ASAA Publications: Southeast Asia Publications Series

New Books

Special Offer

SEAPS seeks to publish cutting-edge research on all countries and peoples of Southeast Asia across disciplines including anthropology, geography, history, literature, political economy, politics, sociology and the fields of cultural studies, communication studies and gender studies. Interdisciplinary and comparative research is encouraged.

In 2004 the Southeast Asia Publication Series (SEAPS) celebrated 25 years of bringing some of the best of Australian scholarship on Southeast Asia to an international readership, see History of SEAPS. We marked this achievement by a new global publishing alliance that reinforces SEAPS’s status at the forefront of academic publishing on the region.

Since 2004 SEAPS has been published for the Asian Studies Association of Australia by Singapore University Press Pte Ltd, a unit of the National University of Singapore, in alliance with the University of Hawaii Press in North America and the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS) [non-Indonesia titles] and the KITLV Press [Indonesia titles] in Europe. Unireps acts as distributors in Australia. Titles published before 2004 and still in print are available from Allen & Unwin http://www.allenandunwin.com/Academic/asaa.asp.

Manuscripts should be well conceptualized, soundly argued and based on original fieldwork or archival research. They should be written in a good, plain English style accessible to the informed general reader and of not more than 100,000 words. The Series style guide is available at http://iceaps.anu.edu.au/asaa_publications/style_guide.html.

Edited books are considered on a case by case basis according to multiple criteria: the topic should be of wide interest, the introduction should integrate the themes and cases, the individual essays should be of high and consistent quality, and overall the book would make a major contribution to the field.

SEAPS is edited by Professor Howard Dick (University of Melbourne) who welcomes any inquiries. Prospective authors, including PhD candidates, are encouraged to submit a one-page abstract and annotated chapter outline for initial consideration.

Also on this page:

Members of the Editorial Board
Books published in the Southeast Asia Publications Series
History of the Series
Style Guide

Members of the Editorial Board

Professor Barbara Andaya (University of Hawaii and University of Hawaii Press);
Professor Colin Brown (Faculty of Media, Society and Culture, Curtin University);
Associate Professor John Butcher (Griffith University);
Professor David Chandler (Monash Asia Institute, Monash University);
Dr Helen Creese (School of Languages and Comparative Cultural Studies, University of Queensland);
Associate Professor Robert Cribb (Pacific & Asian History, Research School of Pacific & Asian Studies, Australian National University);
Dr Jane Drakard (Dept of History, Monash University);
Dr Greg Fealy (Political and Social Change, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University);
Professor Robert Elson (History, University of Queensland);
Professor Barbara Hatley (School of Asian Languages & Studies, University of Tasmania);
Professor Kevin Hewison (CarolinaAsia Center, University of North Carolina);
Professor Virginia Hooker (Faculty of Asian Studies, Australian National University);
Professor Rey Ileto (Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences, National University of Singapore);
Associate Professor Paul Kratoska (Editor and Publisher, Singapore University Press 4);
Professor Tim Lindsey (Asian Law Centre, University of Melbourne);
Professor Andrew MacIntyre (Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, Australian National University);
Dr Campbell Macknight (Professor Emeritus, Australian National University);
Professor Anthony Milner (Faculty of Asian Studies, Australian National University);
Dr Harry Poeze (Editor, KITLV, Universiteit Leiden)
Professor Anthony Reid (Director, Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore);
Associate Professor Craig Reynolds (Faculty of Asian Studies, Australian National University);
Professor Merle Ricklefs (Department of Politics, National University of Singapore);
Professor Kathryn Robinson (Anthropology/Research School of Pacific & Asian Studies, Australian National University);
Dr Mina Roces (University of NSW: ASAA Publications Officer);
Professor Krishna Sen (Media Studies, Curtin University);
Associate Professor Maila Stivens (Gender Studies/History, Melbourne University);
Dr Philip Taylor (Faculty of Asian Studies, Australian National University);
Professor Carl Thayer (Strategic Studies, Australian Defence Forces Academy);
Professor Adrian Vickers (Faculty of Arts, University of Wollongong).

