New Books in Southeast Asian Studies
Episodes
Thomas Patton, "The Buddha’s Wizards: Magic, Protection, and Healing in Burmese Buddhism" (Columbia UP, 2018)
11 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In his recent monograph, The Buddha’s Wizards: Magic, Protection, and Healing in Burmese Buddhism(Columbia University Press, 2018), Thomas Patton ex...
Andray Abrahamian, "North Korea and Myanmar: Divergent Paths" (McFarland, 2018)
28 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
At an often-stressful time in global affairs, and with the very idea of the ‘international community’ seemingly under threat, it can be beneficial...
Daromir Rudnyckyj, "Beyond Debt: Islamic Experiments in Global Finance" (U Chicago Press, 2018)
24 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Recent economic crises have made the centrality of debt, and the instability it creates, increasingly apparent. In Beyond Debt: Islamic Experiments in...
Arnika Fuhrmann, "Ghostly Desires: Queer Sexuality and Vernacular Buddhism in Contemporary Thai Cinema" (Duke UP, 2016)
22 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Since the late 1990s Thai cinema has come to global attention with movies like the famous ghost film, Nang Nak, and more recently the evocative films ...
Tania Li, "Land’s End: Capitalist Relations on an Indigenous Frontier" (Duke UP, 2014)
07 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
If you want to read just one book to properly understand capitalism, let it be Tania Li’s award-winning 2014 book Land’s End: Capitalist Relations...
James R. Rush, "Hamka's Great Story: A Master Writer’s Vision of Islam for Modern Indonesia" (U Wisconsin Press, 2016)
13 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
From Indonesia’s declaration of independence in 1945 up until today, the relationship between Indonesian nationalism, Islam, and modernity has been ...
McKenzie Wark, "General Intellects: Twenty-One Thinkers for the Twenty-First Century" (Verso, 2017)
06 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
McKenzie Wark’s new book offers 21 focused studies of thinkers working in a wide range of fields who are worth your attention. The chapters of Gener...
Peter Zinoman, “Vietnamese Colonial Republican: The Political Vision of Vu Trong Phung” (U California Press, 2013)
19 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Over the course of the 1930s, Vietnamese author Vũ Trọng Phụng published eight novels, hundreds of works of narrative nonfiction, stories, plays,...
Max Hastings, “Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy, 1945-1975” (Harper, 2018)
06 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
People of various political stripes in many countries (particularly those countries where various political stripes are allowed) have been arguing abo...
Vennessa Hearman, “Unmarked Graves: Death and Survival in the Anti-Communist Violence in East Java, Indonesia” (NUS Press, 2018)
22 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
This interview is the fourth and and final interview in a short series of podcasts about the mass violence in Indonesia. Earlier this year I talked ...
Martin Saxer and Juan Zhang, eds., “The Art of Neighbouring: Making Relations Across China’s Borders” (Amsterdam UP, 2017)
18 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
China’s growing presence in all of our worlds today is felt most keenly by those living directly on the country’s borders. They, together with the...
Chris Baker and Pasuk Phongpaichit, “A History of Ayutthaya: Siam in the Early Modern World” (Cambridge UP, 2017)
03 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The dramatic fall and destruction of Ayutthaya at the hands of the Burmese in 1767 has been the subject of films, television shows, songs and books fo...
Jess Melvin, “The Army and the Indonesian Genocide: Mechanics of Mass Murder” (Routledge, 2018)
01 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
It’s not often that you run across a smoking gun. Jess Melvin did, at an archive in Banda Aceh. Since the massacres in Indonesia in 1965-66, acade...
Jan M. Padios, “A Nation on the Line: Call Centers as Postcolonial Predicaments in the Philippines” (Duke UP,
10 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Jan M. Padios‘ new book A Nation on the Line: Call Centers as Postcolonial Predicaments in the Philippines (Duke University Press, ) sheds light on ...
