REVIEWS - Siam Society

205Journal of the Siam Society 2007 Vol. 95

REVIEWS

Forrest McGill, ed. The Kingdom ofSiam: The Art of Central Thailand,1350–1800. San Francisco, Asian ArtMuseum - Chong-Moon Lee Center forAsian Art and Culture, 2005, pp.200.

This is the catalogue published toaccompany the exhibition by the samename first held at the Asian Art Museumin San Francisco and then at the PeabodyEssex Museum in Salem, Massachu-setts, in 2005. The exhibition broughttogether 89 of the finest examples of thearts of the Ayutthaya period of Siamesehistory (1351–1767), together with afew from the Thonburi and earlyBangkok periods loaned by museumsaround the world, especially nationalmuseums in Thailand.

A catalogue, by its very nature, isdesigned to accompany a visual experi-ence. Its introductory essays sketch thehistorical, social and artistic contextessential to an understanding of the art,and its notes on individual items giveviewers information about what con-fronts them. But catalogues are alsocollectors’ items, to be treasured as aidsto memory, to be dipped back into as ameans of recall for those lucky enoughto have seen the exhibition.

For those not so lucky, a cataloguemust have an additional purpose. Manyreaders of this review will, like the re-viewer, not have seen the exhibition, butthey may well have seen several ofthe items illustrated, in the NationalMuseum in Bangkok, or in museums

elsewhere, and will recall other itemssimilar to those in this exhibition. Forothers this catalogue will provide anintroduction to Siamese art, and itspeculiar forms and expressions. Howsuccessfully does it perform this role?

To begin with, the production is ex-cellent. There are striking full-page pho-tographs of the architectural remains ofAyutthaya, Buddha images, painting andinlay work, and smaller, but still ad-equate, illustrations of the exhibitionitems. A strength of the book is its com-prehensive bibliography, which pro-vides interested readers with all the nec-essary leads for further study. There isalso a useful list of Siamese kings, anda good index, but no glossary.

Roughly half the book is devoted tothe items of the exhibition, and half tothe introductory essays. These cover avariety of themes. Forrest McGill pro-vides a cautious introduction to the his-tory and culture of Siam over these fourand a half centuries - cautious becausethe historical destruction of Ayutthayamakes it almost impossible for the arthistorian to provide a connected accountor stylistic flowchart for Siamese art.

For what we have left of the art ofAyutthaya are mere fragments preservedby the accidents of time. The sacking ofthe city in 1767 was so thorough thatalmost nothing survived. The ruins oftemples provide stark reminders of whatwas lost, for so much fine art was reli-gious. Of palaces nothing remains. Themurals and painted banners, sculptureand wood carving that adorned the greatroyal temples have irretrievably gone.

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McGill outlines what we might callthe material religious context, the com-ponent elements of Buddhist templesand the place of image, stupa (or chedi),and narrative relief or mural painting.This is essential, but so too is an under-standing of the worldview that this artexpresses and communicates - and thisis not well covered, in any of the essays.There is no outline of Buddhist cosmol-ogy, no discussion of the legitimationof power provided by royal donationsto the Sangha and the construction andbeautification of Buddhist temples, andpassing reference only to the purpose ofmaking merit. An understanding of Bud-dhism is assumed, but this is surely anunwarranted assumption for manyAmericans who viewed the exhibition,and even for readers of the catalogue.

The second essay is by Dhiravat naPombejra on foreign contacts and tradewith Ayutthaya in the seventeenth andeighteenth centuries. This makes thevery important point that Ayutthaya wasa remarkably cosmopolitan city, and keyhub in a trading network that connectedSiam with China to the east and boththe Indian sub-continent and the Mus-lim world to the west. The addition ofEuropeans to this mix further stimulatedtrade, but only over time. From an ar-tistic point of view, the influence of In-dia and China was always more impor-tant, at least until the nineteenth century.

The importance of Ayutthaya in thenetwork of trade lay not in its strategiclocation (as in the case of Malacca orBatavia), but in its goods on offer.Dhiravat makes the point that it waslucky for the Siamese that these did not

include spices, for that would have at-tracted occupation, as it did in the spiceislands. Siamese trade goods weremostly drawn from an extensive hinter-land, which included the inland king-doms of Lan Na and Lan Xang. It wascontrol of this trade that gave Ayutthayathe edge in the Tai world, but neverenough to unify it in the face of the threatfrom Burma.

In artistic terms, to the earlier Cam-bodian influence, always strong, wereadded influences from the north (LanNa) and west (Sri Lanka, either directlyor via Burma). What the Europeansbrought were luxury items for theamusement of the nobility and, mostimportantly, new technology and knowl-edge, mainly military, but in medicine,too. They affected the construction offortifications, not temples.

The next four essays focus on archi-tecture and art. Hiram Woodward pro-vides an informed discussion of theBuddha images of Ayutthaya. Thenfollow Santi Leksukhum’s study of theevolution of memorial towers and M.L. Pattaratorn Chirapravati’s interestingaccount of the treasures discovered inthe crypt of the main tower of WatRachaburana. Finally there is a finestudy of Ayutthayan painting by HenryGinsburg.

There is something a little illogicalabout the order here, which derives, Isurmise, from the failure to provide anaccount of the growth of Ayutthaya, bothas an urban centre, and more importantlyin terms of the symbolism expressed inurban relationships (of palaces andtemples and administrative and com-

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mercial areas). Provided with such acontext, Santi’s more narrowly architec-tural study of the various forms of prangand chedi would make better sense (al-ways supposing that this is sufficientlygermane to the focus of the exhibition.)Then would follow naturally chapterson the Buddha image, the artefacts dis-covered in Wat Rachaburana, andAyutthayan painting.

Because Ayutthayan art is so over-whelmingly religious, and because Bud-dha images are the focus of worship,some sense must be made for the non-Buddhist reader of the plethora of formsand postures that confronts anyone vis-iting the exhibition or reading the book.Woodward does this well, categorizingimages in terms both of the four pos-tures (iriyapatha) - standing, sitting,walking and reclining - and of hand ges-ture (mudra). He also devotes attentionto peculiarly Siamese forms, such as theBuddha in royal attire and the Sihingtype of seated Buddha with the righthand resting on the right knee. Wood-ward indicates the significance of fa-mous Buddha images, and notes howvery few survived the sack of Ayutthaya.

Santi’s detailed exposition does havethe benefit of drawing attention toarchitecture (and by extension, art) out-side the capital, and to the eclecticismof Siamese borrowing of architecturalforms (the prang from Cambodia, thebell-shaped stupa from Burma via SriLanka, the octagonal stupa from MonHaripunjaya). What the Siamese did wasto elaborate upon these forms, particu-larly in the Baroque decoration of thelater stupas.

The crypt of Wat Rachaburana wasrather hurriedly excavated by the FineArts Department of Thailand in 1957,after looters got away with some twentybags of gold objects, so Pattaratornreminds us. But how do we know therewere twenty bags? How big were thebags? Was any of this loot recovered?Fascinating questions, which Pattaratornleaves us wondering about. Whatescaped the thieves still made up anextraordinary collection, without whichour knowledge of Ayutthayan art wouldbe very much the poorer.

