Following the fall of the Melaka Sultanate to the Portuguese in 1511, the sultanates of Johor and Aceh emerged as major trading centers alongside Portuguese Melaka. Each power represented wider global interests. Aceh had links with Gujerat, the Ottoman Empire and the Levant. Johor was a center for Javanese merchants and others involved with the Eastern spice trade. Melaka was part of the Estado da India, Portugal's trading empire that extended from Japan to Mozambique. Throughout the sixteenth century, a peculiar balance among the three powers became an important character of the political and economical life in the Straits of Melaka. The arrival of the Dutch in the early seventeenth century upset the balance and led to the decline of Portuguese Melaka. Making extensive use of contemporary Portuguese sources, Paulo Pinto uses geopolitical approach to analyze the financial, political, economic and military institutions that underlay this triangular arrangement, a system that persisted because no one power could achieve an undisputed hegemony. He also considers the position of post-conquest Melaka in the Malay World, where it remained a symbolic center of Malay civilization and a model of Malay political authority despite changes associated with Portuguese rule. In the process provides information on the social, political and genealogical circumstances of the Johor and Aceh sultanates.

"This book attempts to trace back and compare the geological and demographical transformation and development of the town of Melaka and its surroundings over the centuries, with focus on its expansion particularly within the last 40 years. It contains a compilation of some never before seen photographs from private collections. It also records the development of Melaka as how it was then and is now, from eye level and from the top, as Melaka continues to develop and change. This book is published to commemorate the prestigious World Heritage City award conferred by UNESCO to Melaka."--Goodreads

The Singapore and Melaka Straits are a place where regional and long-distance maritime trading networks converge, linking Europe, the Mediterranean, eastern Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and the Indian subcontinent with key centres of trade in Thailand, Indochina, insular Southeast Asia, China, Korea and Japan. The first half of the 17th century brought heightened political, commercial and diplomatic activity to this region. It had long been clear to both the Portuguese and the Dutch that whoever controlled the waters off modern Singapore gained a firm grip on regional as well as long-distance intra-Asian trade. By the early 1600s Portuguese power and prestige were waning and the arrival of the Dutch East India Company constituted a major threat. Moreover, the rapid expansion and growing power of the Acehnese Empire, and rivalry between Johor and Aceh, was creating a new context for European trade in Asia.

A common thread throughout the essays in this volume is a focus on new loci of power that emerge either in collision with colonial power structures, or in collaboration with or those that emerge in the wake of decolonization. While the authors recognize the presence of a larger structure of colonial hegemony, they also investigate those centers of power that emerge in the interstices of crevices of colonial power. Interdisciplinary and theoretically innovative, this book offers a global perspective on colonial and national landscapes, rewrites the master creator narrative, examines national landscapes as sites of contestation and views the globalization of processes such as archaeology beyond the boundaries of the national.

This book offers a glimpse into an almost unknown but distinct community in Singapore and Malaysia: the Peranakan Indians. Overshadowed by the larger, more widespread and more influential Peranakan Chinese, this tightly knit community likewise dates back to early colonial merchants who intermingled with and married local Malays in Malacca. Most Peranakan Indians are Saivite Hindus, speak a version of Malay amongst themselves, and have a cuisine influenced by all three major cultures of Malaysia and Singapore (Malay, Indian, Chinese). Bringing together original interviews and archival material, this accessible book documents the all-but-forgotten history, customs, religion and culture of the Peranakan Indians of Singapore and Malacca.

This book examines the interaction between art, design, technology and the social sciences. It features 56 papers that were presented at the International Symposium on Research of Arts, Design and Humanities, ISRADH 2014, held at Sutera Harbour Resort, Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia. Complete with helpful diagrams and tables, the papers cover such topics as artificial reef development, racial discourse in the social media, stoneware as a replacement material for modern ventilation walls, and factors contributing to internet abuse in the workplace. Overall, the coverage focuses on global design trends and demands with an emphasis on people, business and technology. Inside, readers will find information on art and science in industrial applications; art management and entrepreneurship; cognitive, psychological and behavioral science; design technology and sustainable development; humanities and social applications in quality of life; social implications of technology; and visual communication and technologies. Taking a multi-disciplinary approach, the book features insightful discussions among academicians and industrial practitioners on the evolution of design that will appeal to researchers, designers and students.