Gerald Gems, “Sport and the American Occupation of the Philippines: Bats, Balls, and Bayonets” (Lexington Books, 2016)
14 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Today we are joined by Gerald Gems, Professor of Kinesiology at North Central College in Naperville, Illinois, and the author of several books on spor...
Valerie Francisco-Menchavez, “The Labor of Care: Filipina Migrants and Transnational Families in the Digital Age” (U Illinois Press, 2018)
13 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Valerie Francisco-Menchavez‘s new book, The Labor of Care: Filipina Migrants and Transnational Families in the Digital Age (University of Illi...
Katherine A. Bowie, “Of Beggars and Buddhas: The Politics of Humor in the Vessantara Jataka in Thailand” (U Wisconsin Press, 2017)
27 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
From the sidelines of the Asian Studies Association of Australia’s biennial conference, where she presented the inaugural keynote address of the Ass...
Katherine McGregor et al, “The Indonesian Genocide of 1965: Causes, Dynamics and Legacies” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018)
26 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
I don’t often start these blog posts with comments about the cover art. But the reproduction of Alit Ambara’s “After 1965,” featured on the ...
Michael L. Sullivan, “Cambodia Votes: Democracy, Authority and International Support for Elections 1993–2013” (NIAS Press, 2018)
29 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Ahead of a nominal general election scheduled in Cambodia for the end of July 2018, Michael Sullivan, author of Cambodia Votes: Democracy, Authority ...
Geoffrey Robinson, “The Killing Season: A History of the Indonesian Massacres, 1965-1966” (Princeton UP, 2018)
04 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
I first assigned Joshua Oppenheimer’s film “The Act of Killing” for my course in Comparative Genocide at Newman. The movie is a documentary ab...
Michele Zack, “The Lisu: Far from the Ruler” (UP of Colorado, 2017)
30 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Recent years have brought a burgeoning interest in how highland people in mainland Southeast Asia live and communicate along and across the boundaries...
Jessica Elkind, “Aid Under Fire: Nation Building and the Vietnam War” (U Kentucky Press, 2016)
09 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
As any scholar of the Vietnam War can tell you, the field doesn’t lack for study: it’s one of the most-studied fields for both military and diplom...
Kathlene Baldanza, “Ming China and Vietnam: Negotiating Borders in Early Modern Asia” (Cambridge UP, 2016)
07 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In Ming China and Vietnam: Negotiating Borders in Early Modern Asia (Cambridge University Press, 2016), Kathlene Baldanza explores the complex diploma...
Guillaume Rozenberg, “The Immortals: Faces of the Incredible in Buddhist Burma” (U Hawaii Press, 2015)
30 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
“It is difficult to characterize this fascinating book,” George Tanabe writes in his short preface to The Immortals: Faces of the Incredible in Bu...
Karen Teoh, “Schooling Diaspora: Women, Education, and the Overseas Chinese in British Malaya and Singapore, 1850s to 1960s” (Oxford UP, 2018)
17 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In Schooling Diaspora: Women, Education, and the Overseas Chinese in British Malaya and Singapore, 1850s to 1960s (Oxford University Press, 2018), Kar...
Max Boot, “The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam” (Liveright, 2018)
13 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Counterinsurgency doctrine, the Vietnam War, and the vagaries of politics all come together in Max Boot‘s latest work, The Road Not Taken: Edward La...
Lee Morgenbesser, “Behind the Facade: Elections under Authoritarianism in Southeast Asia” (SUNY Press, 2016)
27 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Since the 1990s, vast sums of money and time have been invested in training and resources to hold elections around the world, including in parts of So...
Christopher B. Patterson, “Transitive Cultures: Anglophone Literature of the Transpacific” (Rutgers UP, 2018)
26 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Christopher B. Patterson‘s book Transitive Cultures: Anglophone Literature of the Transpacific (Rutgers University Press, 2018) reads English-langu...