What is particularly significant wasthat we know precisely when the votiveplaques, small Buddha images, andfinely wrought gold objects were depos-ited in the crypt (in 1424). This assistsenormously in dating not only theseobjects, but in establishing dating crite-ria for a whole range of Siamese artsand crafts. Two points are particularlyof note about this collection, both ofwhich reinforce our understanding ofZthe importance of international rela-tions at this time, both for trade and forreligious contacts within the Buddhistworld: one is the evident Chinese influ-ence (well before the arrival of Europe-ans); the other is the number of artefactsof foreign Buddhist provenance.

Painting, as Ginsburg reminds us, isparticularly subject to damage throughwar, weather, and neglect. What musthave been wonderful mural paintings inthe great temples have disappearedalmost completely. The best that remainare in Phetchaburi and Bangkok, not inthe ruins of Ayutthaya. Banner paintingsare almost as poorly represented. Our

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knowledge of Ayutthayan painting de-rives overwhelmingly from miniaturepanels flanking the text in folded papermanuscripts - and few enough of theseremain. Ginsburg’s contribution strikesjust the right note: comprehensive, in-formative, and expert.

Most of the notes on exhibition itemsare provided by Forrest McGill, withadditional notes by other contributors onthe walking Buddha, votive plaques, thewonderful statue of Uma (?), and earlybooks on Siam. McGill also providesuseful longer notes on categories ofartefacts, including images of Maitreya,crowned Buddha images, and manu-script cabinets. These latter are worthspecial mention for the fineness of theirdecoration in gold leaf against a blacklacquer background. One is decoratedwith two figures, one European, theother Indian, said to be King Louis XIVof France and the Mughal EmperorAurangzeb.

All exhibition items are illustrated,thus providing a complete record. Some,such as stone and bronze statues ofHindu gods (Shiva, Vishnu), are shownfrom different angles, or in detail. Suchstatues remind us of the continuingBrahmanical influence at the Siamesecourt, and bring home yet again the re-markable extent to which Siamese art-ists were in contact with, and preparedto adopt, foreign influences and madeof them something uniquely Siamese.

Martin Stuart-Fox

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Ibrahim Syukri, History of the MalayKingdom of Patani (Sejarah KerajaanMelayu Patani), translated by ConnerBailey and John N. Miksic. Chiang Mai,Silkworm Books, 2005, pp.xx+115, Bt395.

Michel Gilquin, The Muslims of Thai-land, translated by Michael Smithies.Chiang Mai, Silkworm Books, 2005,pp.164, ills., Bt 595.

The raging violence in Thailand’sDeep South which began in early 2004has taken many people by surprise. Theregion had been relatively calm andaway from the media for quite sometime. Many have analyzed the situationin terms of poverty, power abuse, vio-lations of human rights, and ethnic chau-vinism, and a minority of academics as-cribe it to “jihadist foreign intervention”.

The two timely books under reviewgive us an historical dimension, and asocio-anthropological context of thePatani uprising. Both combine to shedsome analytical light on the ongoingconflicts in the southern border areas.

Ibrahim Syukri provides us with apolitical history, nay, a political pam-phlet, aimed at inspiring “succeedinggenerations....(to be) aware of the cir-cumstances concerning their kingdomin ancient times....(and) to learn a littleof the life and circumstances of theirancestors...and then to inspire them tostudy and compile more detailed bookssuch as this.” (p. 2).

Syukri does not mean his book to bea definitive work on “the history of

Patani.” He merely wants to arouse the“Patani Malays,” as he calls them, to be“conscious of their fate, agree tostruggle until the end for democracy.”(p. 101). The fact that he chose to writein the Jawi script (Malay with theArabic letters), testifies to the fact that,according to David K. Wyatt, a foremostauthority on the subject, Syukri intendedto communicate with his Patani orSouthern Thai audience, without“attempting to mobilize a wider Malay(or Indonesian) opinion, for which hewould have employed the Roman script,nor did he express himself in Thai orEnglish, both of which languages heapparently knew.”

Thus, the real objective of IbrahimSyukri was not the historical accuracyof his work, but rather a “political ac-tion” to be stirred by emotional appealsto Patani’s past glory. He did not reallywant his audience, the succeeding gen-erations of Patanis, to be aware only oftheir past, but to “act politically” as aresult of that awareness. Little wonderthat the book has never appeared in Thaisince its first publication in Kelantan inthe late 1940s.

The language used by Syukri is bothstirring and sarcastic, bitter and forebod-ing, despairing and inspiring, all at thesame time. Wyatt, in the foreword to theedition under review, describes it asgiving “voice to the pained historicalconsciousness of Patani.....[during atime] when a full force of Thailand’spolicies of national integration began tobear upon the Malays of the Peninsula.”(p. ix).

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The book is divided into four chap-ters portraying Patani’s ancient history,the genealogy and the height ofPatani’s power, the period of declineand, finally with Syukri’s passionate callfor the “reawakening” of the people ofPatani. It is a story of humiliation anddefeat retold for the purpose of agita-tion for a political movement at a timewhen Thailand was under authoritarianrule and the Malay states further southwere being prepared for independencein a form of federation.

While readers should not look for“rational facts and history” in Syukri’sbook, as Wyatt warns in the foreword,we should at least appreciate his aspira-tion for a concise record of the rise andfall of the Patani kingdom. It is obviousthat the author entertains a ferventdesire to make use of that “history” tobreathe life into a dormant movementfor Patani independence after the Sec-ond World War, a time of fluidity in stateformation in Southeast Asia.

Syukri’s chronology of wars anddefeats on the part of the Patani peopleunder their “rajas” also gives us a betterunderstanding of the emotional quo-tients behind the Patani independencemovement. The current uprising andongoing turmoil in the Deep South couldbe seen as a “centennial” of the “ulti-mate fall of the country of Patani” toThai rule of 1902. According to Syukri,

…A.D. 1902 was the year of theultimate fall of the country ofPatani, the loss of the sovereigntyof its rajas, the destruction of the

right of suzerainty of the Malaysin the country of Patani, and thepawning of all rights to liberty andindependence to the Raja of Siam-Thai. This was the last and mostunfortunate year in the history ofthe fall of the Malay Kingdom ofPatani (p. 81).

Seen in this light, Syukri is right inassuming that “memories” of historicalevents could serve as a powerful tool ofinspiration for the people under “theyoke of subjugation.” (p. 79 ) He brings“the pained historical consciousness” tolife. And, since 2002, the violent situa-tion in the south seems to go from badto worse and has no end in sight.

If Syurki gives us a passionate ac-count of the history of Patani, MichelGilquin’s The Muslims of Thailand,translated by Michael Smithies, pro-vides us with a wider perspective of theMuslim community in Thailand. Beinga sociologist with an interest in Muslimsocieties and their experiences in socio-economic and political integration,Gilquin brings a fresh approach to thestudy of the Muslims in Thailand. Thebook is an excellent background for theunderstanding of the current violentconflict in the three border provinces ofthe south.

Gilquin begins his book by analyz-ing “the origins of Islam in Thailand.”But his is not a typical historical per-spective—he digs deep into the socialtransformation of “the Chao Phrayabasin.” Gilquin’s description of thewaves of migrants and foreign cultures,

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i.e., the Chinese, the Portuguese, thePersians, the French and the Greeks, theIndians and Bengalis and the Chams ofthe Khmer empire, gives the readersa glimpse into the process of the “melt-ing” of various cultures into a ratherheterogeneous Siam of yore.

