Malaysia

Student Activism in Malaysia: Crucible, Mirror, Sideshow

This work traces the early rise and subsequent decline of politically effective student activism in Malaysia. During the 1970s, the state embarked on a project of “intellectual containment” that both suppressed ongoing mobilization of university students and delegitimized further activism. That project has been notably successful in curbing student protest, erasing a legacy of past engagement, and stemming the production of potentially subversive new ideas.

Modern Dreams

An ethnographic study of the cultural politics of urban redevelopment in one Malaysian community in the 1990s, looking at changing notions of culture, identity, and urban space.

From PKI to the Comintern, 1924-1941:

A compilation of selected documents-the obtaining of which (detailed in the introduction) make for a fascinating tale within itself. But the documents themselves are equally fascinating, for they provide rare glimpses into the formation (in the 1920s and 1930s), development, thought, and policies of the early Malaysian Communist Party, which was actually less Malaysian than Indonesian, Vietnamese, and especially Chinese in racial composition during the years under consideration.

Malay Frontier, A: Unity and Duality in a Sumatran Kingdom

The way in which Malaysians construe ideas about authority and government is the subject of this book. The author focuses upon an often-ignored section of the Malay archipelago, Barus (a small kingdom on the coast of northwest Sumatra) through an intertextual approach that makes a comparative reading of two studies from the region (the royal chronicles of Hilir and Hulu Barus). He examines the relationship between the hill and the coast to study the character of Malay political culture in Barus.

Fair Land Sarawak: Some Recollections of an Expatriate Officer

A personalized account by an expatriate of British colonial disengagement from Sarawak. Alternately light-hearted and serious, it is both personal narrative and history.