Books published in the Southeast Asia Publications Series

New Book

Special Offer

The Origins of Islamic Reformism in Southeast Asia

Azyumardi Azra

Islamic renewal and reformism is an ongoing process which is commonly thought to have started only in the twentieth century. Professor Azra's meticulous study, using sources from the Middle East itself, shows how scholars in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were reconstructing the intellectual and socio-moral foundation of Muslim societies. Drawing on Arabic biographic dictionaries which have never before been analysed or used as research materials, Professor Azra illuminates a previously inaccessible period of history to show the development of the Middle Eastern heritage in the Indonesian archipelago. The reader can trace the formation and expression of Indonesian Islam and the adaptation of the Arabic intellectualism into recognisably Indonesian idioms. For the first time we have a description of the actual process of localisation, a process of interest to historians, anthropologists and sociologists, and also a subject of intense contemporary relevance.
2004 Allen & Unwin ISBN 174114261X paperback $35

Indonesian Islam

M.B. Hooker

An important and timely book which examines how modern Indonesian Islamic thinking has responded to changes in social and cultural practice since the 1920s, and in particular how the authorities have ruled on 'contemporary' subjects such as football, real estate, abortion, organ transplants and the role of women. Islam is one of the world's oldest and most intriguing religions, and with so much recent attention focused on Muslim groups, the importance of understanding Islam today is self-evident. How does this classic religion deal with contemporary challenges in ethics and morality in a consistent and rational way? How in the 21st century do its complex moral and legal philosophies continue to provide an alternative to secularism? Professor M.B. Hooker looks at how modern Indonesian Islamic thinking has responded to changes in social and cultural practices in this timely book. In particular he examines how authorities have ruled on such basic issues as purity and representation of doctrine, religious obligations, status and capacity of women, Islam and medical science, and offences against religion. Hooker's research has been drawn from around 2000 fatawa - formal opinion on points of law or dogma - collected from Indonesia between 1920 and 1990. The authority of the fatwa is independent of the state and is uncontaminated by European intellectual imperialism. It thus gives us a 'pure' response to difficult issues from within Islamic thought, and is essential to how we understand Islam at this particular place and time.
2003 Allen & Unwin ISBN 1741140862 paperback $35

The Emergence of a National Economy: An Economic History of Indonesia, 1800-2000

Howard Dick, Vincent J.H. Houben, J. Thomas Lindblad, Thee Kian Wie

History matters. At the beginning of a new century and amidst the turmoil of a new democracy. More than ever we need a historical perspective on modern Indonesia. This book connects Soeharto's New Order (1966-98) back to the colonial era and helps to explain why the transition from colonialism to Independence and from the New Order to Democracy has been difficult and sometimes traumatic. This book identifies three grand themes in Indonesia's economic history: globalisation, state formation and economic integration. Globalisation affected the Indonesian archipelago even before the arrival of the Dutch: the New Order experience was only the most recent wave. Modern state formation began in the Napoleonic era with the despatch to Java of Governor-General Daendels (1808-11) and culminated in the centralised, military-bureaucratic state of the late New Order. A national economy emerged after the 1930s as the Outer Islands were reoriented towards an industrialising Java. These three themes link chronological chapters from the pre-1800 period through the modern colonial era to the breakdown of the colonial system after 1930, the birth of modern Indonesia, and the remarkable economic transformation under the New Order. This overarching story gives a unity to Indonesia's modern history, while helping to explain why the future is likely to be different.
2002 Allen & Unwin ISBN 1865086657 paperback $35.00

The Potent Dead

Henri Chambert-Loir and Anthony Reid (editors)