Islam and the Muslims came toSiam’s “melting pot” of cultures fromvarious directions. The Chinese Mus-lims came to the north with the migra-tion of the Hui, or Chinese Muslims(p.15), the Arabs, Indians and Persiansentered Ayutthaya early in the seven-teenth century (p. 18), and Patani wasconverted to Islam as early as 1457(p.11). All came to a kingdom looselystrung together by Theravada Bud-dhism, which makes it more interestingto sociologists and historians. Siam,with a tolerant form of Buddhism as thestate religion, gave support and respectwith high tolerance to the foreign Mus-lim communities within its realm. Theauthor describes with insight this uniquesymbiotic relationship between the Bud-dhist kings and the Muslims:

There was some ambiguity on bothsides [about the Muslims submit-ting to the “ungodly” authority]......For Thais, in their accepted ver-sion of history, allegiance impliedipso facto recognition of the nation,religion, and the sacred nature ofthe Siamese monarchy, whereas forthe Muslims this submission onlyhad a tactical dimension and didnot imply the recognition of an“ungodly” authority, particularly in

matters of legislation. (p.13)

The “ambiguity” that is mentionedabove continues to plague the relationsbetween Bangkok and the Muslim Southto this day. But more than in matters oflegislation, the conflicts now center onmatters of policy espoused in and fromBangkok. What used to be described as“tactical” and “distant” has becomeimmediate and close. The extension ofpower and control of the “ungodly”authority down to the Muslims in thesouth has made it impossible to live inisolation and to be shielded from impactof policy initiatives. Muslims in theSouth deem certain policies to be threatsto their identity and cultural heritage.This ambiguity also explains the stiffresistance to the trend of centralizationof power and policy formulation per-petuated by the Thaksin Shinawatragovernment in the past five years.

Gilquin’s analysis of a Thai Muslimidentity is fascinating as well as illumi-nating. Islam in Thailand finds itself“in a society which is impregnated withreligiosity but which is not coerciveabout its observance.” (p. 25). TheTheravada Buddhist Thai culture is soft,accommodating, open and tolerant,making it secure and comfortable forreligious minorities of all denomina-tions. The monarch is regarded as “theSupreme Patron of All Religions.”(p.43). The king’s solicitude for hisMuslim subjects is praised as an “ex-ample [which] encourages Buddhists toshow goodwill to Muslims. It gives aconcrete form to the national principle

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of tolerance. It suggests acceptance ofcultural and religious diversity.” (p.109).In this environment, the Muslim iden-tity is protected and the Muslim com-munity sustained.

Michel Gilquin tries to explain “ThaiMuslim structures and demographicimportance” in detail. Overall the au-thor does a good job in providing infor-mation about the spread of the Muslimcommunity throughout Thailand. Someof his facts appear to be misleading,however. The fault lies not with theauthor alone, however, since figures andstatistics on the Muslim demography arenot very well collected and analyzed.For example, Gilquin shows his frustra-tion with the “numerical counts,” quot-ing different numbers from differentsources. In the end, there is no consen-sus as to the real number of Muslims inThailand. It ranges from 2.1 to 3 to 7.3million people. (p. 38).

The description of the power struc-ture of Thai Muslim society is veryinformative. It explains how the leader-ship of Muslim society has been deter-mined from the time of Sheikh Ahmadof Qum during the Ayutthaya perioddown to the present time. Still, somefacts cited should be rechecked foraccuracy. For example, the authorclaims that “By tradition the king is thespiritual head of national Islam, andarticle 7 of the 1997 constitution givesthis legal force by designating themonarch as the patron of all religions inthe country (sasanu-pathamphok).”(p.43). And the author confuses theNational Council for Islamic Affairs

with the Islamic Centre of Thailand andstates wrongly that the present nomina-tion of the Chularajamontri (a Thaiversion of Sheikh ul Islam) is broughtbefore the Parliament. In fact, there isno tradition claiming that the king is thespiritual head of national Islam, like themonarch of the United Kingdom beingthe spiritual head of the Church ofEngland. While the position of the kingas the patron of all religions is stipulatedin the constitution, although not inArticle 7, the Parliament has no role inthe nomination of the Sheikh ul Islamor the Chularajamontri. But, all in all,the general treatment by the author ofthe Thai Muslim society is helpful inbetter understanding the current stateof Muslim social structures in Thailand.

Part II of the book discusses theissue of “The Muslims of the DeepSouth,” their history and their integra-tion into the Thai state. It gives a clearpicture of how the central authority triedto appropriate the remnants of the oldsultanate of Patani and the pervasiveresistance among its people. The read-ers could find some useful informationabout the organized resistance under theleadership of the Pattani United Libera-tion Organization (PULO), the BarisanRevolusi Nasional (BRN), the NationalLiberation Front of Patani (BarisanNasional Pembebasan Pattani, BNPP),the Barisan Bersatu Mujahiddin Pattani(United Mujahiddin Front of Patani,BBMP), and the Gerakan MujahiddnIslam Pattani (GMIP). All these organi-zations and their subsidiaries have beenclaiming responsibility for the current

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violence rampaging in the Deep South.A real contribution to the study of

Muslims in Thailand comes in the lastpart of the book when the author takesup the issue of “Islam and the ThaiNation.” It paints a picture of a matur-ing community struggling to play anactive role in the democratizationprocess of the country. It describes awave of awakening or renewal amongthe Muslim intellectuals at the nationallevel. It also sheds some light into theefforts on the part of Muslims to findrepresentation in parliament and in thecabinet, the highest decision-makingbody of the State.

The two books under review areparticularly to be welcomed by generalreaders and specialists in Thai Muslimstudies during this time of insecurity andinstability in the Deep South. WhileIbrahim Syukri provides an historicalbackdrop of a frustrated people of Pataninegotiating the pressures of change andtransformation to maintain their iden-tity and culture, Michel Gilquin givesus a larger picture of a minority Mus-lim society in a Theravada Buddhistkingdom, also trying to protect itsunique religious and cultural heritage ina time of high fluidity in national politi-cal and economic transformation. Bothbooks are valuable additions to thegrowing volume of works on the Mus-lims in Thailand.

Surin Pitsuwan

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Scot Barmé, Woman, Man, Bangkok:Love, Sex, and Popular Culture in Thai-land. Chiang Mai, Silkworm Books,2006, pp. 273.

Students of Thai history are usuallyobsessed by the subjects of the monar-chy and the royal elite. A series of theo-retically-informed approaches havebeen crafted in and around these long-lasting, hegemonic institutions. ScotBarmé’s book, first published in 2002and now reissued by Silkworm for aSoutheast Asian edition, can be viewedwithin the monarchy-focused academictradition, even though Barmé clearlywishes to distance himself from thedominant “Great Man” theory of history(p.3). He takes a look at the breakdownof the absolute monarchy from the popu-lar stance. He definitely does not intendto write about the monarchs and thenobles and their civilizing missions, buttheir shadow still looms large through-out the book. From the popular perspec-tive, he seeks to recapture the culturallife of the critical political transition atthe beginning of the twentieth century.Barmé’s research materials and sourcesare extraordinarily rich. He writes a vi-brant social history of Bangkok cosmo-politanism by reliving and retelling fas-cinating accounts of public debate,emerging progressive ideas, complaints,satirical protests, and other intellectualsocial commentaries retrieved from thearchives of newspapers, magazines,novels, short stories, film booklets, andcartoons. He believes that “the devel-opment of modern technologies of

mechanized print media and film dur-ing the early decades of the twentiethcentury marked the beginning of a newera in Siam’s history” (p.2).