Claudio Sopranzetti, “Owners of the Map: Motorcycle Taxi Drivers, Mobility and Politics in Bangkok” (U California Press, 2017)
09 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
When the army brutally dispersed Red Shirts protestors in Bangkok’s busy commercial district in May 2010, motorcycle taxi drivers emerged as a key f...
Gregory A. Daddis, “Westmoreland’s War: Reassessing America’s Strategy in Vietnam” (Oxford UP, 2014)
09 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In the wake of Ken Burns’ most recent series, The Vietnam War, America’s fascination with the conflict shows no sign of abating. Fortunately the f...
Harrod Suarez, “The Work of Mothering: Globalization and the Filipino Diaspora” (U Illinois Press, 2017)
08 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Harrod Suarez‘s new book The Work of Mothering: Globalization and the Filipino Diaspora (University of Illinois Press, 2017) focuses on the domestic...
Nicholas Trajano Molnar, “American Mestizos, the Philippines, and the Malleability of Race, 1898-1961” (U Missouri Press, 2017)
07 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In 1898, the United States took control of the Philippines from the Spanish. The U.S. then entered into a brutal war to make the Filipinos submit to t...
Tam T. T. Ngo, “The New Way: Protestantism and the Hmong in Vietnam” (U. Washington Press, 2016)
09 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Think of Christianity in Southeast Asia today and what might come to mind is the predominantly Catholic Philippines, or the work of the Baptist church...
Roderic Broadhurst et.al., “Violence and the Civilising Process in Cambodia” (Cambridge UP, 2015)
29 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The work of sociologist Norbert Elias has had a renaissance in recent times, with Steven Pinker, among others, using it to argue that interpersonal vi...
Eric J. Pido, “Migrant Returns: Manila, Development, and Transnational Connectivity” (Duke UP, 2017)
27 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The government of the Philippines has for decades encouraged its citizens to seek work abroad and send money back to the country in remittances. But i...
Astrid Noren-Nilsson, “Cambodia’s Second Kingdom: Nation, Imagination, and Democracy (Cornell Southeast Asia Program, 2016)
03 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Billed as “an exploration of the role of nationalist imaginings, discourses, and narratives in Cambodia since the 1993 reintroduction of a multipart...
Patricia Sloane-White, “Corporate Islam: Sharia and the Modern Workplace” (Cambridge UP, 2017)
29 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The relationship between religion and economic activity has attracted generations of scholars working in myriad settings. In recent years, many have t...
Bradley Camp Davis, “Imperial Bandits: Outlaws and Rebels in the China-Vietnam Borderlands” (U of Washington Press, 2017)
29 Jul 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Recent years have seen an upsurge in studies asking questions about, and in, borderlands. The topic is certainly not new to scholars of mainland South...
Peter Eisner, “MacArthur’s Spies: The Solider, the Singer, and the Spymaster Who Defied the Japanese in WWII” (Viking, 2017)
20 Jul 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The conquest of the Philippines in 1942 brought thousands of Americans under the control of the empire of Japan. While most of them were interned or i...
Sverre Molland, “The Perfect Business? Anti-Trafficking and the Sex Trade along the Mekong” (U. Hawaii Press, 2012)
30 Jun 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Now and then we feature a book on New Books in Southeast Asian Studies whose author we ought to have had on the show some time ago. The Perfect Busine...
Megha Amrith, “Caring for Strangers: Filipino Medical Workers in Asia” (NIAS Press, 2016)
22 May 2017
Contributed by Lukas
If you’ve been hospitalized in Europe, North America, Australia or the Middle East in recent years, chances are that at some point a nurse from the ...
Matthew J. Walton, “Buddhism, Politics and Political Thought in Myanmar” (Cambridge UP, 2017)
27 Apr 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Burmese Buddhist monks have featured in the news quite a lot in recent times, not as peaceful practitioners of self-abnegation, but at activists at th...
