dutch Family in Japanese Java
Eldest daughter of eight children, the author grew up in Surakarta, Java, in what is now Indonesia. In the months following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, however, Dutch nationals were rounded up by Japanese soldiers and put in internment camps.…
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.…
Financing Local Government in Indonesia
By Nick Devas
By Brian Binder, Anne Booth, Kenneth Davey and Roy Kelly
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.…
From Jail to Jail
By Tan Malaka
From Jail to Jail is the political autobiography of a central though enigmatic figure of the Indonesian Revolution. Variously labeled a communist, Trotskyite, and nationalist, Tan Malaka managed, during the several decades of his political activity, to run afoul of nearly every political group and faction involved in the Indonesian struggle for independence.…
From Kampung to City
A Social History of Kucing Malaysia, 1820-1970
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.…
The Green Archipelago
Forestry in Preindustrial Japan
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.…
Hands Across the Sea?
U.S.-Japan Relations, 1961-1981
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.…
History of the Malay Kingdom of Patani
This translation of Ibrahim Syukri’s Sejarah Kerajaan Melayu Patani (SKMP) makes available a little known but important manuscript published privately ca. 1950 and printed in jawi (Malay written in a modified Arabic script).…
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.…
Inventing Global Ecology
Tracking the Biodiversity Ideal in India, 1947–1997
Blue jeans, MTV, Coca-Cola, and… ecology? We don't often think of conservation sciences as a U.S. export, but in the second half of the twentieth century an astounding array of scientists and ideas flowed out from the United States into the world, preaching the gospel of conservation-oriented ecology.…
Islam and the State in Indonesia
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.…
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.…
Asian Studies titles sorted by book title (or by release date):