The transformation from absolute toconstitutional monarchy in Siam,marked by the 1932 coup, has occupieda prominent place in recent Thai histo-riography. Barmé argues that under-standing how Siam embraced Western-style modernity and carried on its na-tion-building process, particularly afterthe collapse of the absolute monarchy,through the lense of the elite is far fromadequate. The monarchs and the noblesturned the wheel of the national history,but it is at least intellectually incompletenot “to say [something substantial]about commoners being the harbingersof political and social change and re-newal” (p. 3). For Barmé, a major wayto perceive what the commoners actu-ally thought and how they reacted to theflush of new ideas and technologies intheir time is through a careful recon-struction of the early “modern Thai life”displayed in the print media and filmrecords. He discovers that contemporaryissues, such as class, gender, lifestyleand taste, popular nationalism, the po-sition of women and their rights, com-mercial popular/hybrid culture and con-sumption, which have been branded bymany as postmodern phenomena, havemuch deeper historical roots in urbanBangkok (p. 257). The growing middleclass and the ever-expanding cosmo-politanism in Siam’s capital constitutekey factors in understanding thecountry’s nation building, economic

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and political upheavals, as well as itsdynamic cultural life.

There are a number of ways to ap-preciate Barmé’s contributions to thegrowing body of scholarship on Thaistudies. First, this book introduces the‘from below’ approach to the Thai his-toriography. Its analytical focus estab-lishes the approach that the city, the na-tion, and thus, the historical signifi-cance, are formed by the people. Itbrings back the agency of commonersto the place they deservedly belong - thecenter stage of Thai history. Of course,it is always debatable whether the com-moners, the people, or the masses inearly twentieth century Bangkok areproportionately represented in the printmedia and film. How representativewere the educated and the members ofthe middle class in Bangkok, and towhat extent did Bangkok dominateSiam’s popular culture at that time? Arethe media accounts popular enough tobe considered as manifestations of popu-lar culture? Are their media-saturatedvoices sufficiently well captured to bediscussed as something equivalent toRaymond Williams’ “structure of feel-ing”, expounded in his Marxism andLiterature (1977)? Second, Barmé’swork belongs to a growing body ofscholarship challenging the dominantparadigm in Thai historiography thatThongchai Winichakul calls the “royalnationalist history” (prawatsat rachachatniyom). Some leading figures inthe challenging paradigm includeCraig Reynolds, Nidhi Aeusrivongse,Thongchai Winichakul himself, Thanet

Aphonsuwan, and Tamara Loos, amongothers. Barmé’s lively accounts ofprotofeminism, women’s education,sexual intimacy, and love and romancein many ways show continued interestin taking a critical look at the intellec-tual as well as the private life of theemerging urban middle class featured inmany works by his colleagues. Finally,Barmé’s work provides scholarly con-tributions in multiple fields of Thai stud-ies beyond its historical base. Disci-plines like cultural studies, historicalanthropology, gender studies, mediastudies, political science, and urbanstudies focusing on modern Thailandand beyond will benefit from the breadthand depth of this book. Its historical fo-cus on Bangkok’s middle class and itsurban life should well complement MarcAskew’s Bangkok: Place, Practice andRepresentation (2002). Although thisbook is not as deep or as intriguing asJames Francis Warren’s two master-pieces about people’s history in colonialSingapore (Ah Ku and Karayuki-San of1993 and Rickshaw Coolie of 1986), itcan easily claim ground-breaking sta-tus in its own right.

The book contains some minor draw-backs. It is perhaps beyond its scope,but Buddhism deserves more substan-tial attention or even a major chapter. Itis one of the major persistent culturalforces and values determining the so-cial life in the country. It would be in-teresting to trace how the middle classand ordinary people of urban Bangkokmade sense of their modernizing worldthrough their traditional popular Bud-

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dhist Weltanschauung. It is rather sur-prising that Buddhist ideas were notextensively featured in the Bangkokmedia during that time. On the techni-cal side, the book lacks a glossary of keyThai terms, maps, and images, whichwould help the reader better enjoyBangkok’s recent past. Images or pic-tures of the early twentieth centuryBangkok are definitely lacking; as weall know, a photograph is worth a thou-sand words. The camera was availablelong before the period under study.There are also some transliteration er-rors, as on p. 107, where than phu saksibecomes than phu saksit. The referenceto Warren’s book in note 38 (p. 91) iswrong. The correct one is found in thebibliography.

Woman, Man, Bangkok is highlyrecommended for scholars and studentsof Thai studies and those whose inter-ests are concerned with comparativefields of humanities and social sciencesin Southeast Asia and beyond. It is alsointellectually stimulating for generalreaders, as it is written in an entertain-ing and accessible fashion. It is virtu-ally free of technical/theoretical jargon.Its thesis concerning early modern lifefrom the popular perspective and itswell-crafted coverage of multiplecontemporary issues will certainly bewell received by scholars involved inthe subaltern/postcolonial and post-modernist debates. This anthropologi-cally oriented reviewer treasuresBarmé’s book as an historically-

grounded gem in the expanding field ofcultural studies in Thailand.

Pattana Kitiarsa

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Wattana Sugunnasil, ed., Dynamic Di-versity in Southern Thailand. Pattani,Prince of Songkhla University, andChiang Mai, Silkworm Books, 2005,pp.x + 333, Bt.795.

In 2002, representatives of commu-nities in seven southern provinces,volunteers, and academicians convenedin the city of Pattani to present resultsof their recent fact-finding. Called theFirst Inter-Dialogue Conference onSouthern Thailand, the event was co-hosted by the Pattani Campus, Princeof Songkhla University, and the Depart-ment of Anthropology, Harvard Univer-sity, and financially supported by theRockefeller Foundation, and the ToyotaFoundation, as well as the Asia Centerand the Department of Anthropology,both of Harvard University.

The diversity of Southern Thailand isnot the gist of this book. Rather, it con-tains eleven contributions on diversefacets in selected areas of SouthernThailand, supplemented by one on acommunity abroad. It would have beenhelpful to have had an introduction - atbest an essay on diversity and relateddynamics - as well as subject and geo-graphical indexes.

Southern Thailand being large in sizeand diverse in the extreme, the neces-sity of topographical differentiation isnot only obvious but also mentioned insome contributions, as in DuncanMcCargo’s paper.

The collection of papers contains awealth of information that is grouped bythis reviewer into the categories of

‘roots’, ‘transition’, ‘current affairs’, and‘wider context’.

