An original and deeply researched work on a key period of Javanese history, by a world expert.

The Malay World (Alam Melayu), spanning the Malay Peninsula, much of Sumatra, and parts of Borneo, has long contained within it a variety of populations. Most of the Malays have been organized into the different kingdoms (kerajaan Melayu) from which they have derived their identity. But the territories of those kingdoms have also included tribal peoples - both Malay and non-Malay - who have held themselves apart from those kingdoms in varying degrees. In the last three decades, research on these tribal societies has aroused increasing interest.This book explores the ways in which the character of these societies relates to the Malay kingdoms that have held power in the region for many centuries past, as well as to the modern nation-states of the region. It brings together researchers committed to comparative analysis of the tribal groups living on either side of the Malacca Straits - in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Singapore. New theoretical and descriptive approaches are presented for the study of the social and cultural continuities and discontinuities manifested by tribal life in the region.

The Indonesian Town Revisited reflects the growing interest in new towns and the urban sprawl around Jakarta, the economic crisis and its effects on the construction sector. Furthermore, a new direction in research is related to the growing interest in middle range cities. Some well-established topics are also covered, such as kampung improvement, urban conservation and migration.

Trade flows, cities and kinship relations can all be seen as elements of complex networks. In this collection of essays, all of which deal with Asia, we argue that there are good reasons to envisage them as various dimensions of the same networks. Nevertheless, it is fairly rare to find trade, cities and kinship relations as intimately linked as we have portrayed them in this volume, because they are usually classified within different sub-disciplines of history, whose practitioners are all too often not inclined to talk to people outside their own field. The Australian born historian Heather Sutherland, who recently retired from the VU university in Amsterdam, is an exception in this respect because most of her work gravitates towards an approach which aims to integrate this trinity of topics. This collection of essays, written by a number of her students and close colleagues, has taken its cue from her approach. It is not the case that all the contributions deal with all three topics but they as a collective demonstrate how flows of trade, cities—both as urban centres and nodes in wider networks—and kinship relations hang together, and how the study of one topic opens new vistas on the other two, revealing causal links that otherwise would have remained hidden. Thus, the essays in this collective volume support the idea that trade, towns and kin—although often dealt with quite separately—can be viewed as various aspects of the same networks, connecting people, places and commodities.

This highly informative and insightful study opens numerous windows into the history of Islamic religious thought in the Malay-Indonesian world from the thirteenth to the late twentieth century. The author begins by addressing theological issues relevant to the wider Islamic world then examines Malay-Indonesian Islamic thought in the pre-twentieth century period and Islamic religious thought in Southeast Asia in the modern era.

Asia has undergone strong economic growth since the Second World War. However, it also experiences growing economic and regional disparities brought about by this unprecedented development. This economic growth cannot be considered sustainable without taking into consideration the social development of minority populations, as well as the fundamentals of minority rights. The chapters in this book work from the premise that an environment that favours the emergence of various conditions necessary for the development of minority populations will contribute towards further economic development and prosperity, as well as the social cohesion of the entire country. Bringing together perspectives from Economics, Development and Area Studies, Geography, Anthropology, and Sociology, the contributors provide local narratives that shed light on some of the different needs, situations, and methods of problem solving. This diverse approach gives a nuanced perspective on social, economic and political inequality, and the ways in which people are constructing varied responses to the challenges of modernization. Through the comparison of the characteristics and realities of minority region development among countries in East and Southeast Asia, this book provides a better understanding of the development-related challenges faced by minority regions in the current context of modernization and globalization.