Serhat Unaldi, “Working Towards the Monarchy: The Politics of Space in Downtown Bangkok” (U. of Hawaii Press, 2016)
28 Mar 2017
Contributed by Lukas
In Working Towards the Monarchy: The Politics of Space in Downtown Bangkok (University of Hawaii Press, 2016), Serhat Unaldi offers a provocative and ...
Jayde Lin Roberts, “Mapping Chinese Rangoon: Place and Nation among the Sino-Burmese” (U. Washington Press, 2016)
17 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
In recent years, scholarship on Burma, or Myanmar, has undergone a renaissance. Jayde Lin Roberts’ Mapping Chinese Rangoon: Place and Nation among ...
Samson Lim, “Siam’s New Detectives: Visualizing Crime and Conspiracy in Modern Thailand” (U of Hawaii Press, 2016)
21 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Siam’s New Detectives: Visualizing Crime and Conspiracy in Modern Thailand (University of Hawaii Press, 2016) is a rewarding, multilayered study of ...
Erik W. Davis, “Deathpower: Buddhism’s Ritual Imagination in Cambodia” (Columbia UP, 2015)
20 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
In his recent monograph, Deathpower: Buddhism’s Ritual Imagination in Cambodia (Columbia University Press, 2015), Erik W. Davis explores funerary ri...
Pamela McElwee, “Forest are Gold: Trees, People and Environmental Rule in Vietnam” (U. Washington Press, 2016)
17 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Forests are Gold: Trees, People and Environmental Rule in Vietnam (University of Washington Press, 2016) begins with two related puzzles: why does Vie...
Patrick Jory, “Thailand’s Theory of Monarchy: The Vessantara Jataka and the Idea of the Perfect Man” (SUNY Press, 2016)
20 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In Thailand’s Theory of Monarchy: The Vessantara Jataka and the Idea of the Perfect Man (SUNY Press, 2016; in paperback from 2017), Patrick Jory off...
Doreen Lee, “Activist Archives: Youth Culture and the Political Past in Indonesia” (Duke UP, 2016)
28 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Activist Archives: Youth Culture and the Political Past in Indonesia (Duke University Press, 2016) is a book about Indonesian youth activism both befo...
Stephen Dupont, “Piksa Niugini” (Peabody Press/Radius Books, 2013)
18 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Piksa Niugini by Stephen Dupont, with forward by Robert Gardner and essay by Bob Connolly, is published by the Peabody Press and Radius Books, (2013)....
Megan C. Thomas, “Orientalists, Propagandists, and Ilustrados: Filipino Scholarship and the End of Spanish Colonialism” (U. of Minnesota Press, 2012 )
30 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In Orientalists, Propagandists and Ilustrados: Filipino Scholarship and the End of Spanish Colonialism (University of Minnesota Press, 2012), Megan Th...
Marie Lall, “Understanding Reform in Myanmar: People and Society in the Wake of Military Rule” (Hurst, 2016)
15 Aug 2016
Contributed by Lukas
A lot has been going on in Myanmar in the last few years, and even people who are deeply familiar with the country have had trouble following and inte...
Simon Creak, “Embodied Nation: Sport, Masculinity, and the Making of Modern Laos” (U. of Hawaii Press, 2015)
27 Jul 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In the introduction to Embodied Nation: Sport, Masculinity, and the Making of Modern Laos (University of Hawaii Press, 2015), historian Simon Creak wr...
Nick Cheesman, “Opposing the Rule of Law: How Myanmar’s Courts Make Law and Order” (Cambridge UP, 2016)
30 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Working against the tendency to conflate the analytic categories “rule of law,” and “law and order,” Nick Cheesman’s Opposing the Rule of La...
Eric Tang, “Unsettled: Cambodian Refugees in the NYC Hyperghetto” (Temple UP, 2015)
28 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Eric Tang’s book, Unsettled: Cambodian Refugees in the NYC Hyperghetto (Temple University Press, 2015), is an intimate ethnography of a single perso...