In her study on Spirit Mediumship inSouthern Thailand: The Feminization ofNora Ancestral Possession, fallinginto the category of ‘roots’, MarlaneGuelden reports on her field workconducted in Pattani, Songkhla andPhatthalung provinces, from October2000 to December 2004. Her researchhighlights the ritual side of nora, whichinvolves few people and is limited tovillage life, compared to the public en-tertainment side. There are an estimatedone hundred or more traditional noragroups. With a focus on gender transi-tion from male to female prominence inthe nora performance, four central find-ings are presented. Firstly, womenamong nora active participants haveincreased to 70-80 percent, and amongnora troop leaders to 10-30 percent; sec-ondly, flexibility in ancestral beliefs iswarranted by a melange of elements ofBuddhism, Brahmanism, Taoism, Islam,and animism; thirdly, female nora per-formers are joined by mostly female me-diums; and, lastly, nora rituals are seenas particularly valuable to women cli-ents. A tendency toward empoweringwomen seems to have gained strength.This study of spirit mediumship isdeemed a fine methodical example ofgender analysis - as well as a most in-formative research on the authentic,ritual nora.

The paper on Popular Culture andTraditional Performance: Conflicts andChallenges in Contemporary ‘NangTalung’ by Paul Dowsey-Magog covers

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the sacred as well as the profane, stud-ied in Songkhla, Phatthalung, Trang,Nakhon Si Thammarat and Surat Thaniprovinces. Previously an importantvillage ritual practice, nang talung hasbecome widespread in southern townsas professional entertainment. The au-thentic performance of nang talung stillserves the original, ritual purpose ofcommunicating messages focused onadverse conditions. Nang talungjuxtaposes the nai, the master, and thephrai, the lowly commoner, with aclown, tua talok, representing the geniusof rural people. Inherent is saksit, mean-ing sacrosanct, even sacred items andpractices, embedded in ritual knowledgeand believed to exert magical powerover oppressors. As reported, the signifi-cance of clowns and older ritual prac-tices is connected to the shared south-ern identity.

Reading this in-depth study is likeglimpsing behind the screen, gaininginsight into cultural and social facets. Itfosters the understanding of socio-cul-tural dynamics, in their complexity anddiversity.

The adage ‘the grass on the other sideof the fence is always greener’ comesto mind in reading the paper entitledParadise at Your Doorstep: Interna-tional Border Fluidity and CulturalConstruction amongst Kelantan’s ThaiCommunity, the third contributionplaced in the category of “roots”. Theauthor, Irving Chan Johnson, conductedfieldwork in Ban Bo On, situated oppo-site Amphoe Sukhirin of Thailand’sNarathiwat Province, during August

2001-December 2002. He distinguishesbetween how the Thai community hasupheld its ethnic identity, while identi-fying itself as Malaysian, reminiscingabout a ‘golden past’, remaining devoutto Buddhist institutions in Thailand,maintaining kin relationships, express-ing positive sentiments, and yet perceiv-ing a corruption of moral values acrossthe border—in short, “an ambiguouslocale of contradictory meanings”.

The Kelantanese Thai villagers’glimpse across the “southern fence”could perhaps be likened to a reversemirror image of current affairs, an idealin a magic mirror. It likely exemplifiesmutual respect among different ethnicand religious groups.

Among immigrants of various ethnicorigins, the Chinese put down their rootsrather recently. They formed ever morenodes of expanding networks. This isdescribed by Suleemarn N. Wong-suphap in her paper entitled The SocialNetwork Construction of the BabaChinese Businesses in Phuket. As high-lighted, the identity requires five majorconditions to establish itself and toexpand business, as exemplified by theGanthawee family’s “cultural capital”.They are: assimilation through thenetwork of the women’s families; broth-erhood; relatives and bonds; friends,associates, and connections; as well aspatronage and networks.

The findings are based on a study ofthe Ganthawee clan, whose foundersettled in Phuket in 1897. Examined aretheir business patterns, deemed charac-teristic of how Chinese tin-mine man-

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ager-owners established themselves andrepresented the driving force of thesouthern capital group in Phuket. Theevolution up to the year 1984 is one ofBaba Chinese male and Yonya femaleChinese actors’ own historical experi-ence, rather than the experience ofChinese either on the mainland or else-where. Ultimately, their Chinese-ness isa product of Thailand’s nationalizingprocess, which has resulted in creatingthe “Phuket Chinese”. Given the signifi-cance of the Chinese element in the pot-pourri of ethnic groups not originallyintended to form one group, this casestudy conveys essential information.

One of the two contributions focusedon ‘transition’ relates Voices from theGrassroots: Southerners Tell Storiesabout Victims of Development. Based on44 studies of 55 cases, including 41stud-ies by 42 identified authors, as well asone each by the Pak Phanang RiverBasin Community, by students fromPrince of Songkhla University, and bya Pattani Bay Network, adverse impactsare reported on natural resources asa means of livelihood, as well as onessentials of sustenance, causedby ‘development’ project planning,implementation, or management.

Cases of natural resources jeopar-dized in the course of development re-fer to forests, agro-forests or forest gar-dens, fresh water resources, wetlands,and coastal aquatic resources. Sourcesof livelihood compromised or threat-ened are community forest conserva-tion, farmland exposed to degradation,declining field crop yields, degradation

caused by counter-productive irrigation,inland fisheries, coastal fisheries andaquaculture, water-borne transportation,communities in orchards and foreststhreatened by eviction from areas de-marcated as national parks, maritimecommons of littoral communities, cul-tural heritage, environmental pollution,narcotics, and pipeline construction.

Initiatives for alternative strategiesare geared to build productive commu-nities, and to foster self-reliance, envi-ronmental conservation, ‘green marketnetworks’, formal education, occupa-tional training, advancement of women,sustainable ecosystems, sustainablenatural resource management, off-sea-son rice cropping, and preservation oftraditional crafts.

Thirty-eight of the 44 studies wereconducted in the provinces ofChumphon, Nakhon Si Thammarat,Narathiwat, Pattani, Satun, Songkhla,Trang and Yala. At least ten authors bearMalay names. This lends credibility toheralding ‘voices from the grassroots’.

Considering the significance of diver-sity and its inherent dynamics, thesevoices from the grassroots are deemedof core importance. The underlyingaction research, exploring and reflect-ing on conditions and stimulatingchange for the better by employingrapid rural appraisals is, in itself, proofof the ongoing transition from reactiveadjustment to pro-active assertiveness,from blind protest to alternative pro-posal.

Given the vast scope and sheermagnitude of development ventures

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gone awry, the reader should have beenoffered the whole load of information.That opportunity was missed.Rapporteurs compressed it into a far toobrief summary report.

Paths to a Possible South: TheDhamma Walk for Songkhla Lake, apaper authored by Theodore W. Mayer,relates to action research. By 2003, eightDhammayatra had been conducted. Thelake walk reflects a unique encounterbetween a highly intellectual, sociallycritical, activist Buddhist movement andthe problems surrounding an importantidentifying feature of the southern Thailandscape - Songkhla Lake. A smallgroup of Buddhist monks, members ofthe Sekhiyadhamma, an organizationdedicated to the appropriate training indhamma, travelled to Tambon KhunKhut in Sathing Phra District ofSongkhla Province in 1994. Its presi-dent, Phra Kittisak, felt inspired by theactivist role of Muslim leaders at theKhun Khut mosque.

The printed announcement of the firstDhamma Walk described its objectivesas conserving natural resources, the for-mation of an ecumenical network, co-ordination anchored in religious centres,and adherence to shared religious prin-ciples, satsanatham. It became evidentthat these hopes were highly unrealis-tic. With a view to grasping the scopeof the conflict, understanding its dynam-ics, and working towards a non-violentsolution, this meticulous ‘travelogue’offers more than just insight. It diag-noses social ills and prescribes remedies.

