Asian History - Recent Titles from Ohio University Press

The Komedie Stamboel

Wed, 15 Feb 2006

The Komedie Stamboel (2006)
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. The actors were primarily Eurasians, the original backers were Chinese, and audiences were made up of all races and classes.

While audiences marveled at spectacles involving white-skinned actors, there were also racial frictions between actors and financiers, sex scandals, fights among actors and patrons, bankruptcies, imprisonments, and a murder.

Matthew Isaac Cohen's evocative social history situates the Komedie Stamboel in the culture of empire and in late nineteenth-century itinerant entertainment. He shows how the theater was used as a symbol of cross-ethnic integration in postcolonial Indonesia and as an emblem of Eurasian cultural accomplishment by Indische Nederlanders. A pioneering study of nineteenth-century Southeast Asian popular culture, The Komedie Stamboel: Popular Theater in Colonial Indonesia, 1891-1903 gives a new picture of the region's arts and culture and explores the interplay of currents in global culture, theatrical innovation, and movement in colonial Indonesia.

For more information about this book visit ohioswallow.com/book/The+Komedie+Stamboel.
For a look at new releases from Ohio University Press visit ohioswallow.com/new_releases.

Locating Southeast Asia

Sat, 01 Jan 2005

Locating Southeast Asia (2005)
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. More technically, Southeast Asia is defined as consisting of eleven countries: the ten members of ASEAN (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar/Burma, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam), and Timor Lesté.

Locating Southeast Asia: Geographies of Knowledge and Politics of Space considers Southeast Asia from a range of disciplinary perspectives. The authors—from Southeast Asia, Europe, Australia, and the United States—address climate; perceptions from the seas as seen by fishermen, naval officers, and governments; urbanization and industrialization; improvements in transport and communications; and the world of impoverished small farmers and marginalized minorities. Contributors also discuss borders, monetary networks, transnational flows of people, goods and information, and knowledge in shaping Southeast Asia.

Locating Southeast Asia offers important insights for its residents, for those who study it, and for the wider world.

For more information about this book visit ohioswallow.com/book/Locating+Southeast+Asia.
For a look at new releases from Ohio University Press visit ohioswallow.com/new_releases.

Islam and the State in Indonesia

Fri, 06 Aug 2004

Islam and the State in Indonesia (2004)

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 and the State in Indonesia probes the nature and effects of this mutual suspicion in a country in which 87 percent of the people are Muslims. Author Bahtiar Effendy addresses the problem of the Islam-state relationship in Indonesia in light of the fact that Islam—contrary to stereotypes—is a religion open to many interpretations and expressions by its followers. As Professor Effendy contends, there is no legitimate political reason to place Islam in opposition to the modern political system. Rather, the tension derives from the way Islam is articulated socio-culturally, economically, and politically in Indonesia.

Islam and the State in Indonesia documents the background of this hostile relationship and analyzes the efforts of a new generation of Muslim political thinkers and activists to overcome it. The book also examines the state's recent moves toward accommodating political Islam.

This book is groundbreaking both in its illumination of the past and in its insights into a way out of historic problems. It will be of great interest to students, scholars, journalists, government officials, and others seeking to understand this complex and divisive arena.

For more information about this book visit ohioswallow.com/book/Islam+and+the+State+in+Indonesia.
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Inventing Global Ecology

Tue, 27 Apr 2004

Inventing Global Ecology (2004)
Tracking the Biodiversity Ideal in India, 1947–1997

By Michael L. Lewis

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.

Inventing Global Ecology grapples with how we should understand the development of global ecology in the twentieth century—a science that is held responsible for, literally, saving the world. Is the spread of ecology throughout the globe a subtle form of cultural imperialism, as some claim? Or is it a manifestation of an increasingly globalized world, where ideas, people, and things move about with greater freedom than ever before?

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. Was India subject to a subtle form of Americanization, or did Indian ecologists develop their own agenda, their own science, and their own way of understanding (and saving) the natural world? Does nationality even matter when doing ecology?

This readable narrative will carry you through the first fifty years of independent India, from the meadows of the Himalayan Mountains to the rainforests of southern India, from Gandhi and Nehru to Project Tiger. Of equal interest to the general reader, to scientists, and to scholars of history and globalization, Inventing Global Ecology combines ethnographic fieldwork and oral history conducted in India and the United States, as well as traditional archival research.

For more information about this book visit ohioswallow.com/book/Inventing+Global+Ecology.
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New Terrains in Southeast Asian History

Tue, 15 Apr 2003

New Terrains in Southeast Asian History (2003)

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. Individual chapters subject the dominance of national narratives to critical reflection and deconstruction, while others highlight the need to go beyond essentially political narratives to seek out deeper cultural, economic, and social structures by utilizing new sources, methodologies, and concepts. Taken as a whole, the book contends that new terrains in Southeast Asian history may be found "at the interstices and on the margins" where nations, societies, or cultures engage the unending processes of historical change.