Charles Keith, “Catholic Vietnam: A Church from Empire to Nation” (U of California Press, 2012)
06 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The relationship between religion, imperialism, and national identity can be quite complex. At the same time, nationalist readings of history, particu...
Brooke Schedneck, “Thailand’s International Meditation Centers” (Routledge, 2015)
16 May 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In her recent monograph, Thailand’s International Meditation Centers: Tourism and the Global Commodification of Religious Practices (Routledge, 2015...
Mary M. Steedly, “Rifle Reports: A Story of Indonesian Independence” (U of California Press, 2013)
15 May 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Mary M. Steedly‘s book, Rifle Reports: A Story of Indonesian Independence, is “one of a kind and will continue to be so,” writes Benedict Anders...
Tran Ngoc Angie, “Ties that Bind: Cultural Identity, Class, and Law in Vietnam’s Labor Resistance” (Cornell UP, 2013)
19 Apr 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Labour consciousness is not just class-based; it also emerges out of cultural identities, as Tran Ngoc Angie argues powerfully in Ties that Bind: Cult...
Deirdre de la Cruz, “Mother Figured: Marian Apparitions and the Making of a Filipino Universal” (U of Chicago Press, 2015)
02 Mar 2016
Contributed by Lukas
There is no female religious figure so widely known and revered as the Virgin Mary. Filipino Catholics are especially drawn to Mama Mary and have a st...
Khairudin Aljunied, “Radicals: Resistance and Protest in Colonial Malaya” (Northern Illinois UP, 2015)
24 Feb 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In Radicals: Resistance and Protest in Colonial Malaya (Northern Illinois University Press, 2015) Khairudin Aljunied tells a neglected story of antico...
Annette Miae Kim, “Sidewalk City: Remapping Public Space in Ho Chi Minh City” (U of Chicago Press, 2015)
20 Jan 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Sidewalk City: Remapping Public Space in Ho Chi Minh City (University of Chicago Press, 2015) is a remarkable book about overlooked yet ubiquitous urb...
Shane Strate, “The Lost Territories: Thailand’s History of National Humiliation” (U of Hawaii Press, 2015)
15 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In The Lost Territories: Thailand’s History of National Humiliation(University of Hawaii Press, 2015), Shane Strate tracks the movements of two comp...
Anthony Reid, “A History of Southeast Asia: Critical Crossroads” (Wiley Blackwell, 2015)
20 Nov 2015
Contributed by Lukas
To write a comprehensive history of Southeast Asia is a task reserved for precious few scholars: historians of unrivaled skill and formidable knowledg...
Ken MacLean, “The Government of Mistrust: Illegibility and Bureaucratic Power in Socialist Vietnam” (U of Wisconsin Press, 2013)
27 Oct 2015
Contributed by Lukas
When a revolutionary party aims to take administrative control of the countryside, what kinds of devices, training and documents does it use? And what...
Christopher R. Duncan, “Violence and Vengeance: Religious Conflict and Its Aftermath in Eastern Indonesia” (Cornell UP, 2013)
15 Sep 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Researching the communal killings that occurred in North Maluku, Indonesia during 1999 and 2000, Christopher Duncan was struck by how participants “...
Donald M. Nonini, “‘Getting By’: Class and State Formation Among Chinese in Malaysia” (Cornell UP, 2015)
31 Jul 2015
Contributed by Lukas
“Getting By”: Class and State Formation Among Chinese in Malaysia (Cornell University Press, 2015) is a powerful and multilayered book that upbrai...
Allison Truitt, “Dreaming of Money in Ho Chi Minh City” (U of Washington Press, 2013)
15 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
There’s a lot more to money than its exchange value, as Allison Truitt reveals in her smartly written and lively study, Dreaming of Money in Ho Chi ...
Holly High, “Fields of Desire: Poverty and Policy in Laos” (NUS Press, 2014)
18 May 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Policymakers around the world design projects in which the demands of citizens for basic services are cast as a problem of poverty. Villagers are expe...