‘Current affairs’ are addressed in four

contributions. The one entitled Consum-ing Modernity in a Border Communityby Wattana Sugunnasil introducesBuddhist villagers in an old, fictitiousThai settlement, which seems to belocated in Phron or Khosit sub-districtsof Tak Bai District and, hence, is not“remotely” situated. How the villagershave fared over the past decades isrelated through bits of informationscattered across the paper. As a result,there is repetition. Most irritating areinconsistent statements.

Against the background of radicalchanges since 1971, evident from com-parative official statistics and householddata regarding use of appliances andother durable goods, as well as employ-ment, it does not come as a surprise thatdrastic changes have continued to oc-cur. After all, the village is within easyreach of Sungai Kolok, one of the busi-est hubs. In short, the village is not situ-ated at the periphery of modernity ei-ther.

Apart from inconsistencies, tediousrepetitions, and redundant generaliza-tions, the author’s portrayal of a com-munity is informative, in many of itsfacets. The drawing of contradictoryinferences can be traced to the author’sfusion of well researched and docu-mented village society dynamics withideological prescriptions of harmony.

‘Current affairs’ at the regional leveland of trans-boundary significance areaddressed in Phil King’s contributionentitled The Indonesia-Malaysia-Thai-land Growth Triangle: How the SouthWas Won ... and Then Lost Again. The

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southern provinces of Thailand, north-western Malaysia, and the Indonesianprovinces of Aceh and North Sumatrawere identified as components of a dis-tinct subregional territory. This wasdeemed a boon for Thailand’s southernprovinces. Also, the potential role forethnic Malays was considered an oppor-tunity, not a constraint, for economicdevelopment. Malay identity was pre-sented as a form of “social capital”.The blueprint prepared by the AsianDevelopment Bank (ADB) did notseriously address issues of Malay par-ticipation or the complexities drivingpoverty cycles.

Based on a document published byThailand’s National Economic and So-cial Development Board {NESDB), theSeamless Songkhla Penang Medan cor-ridor (SSPM) was created. The mostvirulent opposition came from theMalay fishing villages most directly af-fected by the proposed pipeline and gasseparation plant. In an ironic twist, thefolksy symbolism that had long beenpart of the promotional material devel-oped into a potent force of its own. Ineffect, the forms of “social capital” thatwere considered irrelevant to the devel-opment of the Indonesia-Malaysia-Thai-land Growth Triangle are fully capableof bringing core dimensions of theproject to a halt.

Given the recent emergence of anovel trans-boundary culture, also sub-sumed under ‘current affairs’ is the studyby Jovan Maud of The Nine EmperorGods at the Border: Transnational Cul-ture, Alternate Modes of Practice, and

the Expansion of the Vegetarian Festi-val in Hat Yai. The field study, con-ducted in 2001, focuses on Chineseethnicity in the context of the local tour-ist industry for which Chinese-ness ismobilized as a resource.

Vegetarianism, coupled with ‘moder-ate asceticism’ and worship of the NineEmperor Gods, are distinguished. Bothare mediums through which connectionsare made between southern Thai Chi-nese and people in Malaysia andSingapore, who participate to experi-ence an exotic yet familiar Chinese-nessconditioned by another national context.The host state’s cultural rather thanracial definition of “Thai-ness” impliesthat “nation-ness” is defined by practiceand allows the Chinese to maintain thepublic veneer of “Thai-ness” whilecreatively combining Chinese practiceswith the prescribed Thai behaviour.The author’s vivid description of thefestival’s dynamics keeps the readerengrossed.

Aspects of the ‘wider context’ of dy-namic diversity are covered by threesections of varied scopes. The broadestscope is addressed by Omar FaroukBajunid in his paper on Islam, Nation-alism, and the Thai State. Undoubtedly,it conveys relevant information, yet thepaper sheds little light on the theme ofthe book. Solely of relevance are theMalay Muslims who have fought fortheir community space and the sustain-ing of their native Jawi language. Mus-lim parliamentarians in the southernprovinces established an inter-party po-litical faction called Al-Wahdah in 1986

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to promote and safeguard collectiveinterests through democratic means.

The concluding paragraph reads likea set of research hypotheses, as follows:democracy seems to be the best guar-antee for the Malay Muslim communi-ties’ survival; in the democratic Thaistate, the Muslims will be able to har-ness their potential fully as equal andloyal citizens; the compatibility of Is-lam with Thai nationalism is a time-tested fact; and Muslims can be ex-pected to assume a commitment to theideals of Thai nationhood. The readeris left with the impression that the chal-lenge to conduct research conducive toconflict resolution continues.

Another feature of relevance with asharp regional focus is the paper byDuncan McCargo on Southern ThaiPolitics: A Preliminary Overview. Itdoes not deal with Thailand’s govern-ment policy in regard to the South, butwith the dynamics of southern politics.The author’s summary of points mayserve as orientation: southern Thaipolitics are shaped by a distinctivehistory; troubled politics of the south-ern border have overshadowed thepolitics of the region as a whole; theborder region is the most studied partof the South from a political perspec-tive; contrasting identities are mani-fested in violent conflicts; and the southmore generally has a reputation forlawlessness and banditry. Sketched ininformative abstracts, politics in the‘Lower or Deep South’ are diagnosed,as distinguished from politics in theSouth overall, including the ‘Middle’

and ‘Upper South’. Muslim politicsshifted from parliamentary means to anunconventional path with no specificform or operational procedures. Vio-lence was fuelled by alienation, and bya range of grievances. Since1973, asignificant “counter-elite” has emergedto challenge the official elite.

The South has been a potentiallyrenegade region with a propensity fordisorder, begging questions about theorigins and nature of banditry. Arguably,the border provinces are the “theatre”of much infighting over considerableresources among influential groups.These gangs have comprised regionaland provincial level government offi-cials, wealthy and corrupt businessmen,and top local gangsters. Not only doesthis overview open and, most of all, trainperspectives on the South of Thailandbut it also stimulates the conceptuali-zation of further exploration, beyond theresearched track.

The paper Southern Thai Women inDevelopment: A Tale of Two Villages byJawanit Kittitornkool is categorized asbelonging to the wider context, seem-ingly with a focus on southern womenin development. Alas, the tales ofwomen from two southern villages arepaid too little attention. A summary ofthe few studies cited is supplementedwith information obtained by interview-ing 14 persons, eleven of them inSouthern Thailand. The presentation ofthe core matter is signalled under theheading of “The Villages and TheWomen”, in Ban Khao Bua and BanTha Hin. Their different topographies

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might have been selection criteria.Moreover, one is a village where com-munity development groups have beenpromoted by government agencies,whereas in the other a council wasformed under the leadership of the ab-bot and monks.

Instead of any comparative analysis,profiles of ‘The Leading Women’ arelumped together as if they lived in oneand the same village. Consequently,there is neither rationale nor need forany further comment. Worse yet, a half-baked description is offered in that itcovers one village exclusively, to theeffect that the section entitled “TheAnalysis of Women’s Participation inDevelopment” remains void of any ana-lytical finding. Ultimately, the drawingof conclusions is unfeasible.