A collection of studies by leading scholars of Indonesian culture, history and anthropology examining the death practices and rituals of Indonesian tribal groups in the context of ongoing changes is Islam. The dead are potent and omnipresent in modern Indonesia. Presidents and peasants alike meditate before sacred graves to exploit the power they confer, and mediums do good business curing the sick by interpreting the wishes of deceased forebears. Among non-Muslims there are ritual burials of the bones of the dead in monuments both magnificent and modest. By promoting dead heroes to a nationalist pantheon, regions and ethnic groups establish their place within the national story. Although much has been written about the local forms of the scriptural religions to which modern Indonesians are required by law to adhere - Islam, Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism - this is the first book to assess the indigenous systems of belief in the spirits of ancestors. Sometimes these systems are condemned in the name of the formal religions, but more often the potent dead coexist as a private dimension of everyday religious practice. A unique team of anthropologists, historians and literary scholars from Europe, Australia and North America demonstrate the continuing importance of the potent dead for understanding contemporary Indonesia. At the same time, they help us understand historic processes of conversion to Islam and Christianity by examining the continuing interactions of the spirit world with formal religion.
2002 Allen & Unwin ISBN 1865087394 paperback $35

Power and Prowess: The Origins of Brooke kingship in Sarawak

J.H. Walker

In this significant reinterpretation of Sarawak history, Dr John Walker explores the network of power, economic and ritual relationships that developed on the northwest coast of Borneo in the mid-nineteenth century, from which a coalition led by James Brooke established the state of Sarawak. Where previous authors placed Brooke in the context of nineteenth century British imperialism, this study perceives him in the context of Bornean cultures and political economies. Brooke emerges from the historical record as a 'man of prowess', with the author identifying important ritual sources of Brooke's power among Malays, Bidayuhs and Ibans, sources which derived from and expressed indigenous cultural traditions about fertility, health and status. Power and Prowess also retrieves from the historical sources previously concealed narratives which reflect the interests, priorities and activities of Sarawak people themselves.
2002 Allen & Unwin ISBN 1865087114 paperback $29.95

Fragments of the Present: Searching for modernity in Vietnam's South

Philip Taylor

A new theoretical perspective on southern Vietnam and its recent history, examining the differences between the local villager's view of modernity and those of the state. In one of the first in-depth accounts of a society long rendered virtually inaccessible by war and political closure, Philip Taylor explores the ways in which modernity has been adapted as an indigenous identity in Vietnam and traces the volatile path of such self-identification. The post-war government's policies towards southern Vietnam's popular music and international cultural exchange altered from initial rejection to qualified embrace. However, the state policies drew criticism from many locals with different ideas about their own identity as 'modern', as they were concerned about the impacts of economic liberalisation and political authoritarianism. Taylor pays particular attention to the many dimensions of Vietnamese music as a rich response to profound historical and social upheavals, the policies which saw much popular music being banned on the grounds that it was not authentically 'modern', and the ways Vietnamese people imagined and talk about their identity and history through the reference point of music. A case study of the diversity of ways in which social, political and economic change is interpreted locally, Fragments of the Present is an important guide to the challenges to global integration faced by the world's remaining Communist states. Philip Taylor researched this book while undertaking doctoral studies in anthropology at the Australian National University. He has spent more than two years in southern Vietnam where he undertook additional studies on pilgrimage, popular religion, and gender.
2001 Allen & Unwin ISBN 1865083836 paperback $29.95

The Riddle of Malaysian Capitalism: Rent-seekers or real capitalists?

Peter Searle

Is capitalism in Southeast Asia "real" or a "chimera", that is, some Southeast Asian derivative of capitalism that ultimately will not be sustainable? Malaysia, where an intimate relationship has been forged between the state and business in an effort to create Malay capitalists, presents an interesting and illuminating case in the debate. In this work Peter Searle identifies the complex interaction between the state, the dominant political party (UMNO) and business as the source of dynamism or defeat in the development of Malay capitalists. He also challenges a common view that Chinese business groups are completely different from Malay business groups. Overall this study argues against drawing sharp contrasts between dependency and self-reliance, between state and capital, and between rent-seekers and true "productive" capitalists. For it is from that amalgam of categories and groups the study concludes that a form of capitalism is emerging in Malaysia which is nonetheless remarkably dynamic and resilient, despite its unorthodox origins.
1998 336pp ISBN 1 86448 628 7 paperback $29.95