Meredith Weiss, “Student Activism in Malaysia: Crucible, Mirror, Sideshow” (Cornell SEAP/NUS Press, 2011)
11 Apr 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Think of student activism in Asia and what comes to mind? The democracy movement in China during 1989? Or Burma the year before? The tumultuous studen...
Alicia Turner, “Saving Buddhism: The Impermanence of Religion in Colonial Burma” (U Hawaii Press, 2014)
13 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In Saving Buddhism: The Impermanence of Religion in Colonial Burma (University of Hawaii Press, 2014), Alicia Turner tells the story of how Burmese Bu...
Andrew Walker, “Thailand’s Political Peasants: Power in the Modern Rural Economy” (U Wisconsin Press, 2012)
16 Feb 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Over the last decade, debates about political turmoil in Thailand have loomed large in talk shows, chat rooms and public lectures. From the military c...
Robert Cribb, Helen Gilbert, Helen Tiffin, “Wild Man from Borneo: A Cultural History of the Orangutan” (U of Hawaii Press, 2014)
15 Jan 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Robert Cribb and his co-authors Helen Gilbert and Helen Tiffin have together drawn on the resources of history, literature, film, science, and cultura...
Erik Braun, “The Birth of Insight: Meditation, Modern Buddhism, and the Burmese Monk Ledi Sayadaw” (University of Chicago Press, 2013)
08 Jan 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Erik Braun‘s recent book, The Birth of Insight: Meditation, Modern Buddhism, and the Burmese Monk Ledi Sayadaw (University of Chicago Press, 2013), ...
Jothie Rajah, “Authoritarian Rule of Law: Legislation, Discourse and Legitimacy in Singapore” (Cambridge UP, 2012)
15 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
In Authoritarian Rule of Law: Legislation, Discourse and Legitimacy in Singapore (Cambridge University Press, 2012), Jothie Rajah tells a compelling s...
Michael Hawkins, “Making Moros: Imperial Historicism and American Military Rule in the Philippines’ Muslim South” (NIU Press, 2012)
12 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
For many Muslim communities particular religious identities were formulated or hardened within colonial realities. These types of cultural encounters ...
Dan Slater, “Ordering Power: Contentious Politics and Authoritarian Leviathans in Southeast Asia” (Cambridge UP, 2010)
14 Nov 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Few books on Southeast Asia cover as much geographic, historical and theoretical ground as Dan Slater’s Ordering Power: Contentious Politics and Aut...
Denise Cruz, “Transpacific Femininities: The Making of the Modern Filipina” (Duke UP, 2012)
04 Nov 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Denise Cruz‘s Transpacific Femininities: The Making of the Modern Filipina (Duke University Press, 2012) traces representations of Filipinas in lite...
Thierry Cruvellier, “The Master of Confessions: The Making of a Khmer Rouge Torturer” (Ecco, 2014)
31 Oct 2014
Contributed by Lukas
What is justice for a man who supervised the interrogation and killing of thousands? Especially a man who now claims to be a Christian and to be, at l...
Lynette J. Chua, “Mobilizing Gay Singapore: Rights and Resistance in an Authoritarian State” (Temple UP, 2014)
15 Oct 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Singapore has a well-deserved reputation as a state that stifles dissent and polices activism. But as Lynette Chua shows in Mobilizing Gay Singapore: ...
Tyrell Haberkorn, “Revolution Interrupted: Farmers, Students, Law and Violence in Northern Thailand” (U of Wisconsin Press, 2011)
13 Sep 2014
Contributed by Lukas
In a foreword to Tyrell Haberkorn‘s first book, Revolution Interrupted: Farmers, Students, Law and Violence in Northern Thailand (Wisconsin Universi...
Tine M. Gammeltoft, “Haunting Images: A Cultural Account of Selective Reproduction in Vietnam” (University of California Press, 2014)
22 Jul 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Tine Gammeltoft‘s new book explores the process of reproductive decision making in contemporary Hanoi. Haunting Images: A Cultural Account of Select...