In spite of these criticisms, this bookis strongly recommended to readers ofall walks of life. It contains informationthat might well fill in lacunae of earlier,completed, or ongoing research. Allpersons who are concerned about thesituation in the south of Thailand anddesirous to see the plethora of predica-ments alleviated will gain valuableinsight.

Karl E. Weber

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G.J. Younghusband, The Trans-SalwinState of Kiang Tung, ed. David K. Wyatt.Chiang Mai, Silkworm Books, pp. xiv+ 80, 4 pull-out maps and plans, paper-back, Baht 395.

First comes one Englishman toshoot birds or beasts, then cometwo Englishmen to make a map,and then comes an army to take thecountry. It is better therefore to killthe first Englishman.

Pathan saying quoted in G.J. Younghus-band A Soldier’s Memoirs in Peace andWar (1917, 320).

The general in direct command of theso-called ‘Third Anglo-Burmese War’,which started in November 1885, wasGeneral Sir Frederick Roberts VC(1832–1914). He was Commander-in-Chief of the British Army in India1885–93, and later became FieldMarshal Earl Roberts of Kandahar. Hewas in Mandalay from November 1886to February 1887, a period that coin-cided with the visit to Chiang Tung of28-year-old Lieutenant GeorgeYounghusband, of the Queen’s OwnCorps of Guides. By then, what re-mained of the Kingdom of Burma(‘Upper Burma and the Shan States’ tothe British) had been incorporated intoBritish India. It had taken only a fewweeks to capture Mandalay and securethe surrender and exile of the Burmeseking. But the ‘pacification of the coun-tryside’ was to take several more years.‘Punitive expeditions’ against ‘rebels’

and ‘dacoits’ continued into the twenti-eth century. At the height of the war, theBritish Indian Army in Burma numberedsome 40,000 troops and 15,000 armedpolice.

The Shan State of Chiang Tung pre-sented the British with a problem, notonly because of its relative size andindependence - they had recently mur-dered all the Burmese Commissioners -but also because of its geographicallocation on the wrong side of the RiverSalween. This made it difficult for amodern army to march on it directlyfrom Burma.

In late 1886 Younghusband wasbriefed by Colonel Bell VC in Simla,the British Indian Army HQ, for a mis-sion to collect military intelligence onroutes to Chiang Tung through Siam andits northern dependencies. GeneralRoberts knew Younghusband personallyand may have suggested him for themission. In an anecdotal chapter in oneof Younghusband’s later memoirs, herefers to Roberts’s personal kindness inawarding him the Burma War Medal forhis services in Chiang Tung. The offi-cial and secret report on the mission -of which only two copies exist - isreproduced in the present publication,which also has a valuable introductionand glossary by Professor Wyatt.

What the young lieutenant did in1887 by visiting Chiang Tung couldprobably be accomplished today byany military attaché from Bangkok,driving up to Chiang Tung in a 4 x 4 ona family holiday of about two weeks.Nor would (s)he need a supporting cast

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of guide, interpreter, driver, mechanic,cook and someone with a shotgun. Theresulting intelligence would probably bejust about as irrelevant, or unused. Inthe event, Younghusband’s advice to‘hand over’ Chiang Tung to China wasnot heeded. In 1890 Chiang Tung peace-fully became part of British Burma, or‘submitted’ and ‘accepted the positionof feudatory’ as Scott has it (Scott 1901:307).

In his introduction, ‘Spy and Coun-terspy in the Shan States’, Wyattemphasises the theme of military espio-nage and the way in which the Shan keptYounghusband at arm’s length, but un-der surveillance and subject to harass-ment, theft and threat. Wyatt highlightsthe disingenuous way in whichYounghusband’s popular published ver-sion of his travels (Eighteen HundredMiles on a Burmese Tat, published in1888) - hereafter 1,800 miles.... – a tatis a Burmese pony - described hisjourney as the adventures of a young of-ficer on unpaid leave from India, out fora bit of fun and small game hunting.

This review looks at the context ofhis journey and the quality and value ofhis report. First, I compare the volumeunder review [KT] with 1,800 miles... Iuse only the comparable sections of thejourney from Chiang Mai to ChiangTung and back to Chiang Rai. In 1,800miles... the relevant sections (pp. 39–80of 162 pages) are of approximately thesame length as KT, more or less 10,000words. In brief, KT is only slightlydifferent from 1,800 miles... but cru-cially so. The preface to 1,800 miles...reads:

‘The following pages give an accountof a journey made during six monthsleave [not true] in the beginning of 1887.They do not profess any literary meritwhatever [by and large true] but aremerely a faithful [not entirely true]record of new countries and new na-tions, as seen with the eyes of an

ORDINARY BRITISH SUBAL-TERN’ [not quite true]

I am obliged to present the differencesbetween the texts in summary form, butthey can be checked. In short, as wewould expect, the popular text includessome relatively trivial or anecdotalmaterial that is not in KT, and omitsreferences to specifically political andstrategic information and comment. Thisincludes reference to disguises andsubterfuge, to maps, weaponry, militarystrengths, logistics, city defences, roadspassable for guns, artillery ranges, bestroutes for lines of advance and positionsfor siege and attack. It also includesreference to political analysis andadvice.

Younghusband has a chapter devotedto his time in Burma and Siam in eachof his two later volumes of memoirs. InA Soldier’s Memoirs...1917, Chapter 7(of 21) is entitled ‘A Burmese adven-ture’ and in Forty years a Soldier... 1923,Chapter 6 (of 16) ‘An Adventure inSiam’ (Wyatt refers only to the latter).Each of these is brief and contains littlenew except for the first publishedevidence of his role in ‘the IntelligenceBranch’, and an expanded story of howhe bought some fake European am-

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ethysts in a Shan amethyst mine (in1887!).

It is instructive to compare KT withCaptain W.C. McLeod’s 1837 report(Grabowsky and Turton 2003 [hence-forth McLeod]). Younghusband reprintsMcLeod’s route Chiang Tung-ChiangRung, but makes no further use ofMcLeod. In a six month excursion fromIndia and back, Younghusband spentjust nine full days in Chiang Tung cityand 27 days in the province altogether.McLeod spent fourteen days in ChiangTung city and 43 days in the provincealtogether. In all McLeod spent fourtimes as long in the (comparable) regionas a whole, including Chiang Mai andChiang Rai, and his report is about fourtimes as long.

The McLeod and Younghusbandvisits to Chiang Tung, in 1837 and 1887respectively, could hardly be morecontrasting. McLeod was four yearsolder, had recently been promotedcaptain, was more widely experiencedand had lived in Burma for over tenyears. Much more importantly, he hadan ambassadorial role. He bore lettersand gifts between heads of state. Hefollowed protocol. He spoke excellentBurmese, and perhaps a little Tai.Younghusband knew almost nothing ofthe situation, spoke no relevant lan-guages, and, moreover, despised hisinterpreter, whereas McLeod’s inter-preter deputised for him and was of greatassistance. Younghusband had the ben-efit of the reports of previous visitors.People on the ground included (since theTreaty of 1883) the British Vice-

Consul in Chiang Mai, Mr Archer, andthe American Missionary, Dr Cheek.Like McLeod, he received advice fromthe Chinese (Yunnanese Muslim)traders. He is generally less recognisantof his helpers and sources than McLeod.Younghusband avoided official contact,adopted disguises and pretended to bepoorer than he was to avoid theft andthe obligation to give gifts. He ends hisreport with the words: ‘This informa-tion for the most part is that of the Bazár,and not official’. This does not neces-sarily downgrade the value of the infor-mation, but it underlines the limits ofhis access.

