Contents>> Vol. 12, No. 1 BOOK REVIEWS Conceptualizing the Malay World: Colonialism and Pan-Malay Identity in Malaya Soda Naoki Kyoto: Kyoto University Press; Melbourne: Trans Pacific Press, 2020. Soda Naoki’s dissertation-turned-book titled Conceptualizing the Malay World is one of the few works in English on the thoughts of Ibrahim Yaakob […]
SOUTHEAST ASIAN STUDIES: Book Review
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Contents>> Vol. 11, No. 3 Dear China: Emigrant Letters and Remittances, 1820–1980 Gregor Benton and Hong Liu Oakland: University of California Press, 2018. Despite repeated attention being given to the significance of overseas Chinese communities as the world’s largest diaspora, its historiography has not yet reached a level comparable with […]
Contents>> Vol. 11, No. 3 Environmental Movements and Politics of the Asian Anthropocene Paul Jobin, Ming-sho Ho, and Hsin-Huang Michael Hsiao, eds. Singapore: ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute, 2021. With ecological crises on a planetary scale threatening the mass destruction of human and nonhuman species, the book Environmental Movements and […]
Contents>> Vol. 11, No. 3 BOOK REVIEWS Irregular Migrants and the Sea at the Borders of Sabah, Malaysia: Pelagic Alliance Vilashini Somiah Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021. Vilashini Somiah, the author of Irregular Migrants and the Sea at the Borders of Sabah, Malaysia: Pelagic Alliance, makes her book-publishing debut on […]
Contents>> Vol. 11, No. 2 Capitalism Magic Thailand: Modernity with Enchantment Peter A. Jackson Singapore: ISEAS Publishing, 2022. Customers in malls shop for amulets that attract money like magnets. Monks pronounce incantations for businesspeople to win over customers. Spirit mediums become possessed to predict winning lottery numbers. Anyone familiar with […]
Contents>> Vol. 11, No. 2 BOOK REVIEWS Television in Post-Reform Vietnam: Nation, Media, Market Giang Nguyen-Thu Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2019. Television in Post-Reform Vietnam: Nation, Media, Market by Giang Nguyen-Thu discusses the reordering of Vietnam’s nationhood and nationalism in the post-Reform era and how this reordering took place […]
Contents>> Vol. 11, No. 1 The Feast of the Santo Niño: An Introduction to the History of a Cebuano Devotion Resil B. Mojares Cebu City: University of San Carlos Press, 2017. Resil Mojares, the author of The Feast of the Santo Niño: An Introduction to the History of a Cebuano […]
Contents>> Vol. 11, No. 1 The Primordial Modernity of Malay Nationality: Contemporary Identity in Malaysia and Singapore Humairah Zainal and Kamaludeen Mohamed Nasir Oxon: Routledge, 2022. The Primordial Modernity of Malay Nationality: Contemporary Identity in Malaysia and Singapore by Humairah Zainal and Kamaludeen Mohamed Nasir is an attempt at bridging […]
Contents>> Vol. 11, No. 1 Japan’s Pre-War Perspective of Southeast Asia: Focusing on Ethnologist Matsumoto Nobuhiro’s Works during 1919–1945 Petra Karlová Tokyo: Waseda University Press, 2018. Petra Karlová’s exhaustive research and insightful interpretation of the work of Matsumoto Nobuhiro is the most thorough English language intellectual history of the ethnologist, […]
Contents>> Vol. 11, No. 1 BOOK REVIEWS Hamka and Islam: Cosmopolitan Reform in the Malay World Khairudin Aljunied Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2018. The book Hamka and Islam: Cosmopolitan Reform in the Malay World studies the ideas of Haji Abdullah Malik Abdul Karim Amrullah (1908–81), also known as […]
Contents>> Vol. 10, No. 3 Origins and Evolution of Environmental Policies: State, Time and Regional Experiences Tadayoshi Terao and Tsuruyo Funatsu, eds.Cheltenham and Northampton: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2021. Since the 1990s, the Institute of Developing Economies (IDE)—one of the established social-science research centers in Japan specializing in studies of developing […]
Contents>> Vol. 10, No. 3 Fashionable Traditions: Asian Handmade Textiles in Motion Ayami Nakatani, ed.Lanham: Lexington Books, 2020. The idea of tradition has been challenged frequently since Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger’s seminal work in 1983. This volume of 14 essays is based on studies of textiles from India, Japan, […]