A complete narrative history of Southeast Asia. The oldest figurative cave paintings in the world are found on the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia. Hand stencils and animals painted some 45,000 years ago attest to a long history of human creativity. The Story of Southeast Asia tells how the peoples of the region have crafted their diverse ......
An investigation into the complex forces that shape Balinese identity. Over the past one hundred years, the Balinese have been challenged by colonial occupation, political turbulence, and, most recently, tourism. In response, they have come to rely on the idea of "Kebalian," or Balinese-ness. Kebalian is likened to a tree whose roots are ......
The Political Economy of Singapore's Public Housing
Examines the ways Singapore's impressive public housing program is central to the political legitimacy of the city-state's single-party regime, and the growing contradictions of its success. The achievement of Singapore's national public housing program is impressive by any standard. Within a year of its first election victory in 1959, the ......
An overlooked history of Southeast Asia's varied healthcare regimes during the Cold War. For far too long, Southeast Asia has been treated as a static backdrop for the exploits and discoveries of Western biomedical doctors. Yet, Southeast Asians have been vital to the significant developments in the prevention and treatment of diseases that have ......
Histories of Humans and Other Animals in the Garden City
An analysis of the human-animal relationship in post-colonial Singapore. Modern Singapore is the Garden City, a biophilic urban space that includes a variety of animals, from mosquitoes to humans, even polar bears. Singaporean Creatures brings together historians to contemplate this human-animal relationship and how it has shaped ......
Ethnography of Statelessness Written by a Stateless Academic
"In the springtime of the year that I was twenty-one, I found myself stuck at the border between two familiar countries, unable to enter either. I had never felt my statelessness so keenly." Japan's 1972 termination of diplomatic ties with the Republic of China left 9,200 Chinese residents stateless. Tienshi "Lara" Chen was one of them, born to ......
Explore Vietnam's rich literary and graphic design history. Vietnam has a strong literary culture that dates back to Confucian influence and has remained important today. Using Vietnamese books, documents, and manuscripts from the collection of the British Library, Vietnam Documented gives a window into that heritage and represents key incidents ......
An important case study in the history of law under colonialism, Colonial Law Making explores the structural forces and contingent exchanges that shaped colonial law in Cambodia, draws comparisons across the region and examines Cambodia's post-independence colonial legacy. The court of King Norodom and the temples of Angkor Wat became orientalist ......
This collection of essays on the music of migrant minorities in and from Japan examines the central role music plays in the ongoing adjustment, conciliation and transformation of newcomers and "hosts" alike. It is the first academic text to address music activities across a range of migrant groups in Japan-particularly those of Tokyo and its ......