Writing a New Society

Virginia Matheson Hooker

Often Malay novels have been seen as of minor importance in comparison with Indonesian literary creations, primarily because they seemed far less engaged with the "big" issues of revolution, nationalism and anti-colonialism. In this latest addition to the Asian Studies Association of Australia series, Dr Virginia Hooker convincingly argues that Malay authors have had their own concerns which need examination on their own merits. From the 1920s a new generation of writers has reflected the general sense of unease in Malay society, deliberating the issue of "self-strengthening" and asking how Malays can improve their position. In showing how the evolution of novel writing has reflected these ongoing concerns of twentieth century Malays, this is a pioneering and important work which brings to light much new material on the area and its culture and society.
2000 Allen & Unwin ISBN 1 86508 186 8 paperback $39.95 available from University of Hawai'i Press

OUT OF PRINT TITLES

The Challenge of Sustainable Forests: Forest Resource Policy in Malaysia, 1970-1995

Fadzilah Majid Cooke

Dr Cooke explores the rich debate on "development" and "environment" to cast new light on the social and ecological dimension of forest degradation. This innovative work provides a range of insights into forest resource use in Malaysia and the power behind the working of forest policy at local level.
1999 272pp ISBN 1 86508 017 9 paperback $34.95 NOT IN PRINT

The Seen and Unseen Worlds in Java, 1726-1749: History, literature and Islam in the court of Pakubuwana II

Merle C. Ricklefs

This work explores the nexus between religious belief and mundane behaviour in mid-eighteenth century Java ? exploding widely accepted stereotypes about the role of Islam in Javanese civilisation as he does so. Pakubuwana II was a malleable 16-year-old who came to the throne under the religious influence of his pious and mystical grandmother Ratu Pakubuwana. He was shaped into the model mystic monarch, who eventually went to Holy War against the Dutch East India Company. Images of Javanese cultural history as a contest between Javanist and Islamic modes are shown to be unsustainable in the light of this vital period in Indonesian history. Islam is central to this story. This study rests upon a vast range of Javanese and Dutch sources. Readers will gain a unique sense of how members of the Javanese elite thought, prayed and performed at this time, when pre-colonial Javanese court culture was at its height.
1998 416pp ISBN 1 86448 627 9 paperback $29.95 NOT IN PRINT

Leadership and Culture in Indonesian Politics

R. William Liddle

This book charts the origins and the recent course of the New Order. It firstly analyses the extraordinary leadership skills of President Suharto, who has managed for thirty years to accumulate and mobilise a winning combination of political resources of coercion, exchange, persuasion, and organisation. The author goes on to ask whether there will be a change of regime when Suharto leaves office: Is Indonesia likely to become more democratic, more authoritarian, or politically unstable? The author highlights the role of culture, especially contemporary Islamic and Javanese values, beliefs, and attitudes, but treats culture not as a unitary, fixed determinant of behaviour but rather as a complex and fluid resource, manipulated and deployed by politicians in the contest for power.
1996 314pp ISBN 1 86448 196 X paperback NOT IN PRINT

Sojourners and Settlers: Histories of Southeast Asia and the Chinese

Edited by Anthony Reid with the assistance of Kristine Alilunas Rodgers

Only recently has the role of Chinese and Sino-Southeast Asian minorities in leading Southeast Asia's rapid economic growth attracted world attention. Yet the interaction of Chinese and Southeast Asians reaches back a thousand years, at a level of intensity which makes it difficult, if not specious, to attempt to disentangle what is Chinese and what is indigenous in much of Southeast Asian culture. This book demonstrates the depth of that relationship. Ten of the most distinguished specialists in the field pool their expertise in considering the multiple ways in which Chinese interacted with the region.
1996 232pp ISBN 1 86373 990 4 paperback NOT IN PRINT

The Rice Sector in Peninsular Malaysia: A Rural Paradox

P.P. Courtenay

Although the rice sector has been the focus of both intensive scientific and economic scrutiny and of substantial investment since the 1960s, it is responsible for the majority of those Malaysians living in poverty and is the source of most the country's rural migrants. This book examines all facets of the Malaysian rice industry?the land tenure and inheritance systems, the policies of the colonial period, and especially the post-independence drive to improve the economic lot of the rice farmers. It looks closely at the adoption of green revolution technology and explores the reasons that continue to keep tens of thousands of rural families in poverty.
1995 181pp ISBN 1 86373 991 2 paperback $29.95 NOT IN PRINT