The contributors are Abdul Rahman Haji Ismail, Abu Talib Ahmad, Andrew Hardy, Badriyah Haji Salleh, Brenda S. A. Yeoh, C. J. W.-L. Wee, Ni Ni Myint, Dhiravat na Pombejra, Hong Lysa, Huang Jianli, Kobkua Suwannathat-Pian, M. R. Fernando, P. Lim Pui Huen, Paul H. Kratoska, Tan Liok Ee, Thongchai Winichakul, and Yong Mun Cheong.

For more information about this book visit ohioswallow.com/book/New+Terrains+in+Southeast+Asian+History.
For a look at new releases from Ohio University Press visit ohioswallow.com/new_releases.

Surabaya, City of Work

Wed, 15 May 2002

Surabaya, City of Work (2002)
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. Not until the export boom of the 1990s did Surabaya regain prominence as Southeast Asia's leading non–capital–city industrial area.

Previous thinking on Indonesia is being reassessed in light of recent political and economic upheaval. Surabaya, City of Work offers an alternative to the Jakarta-centric focus of most writing on the country. It is a multifaceted view of a fascinating and complex city in the dimensions of time and space, economy and society, and the current transition toward decentralization makes it highly topical.

Exploration of this eventful economic history gives new insight into Indonesia’s modern economic development. Industrialization is recognized as being associated with rapid urbanization, but this is the first study of Indonesia from an explicitly urban perspective. Surabaya, City of Work takes a broad approach that links industrialization to socioeconomic trends, the increasing role of government, changing land use, and trade patterns.

This well–illustrated local history encompassing national events and trends will be a central work on Indonesia for years to come.

For more information about this book visit ohioswallow.com/book/Surabaya%2C+City+of+Work.
For a look at new releases from Ohio University Press visit ohioswallow.com/new_releases.

Tropical Pioneers

Fri, 01 Mar 2002

Tropical Pioneers (2002)
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 Pioneers documents the conversion of a tropical rainforest biome and the collision between what previously had been more discrete ecological zones within South Asia. The ecological impacts were transformational. Author James L. A. Webb, Jr., demonstrates that profound ecological disruption occurred in the central highlands of Sri Lanka during the nineteenth century and suggests that the theme of ecological crisis brought about by the integration of tropical ecological zones during precolonial and colonial periods alike is an important one for historians to investigate elsewhere.

Tropical Pioneers is based on extensive research in the National Archives of Sri Lanka, the National Agricultural Library at Gannaruwa, the Library of the Royal Asiatic Society-Ceylon Branch, the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, the Public Record Office of the United Kingdom, and the British Library.

For more information about this book visit ohioswallow.com/book/Tropical+Pioneers.
For a look at new releases from Ohio University Press visit ohioswallow.com/new_releases.

Television, Nation, and Culture in Indonesia

Wed, 15 Nov 2000

Television, Nation, and Culture in Indonesia (2000)

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. But Professor Kitley suggests that it also has become a site for the contestation of elements of the New Order's cultural policies. Based on his studies, he further speculates on the increasingly significant role that television is destined to play as a site of cultural and political struggle.

For more information about this book visit ohioswallow.com/book/Television%2C+Nation%2C+and+Culture+in+Indonesia.
For a look at new releases from Ohio University Press visit ohioswallow.com/new_releases.

The Green Archipelago

Sun, 15 Nov 1998

The Green Archipelago (1998)
Forestry in Preindustrial Japan

By Conrad Totman

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. Mindful that in global terms this has been a rare outcome, and one that bears directly on Japan’s recent experience as an affluent, industrial society, Totman examines the causes, forms, and effects of forest use and management in Japan during the millennium to 1870. He focuses mainly on the centuries after 1600 when the Japanese found themselves driven by their own excesses into programs of woodland protection and regenerative forestry.

For more information about this book visit ohioswallow.com/book/The+Green+Archipelago.
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Japanese Empire in the Tropics

Mon, 31 Aug 1998

Japanese Empire in the Tropics (1998)
Selected Documents and Reports of the Japanese Period in Sarawak, Northwest Borneo, 1941–1945

By Ooi Keat Gin

Although the Japanese interregnum was brief, its dramatic commencement and equally dramatic conclusion represented a watershed in the history of the young state of Sarawak.

In recent years, there has been a groundswell of interest in the war years, culminating in an attempt at reassessment of the Japanese occupation in Southeast Asia by Western and Japanese scholars as well as by those from Southeast Asia.

Presented here in a two-volume edition is a history of the Japanese occupation of Sarawak narrated through the compelling testimonies of the actual participants based on their recollections, memoirs, and correspondence.

For more information about this book visit ohioswallow.com/book/Japanese+Empire+in+the+Tropics.
For a look at new releases from Ohio University Press visit ohioswallow.com/new_releases.