South East Asia (GR)

In 1931 a book appeared in London with the title A Yellow Sleuth: Being the Autobiography of "Nor Nalla" (Detective-Sergeant Federated Malay States Police). It was met with puzzled enthusiasm, TheStraits Times commenting that the book "presents an interesting problem of distinguishing fact from fiction". The author claimed to be...

Postcolonial literature in Chinese from the Nanyang, literally the South Seas, examines the history of Chinese migration, localization, and interethnic exchange in Southeast Asia, and offers a rich variety of approaches to identity. In Writing the South Seas, Brian Bernards explores why Nanyang encounters, which have been neglected by most...

Writing Singapore is the first comprehensive historical anthology of English-language literary works from Singapore. The volume provides readers in Singapore an easy point of access to compelling narratives and poems that have been forgotten or are now difficult to obtain. For readers outside Singapore, it introduces a neglected but important...

The Nemesis was the first of a generation of iron-clad, steam-powered naval vessels that established British dominance in Asian waters in the 19th century. The worlds first iron warship, the first vessel with truly watertight compartments, and the first iron vessel to round the Cape of Good Hope, Nemesis represented...

Indonesian art entered the global contemporary art world of independent curators, art fairs, and biennales in the 1990s. By the mid-2000s, Indonesian works were well-established on the Asian secondary art market, achieving record-breaking prices at auction houses in Singapore and Hong Kong. This comprehensive overview introduces Indonesian contemporary art in...

An architectural and historical study of Singapore's oldest Teochew Temple. At the turn of the nineteenth century, Teochew-speaking gambier and pepper farmers settled in Singapore. Surrounded by the skyscrapers of Singapore's central business district, Wak Hai Cheng Bio temple traces its history back to the earliest days of the colony....

As China shifts to an economy driven by innovation and productivity growth, the global implications of this transition will be significant. Amid the rise of techno-nationalism and a changing strategic calculus around the world, the manner and means of China's transition faces a high degree of scrutiny. China is attempting...

Behind the statistics of migration are the life stories of millions of migrants and their descendants. The movement of people out of China is one of the largest movements of humanity in modern times, and large numbers of Chinese emigrated to the colony of the Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia....

The interactions and mutual perceptions of China and Indonesia were a significant element in Asias postcolonial transformation, but as a result of prevailing emphasis on diplomatic and political relations within a Cold War and nation-state framework, their multi-dimensional interrelationship and its complex domestic ramifications have escaped scholarly scrutiny. China and...

The name of Thomas Stamford Raffles continues to be a mark of prestige in Singapore, more than 200 years after he first established a British factory on the island. Not one but two statues of Raffles stand tall in prominent sites in Singapore’s civic and heritage district. Streets and squares...

The portion of the Malay Peninsula where the Thai Buddhist civilization of Thailand gives way to the Malay Muslim civilization of Malaysia is characterized by multiple forms of pluralism. An appreciation of the long history and varied forms of that pluralism opens up fresh and important perspectives on the violent...

The eastern archipelagos of Southeast Asia stretch from Mindanao and Sulu in the north to Bali in the southwest and New Guinea in the southeast. Many of the inhabitants of this area are often described as "people without history," in part because colonial borders long ago cut across shared underlying...

Sea nomads have been part of the economic and political landscape of Southeast Asia for millennia. They have played many roles over the longue-durEe: in certain periods proving central to the ability of land-based polities to generate wealth, by sourcing valuable maritime commodities, facilitating trade, forming a naval force to...

The Roots of Resilienceexamines governance from the ground up in the world's two most enduring electoral authoritarian or "hybrid" regimes―Singapore and Malaysia―where politically liberal and authoritarian features are blended to evade substantive democracy. Although skewed elections, curbed civil liberties, and a dose of coercion help sustain these regimes, selectively structured...

For the past century and a half, extensive looting and illicit trafficking of Southeast Asia's cultural heritage have scattered art objects from the region to museums and private collections around the world. Today, however, power relations are shifting, a new awareness is growing, and new questions are emerging about the...

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) is one of the most successful agreements ever created to govern the global commons. If it is thought of as a constitution for the oceans, then Satya Nandan should be considered one of the founders, one of the key...

After independence in 1957, the Malay monarchy was compelled to embrace Westminster-style constitutional monarchy, under which the role of the monarch is symbolic and affairs of the nation are run by Parliament and the executive branch. Palace, Political Party and Power: A Story of the Socio-Political Development of Malay Kingship,...

Information on the Japanese Occupation of Malaya and Singapore is sparse, and Japanese-language materials are particularly difficult to find because the Japanese military systematically destroyed war-related documents when the war ended. The contributors to this volume participated in a Forum that spent four years locating surviving materials relating to the...

A native of Bruges (now part of Belgium), Jacques de Coutre was a gem trader who spent nearly a decade in Southeast Asia in the early 17th century. In addition to a substantial autobiography written in Spanish and preserved in the National Library of Spain in Madrid, he wrote a...

Jacob Gotfried Haafner (1754-1809) was a writer of great talent, and an early dissenting voice from within the colonial enterprise. Haafner was orphaned in the Dutch East Indies, and lived in South Africa, Sri Lanka, India and Mauritius for more than 20 years. On his return to Europe he transformed...