Village Java under the Cultivation System 1830-1870

Robert E. Elson

This book is a pioneering attempt to understand and explain the transformations undergone by the peasants of Java under the system of forced crop cultivation imposed upon them by the Dutch colonial government. It paints a detailed portrait of Javanese village life in the early years of the nineteenth century and analyses the system of forced cultivation from rapid expansion to stagnation and then decline.
1994 532pp ISBN 1 68373 656 5 paperback $39.95 NOT IN PRINT

War, Nationalism and Peasants: Java under the Japanese Occupation 1942-45

Shigeru Sato

The Japanese occupation was a decisive episode in Indonesian history. For Indonesian nationalists it was an opportunity to advance their cause; for many others, particularly peasants, it meant hardship and often death due to an unprecedented level of oppression by the Japanese.
1994 280pp ISBN 1 86373 705 7 paperback $24.95 NOT IN PRINT

War, Culture and Economy in Java, 1677-1726: Asian and European imperialism in the early Kartasura period

Merle C. Ricklefs

When the Dutch East India Company (VOC) intervened in a civil war in Java in 1667, no one knew that fifty years of inconclusive conflict would follow. The VOC brought to Java the technological advances of seventeenth-century European warfare, which the Javanese eagerly adopted. Yet this ready transfer of technology was not accompanied by any significant European or Javanese cultural changes.
1993 425pp ISBN 1 86373 380 9 paperback $29.95 NOT IN PRINT

Community and Nation: China, Southeast Asia and Australia

Wang Gungwu

The essays in this collection examine early Sino-Southeast Asia relations, several key eras of Malay, Malayan and Malaysian history, the Chinese in Malaya just before nation-building began, how the Chinese had to overcome their emotional and political ties with China, and the Chinese in Australia. Australia's past, present and future relations with Asia are also covered.
1992 359pp ISBN 1 86373 372 8 paperback NOT IN PRINT

Fragmented Vision: Culture and Politics in Contemporary Malaysia

Joel S. Kahn and Francis Loh Kok Wah (editors)

Fragmented Vision provides descriptions and analyses by leading social scientists in Malaysia and Australia of current social and cultural movements, especially as these relate to political developments in the country. Topics examined include Malay political culture, the emergence of feminism, Chinese social and cultural movements, popular culture in Malaysia, ethnicity and the left, and ethnic minorities.
1992 327pp ISBN 1 86373 167 9 paperback NOT IN PRINT

Business and Politics in Indonesia

Andrew Maclntyre

Business and Politics in Indonesia focuses on the ways in which sections of business attempt to organise themselves to gain a voice in the policy-making process, and throws light upon key elements of the political system.
1991 282pp ISBN 0 04442 330 6 paperback NOT IN PRINT

Gangsters and Revolutionaries: The Jakarta People's Militia and the Indonesian Revolution

Robert Cribb

This book is the first in-depth study of the "people's armies" which emerged from the chaos at the close of World War II in Indonesia to join the struggle for Indonesian independence in 1945. It traces the story of the People's Militia of Greater Jakarta from its origins as a loose network of petty criminals and labour bosses to its destruction at the hand of the Indonesian army in the late 1940s.
1991 222pp ISBN 0 04301 296 5 paperback NOT IN PRINT

One Soul One Struggle: Region and Revolution in Indonesia

Anton Lucas

An in-depth study of the Indonesian revolution at the grass-roots level, this book focuses on the Three Regions Affair (Tiga Daerah) in Pekalongan Residency in Central Java in 1945. It sets this social revolution against the background of pre-war economic exploitation and political discontent as well as the extraordinary harshness of the Japanese occupation.
1991 301pp ISBN 0 04442 249 0 paperback NOT IN PRINT