Rachel Rinaldo, “Mobilizing Piety: Islam and Feminism in Indonesia” (Oxford UP, 2013)
23 Jun 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Are Islam and feminism inherently at odds? Is there a contradiction between piety and gender justice? This is the guiding theme for Rachel Rinaldo, pr...
Peter Maguire and Mike Ritter, “Thai Stick” (Columbia Press, 2013)
29 Mar 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Reading Peter Maguire and Mike Ritter‘s book Thai Stick: Surfers, Scammers and the Untold Story of the Marijuana Trade (Columbia Press, 2013) is th...
Robyn Rodriguez, “Migrants for Export: How the Philippine State Brokers Labor to the World” (University of Minnesota Press, 2010)
30 Oct 2013
Contributed by Lukas
While it has become typical to see Filipina/o migrants working in nursing or domestic work in the United States, many are surprised to see Filipina/os...
Eric Jennings, “Imperial Heights: Dalat and the Making and Undoing of French Indochina” (University of California Press, 2011)
29 Oct 2013
Contributed by Lukas
There is a city in the Southern hills of Vietnam where honeymooners travel each year to affirm their love at high altitude, breathing in the alpine ai...
Deborah Mayersen and Annie Pohlman, “Genocide and Mass Atrocities in Asia: Legacies and Prevention” (Routledge, 2013)
27 Oct 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Genocide studies has been a growth field for a couple of decades. Books and articles have appeared steadily, universities have created programs and ce...
Michael Laffan, “The Makings of Indonesian Islam: Orientalism and the Narration of a Sufi Past” (Princeton UP, 2011)
22 Jul 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Indonesia is often highlighted as having the right kind of Islam, ‘moderate’ and ‘peaceful.’ Whether that remains true (if it ever was a reali...
Gina Chon and Sambeth Thet, “Behind the Killing Fields: A Khmer Rouge Leader and One of his Victims” (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010)
25 Aug 2012
Contributed by Lukas
I’m not sure what it would feel like to interview a leader of a genocidal regime. Asking why people decide it is right and necessary to kill many t...
Noboru Ishikawa, “Between Frontiers: Nation and Identity in a South East Asian Borderland” (NUS Press, 2010)
31 May 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Borneo is an island where three very different nation-states meet: Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brunei. The Indonesian province of Kalimantan occupies mos...
David J. Silbey, “A War of Frontier and Empire: The Philippine-American War, 1899-1902” (Hill and Wang, 2008)
08 Apr 2011
Contributed by Lukas
The Spanish-American War was not only the beginning of a new imperial period for the United States, David Silbey observes in his book A War of Frontie...
Mark Bradley, “Vietnam at War” (Oxford UP, 2009)
14 Mar 2011
Contributed by Lukas
My uncle fought in Vietnam. He flew F-105 Thundercheifs, or “Thuds.” He bombed the heck out of an area north of Hanoi called “Thud Ridge.” He’...
Mark Bradley and Marilyn Young, “Making Sense of the Vietnam Wars” (Oxford UP, 2008)
14 Mar 2011
Contributed by Lukas
What to think about the Vietnam War? A righteous struggle against global Communist tyranny? An episode in American imperialism? A civil war into which...
Richard Fogarty, “Race and War in France: Colonial Subjects in the French Army, 1914-1918” (Johns Hopkins UP, 2008)
03 Nov 2008
Contributed by Lukas
The thing about empire building is that when you’re done building one, you’ve got to figure out what to do with it. This generally involves the “...
James Willbanks, “Abandoning Vietnam: How America Left and South Vietnam Lost Its War” (University of Kansas Press, 2008)
19 Sep 2008
Contributed by Lukas
U.S. forces invade a distant country in order to disarm an international threat to American security. They fight well, and win every major battle deci...