The Wheel of Fortune: A History of a Poor Community in Jakarta

Lea Jellinek

The Wheel of Fortune describes the impact of the growth of the modern metropolis and government rehousing programs on a small, poor community living in Jakarta, Indonesia's capital. Between the 1930s and 1980s a market garden on the edge of the city is transformed into a shanty town and finally multistorey flats. The inhabitants tell the author how these rapid changes affected their lives.
1991 214pp ISBN 0 04442 139 7 paperback NOT IN PRINT

Agricultural Development in Indonesia

Anne Booth

Agricultural Development in Indonesia is the first comprehensive examination of the economic development of the Indonesian agricultural sector in an historical perspective. It draws on the rich store of economic and demographic data published in the Dutch colonial era as well as more recent statistical evidence from various agencies of the Indonesian government.
1989 295pp ISBN 0 04335 060 7 paperback NOT IN PRINT

Nation in Arms: The Origins of the People's Army of Vietnam

Greg Lockhart

Nation in Arms provides an inside view of the early history of the People's Army of Vietnam based on a wide reading of Vietnamese and French language sources.
1989 314pp ISBN 0 04324 012 7 paperback NOT IN PRINT

Death and Disease in Southeast Asia: Explorations in Social, Medical and Demographic History

Norman G Owen (editor)

From a "decoding" of ancient Balinese myths to the compilation of mortality rates for the modern Philippines, these essays suggest the variety of ways in which the study of death and disease can enhance our understanding of the Southeast Asian past.
1987 288pp ISBN 0 04301 280 9 paperback NOT IN PRINT

Trade, Traders and Trading in Rural Java

Jennifer Alexander

Twice weekly in each small Javanese town, thousands of traders gather for a few hours of frenetic buying and selling. Based on meticulous ethnographic fieldwork, this book examines a modern market town from the trade, traders, and trading viewpoints. It covers material exchanges, commodity production and circulation, traders' class origins, careers and social institutions, and price setting and bargaining strategies.
1987 223pp ISBN 0 19588 865 0 paperback NOT IN PRINT

In Search of Justice: Workers and Unions in Colonial Java, 1908-1926

John Ingleson

This book examines the experiences and responses of the early generations of urbanised Indonesians. The focus is on the Indonesian workers in the modern sector of the urban economy in the first two and a half decades of the twentieth century and on workers in the sugar factories in Java who shared something of the proletarian experience.
1986 342pp ISBN 0 19582 671 X paperback NOT IN PRINT

Indonesia: The Rise of Capital

Richard Robison

This controversial book examines the way in which capital has emerged in the last two decades as a major influence on the Indonesian state, its officials and polices. The emergence of the capitalist class is examined, along with its internal divisions and conflicts and its relations with the state.
1986 425pp ISBN 0 04909 024 0 paperback NOT IN PRINT

The End of the Absolute Monarchy in Siam

Benjamin A. Batson

This study traces the efforts of Thailand's last absolute ruler, King Prajadhipok (1925-35), to modify the country's political structure in an attempt to introduce representative political institutions which would not disrupt the conservative social, political and economic order. The failure of these attempts was signalled by a military coup in the name of democracy.
1985 349pp ISBN 0 86861 600 1 paperback NOT IN PRINT

Harmony and Hierarchy in a Javanese Kampung

Patrick Guinness
1985

Javanese Peasants and the Colonial Sugar Industry

R.E. Elson
1984

Indonesian Chinese in Crisis

Charles A. Coppel
1983

Philippine Social History: Global Trade and Local Transformations

Alfred W. McCoy & Ed. C. de Jesus (eds)
1982

Community and Nation: Essays on Southeast Asia and the Chinese

Wang Gungwu
1981

Lombok: Conquest, Colonization and Underdevelopment, 1870-1940

Alfons van der Kraan
1980

Perceptions of the Past in Southeast Asia

Anthony Reid & David Marr (eds)
1979

Issues in Malaysian Development

J.C. Jackson & Martin Rudner (eds)
1979

The Making of a Bureaucratic Elite: The Colonial Transformation of the Javanese Priyayi

Heather Sutherland
1979

Road to Exile: The Indonesian Nationalist Movement, 1927-1934

John Ingleson
1979



Published by the International Centre of Excellence in Asia-Pacific Studies, the Australian National University.