So not only did he spend less time inChiang Tung and write less thanMcLeod, but his report is less soundlybased. He is not as gifted an observer orwriter as McLeod, or (Sir) James Scott,who was soon to follow. Scott givescredit to McLeod and many others, butmakes not a single reference toYounghusband (Scott 1901).

KT contains some trivial, prejudicedand self-regarding material, which I findcumulatively distasteful. He describesthe Chiang Tung Prince, who is twelveyears old, as a ‘rather idiotic-lookingyouth, with a face that may turn into avery cruel one’. He writes offensivelyabout his interpreter David, whom herenames Ananias: ‘a poisonous beastand the most unholy coward’ (FortyYears), ‘the most fearful and hopelesscoward God ever created’, ‘that skunkAnanias’. Then there are the ratherdreadful, and often malicious thumbnailsketches of faces of people he met, some

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twenty-two in all in the present volume.He is also self-regarding in a rather un-attractive way. One portrait reproducedhere and in 1,800 miles... is captionedin the former ‘Myself, about 3 monthsafter leaving civilization’ (he is heavilybearded and has long hair) and in thelatter ‘My own sweet self after leavingZimme’. His boastful and exaggeratingstyle is echoed in Forty Years: ‘SirGeorge White with his army was nowattacking from the West (though we didnot know it at the time [?]), whilst JudhBir [his orderly] and I were attackingfrom the South’ (p. 100). Even towardsJudh Bir, a Gurkha, and therefore closein the British military hierarchy of mar-tial races to the epitome of the Pathan‘tribesman’, he manages to be conde-scending, in such phrases as ‘a famouslittle fellow’ and ‘a right tight brave littleman and companion’. Wyatt calls theseattitudes ‘cavalier’. I suppose this goeswith phrases he uses in later books, suchas ‘dash my wig’!

Younghusband’s mission was, forhim, a minor episode in a long careerthat included military action in India,Egypt, Afghanistan, Burma, Philippines(with the US army) and South Africa(against the Boers). Wounded in Francein the First World War, he was rewardedwith the sinecure of Keeper of the JewelHouse, in the Tower of London, a posthe held with the title Sir GeorgeYounghusband KCMG, KCIE, FRGSuntil his death in 1944. He wrote a ShortHistory of the Tower of London, whichhas the same anecdotal style and forcedlevity as his three (now four) other

published books. He dined out on thestory of the fake amethysts. About otherdeceptions practised on him, we mightassume he may have been more discreet.

As for the ‘Trans-Salwin State ofKiang Tung’, if that is the direction youview it in, it has remained a contestedarea, demonstrating well the soundjudgement of Younghusband, though hemeant it slightly differently: ‘TheKiang Tung province in the hands ofthe British can never be anything but asource of weakness to the integrity ofthe Burmese Kingdom, ... a constantchallenge to outsiders.’ (KT p.13). In1943 it was ceded to Thailand, to bereturned after the war. In 1953 it waslargely occupied by insurgents andChinese (KMT) irregular forces. In 1983there were some nineteen insurgentgroups in the Shan and Kachin states,representing various ethnic and politi-cal alliances. The Shan State of ChiangTung will long remain a focus of fasci-nation for historians and politiciansalike.

The editor suggests that ‘There ismuch in Younghusband’s report thatremains good reading.... He rarely letsus forget, however, that he was on seri-ous duty as a military spy.’ (KT p. x,emphases added). I would give a differ-ent emphasis and say that it is onceagain interesting, precisely because ofthe military angle. It needs to be read asa symptomatic text and not as a rattlinggood tale, nor as a mine of useful data.And, as the editor says, the wider con-text of intelligence interest in ChiangTung at the time, by the British Foreign

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Office, and by the Siamese and ChiangMai governments, requires that we readthis report ‘more carefully and skepti-cally than we might otherwise do’. (KTp. xii). Professsor Wyatt and SilkwormBooks are to be congratulated on livingup to their high standards of editing,annotating and publishing manuscriptsand long out-of-print texts of historicalinterest.

Andrew Turton

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Anthony R. Walker, Merit and themillenium: routine and crisis in theritual lives of the Lahu people. NewDelhi, Hindustan Publishing Corpora-tion, 2003, pp. xxxi + 907, maps, pp. il-lustrations.

Anthony Walker spent nearly fourdecades studying the religious beliefsand practices of the Lahu. He nowpresents us with this massive volume inwhich he records and explains how theLahu people view the super-humanworld, and describes and analyzes theritual practices through which theyinteract with that invisible world.

The author bases his work on his par-ticipant observation of ritual life in aLahu Nyi village in Lanna (northernThailand) in the late 1960s, as well ason later field research among the Lahuof Yunnan. As a result, he explains theideas and practices that he found in“his” Lahu village in northern Thailandin terms of the wider context of theLahu-speaking peoples. This may inci-dentally help to demonstrate that thehighland populations of southern Chinaand northern South-East Asia interactfairly often, at least on the periphery,with lowland civilizations. In addition,the author scrutinizes much of thewidely scattered and extremely hetero-geneous publications concerning theLahu which have been written by West-ern travellers and Chinese administra-tors, as well as by colonial officers,evangelical missionaries and sundryother observers.

Textual analysis revealed numerousreferences to ideas and institutions thatwere obviously of Buddhist origin, suchas monks, merit, and demerit. Further-more, these Lahu ritual texts aresprinkled with words and expressionsderived from Pali or Sanskrit, but alsooccasionally from Dai, Chinese or Bur-mese. These characteristics of Lahuritual texts, together with the signifi-cance of the village temple and the re-current phenomenon of prophets andmessianic movements, led the author toinvestigate as much as feasible theLahu’s Mahayana Buddhist heritage inYunnan.

Having recorded the rich and variedritual life of the Lahu in the village inwhich he carried out his field work be-fore proceeding to the analysis of theritual texts he had collected, AnthonyWalker found that there was much lessvariation among the ritual texts thanamong the ritual practices. Explanationsoffered by informants about ritual prac-tices and their underlying premises wereoften divergent, sometimes contradic-tory or confused, whereas exegeticalcommentary on textual materials tendedto be much more coherent and compre-hensive, as well as considerably lessdivergent.

In the first part of this hefty volume,entitled “A Lahu village in NorthThailand and its socio-historical matri-ces” (p 3–108), Anthony Walker sumsup his study of a Lahu Nyi village nearPhrao, Chiang Mai province, carried outbetween 1966 and 1970. He brieflydescribes the layout of the village, the

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economic basis of the inhabitants’ live-lihood, the daily round of village life,the phenotype and dress of the villag-ers, their material culture, and someaspects of their social organization.

In a section called “Through the mistsof the past: from hypothetical Qiang toproven Lahu”, Walker goes on to at-tempt to make some sense out of therather scanty and frequently obscureavailable material that may revealsomething of the prehistory, protohis-tory and history of the Lahu people. Hethen discusses the controversial etymol-ogy of the ethnonym Lahu. There fol-lows a section about the differencesbetween Lahu groups such as the LahuNa, the Lahu Nyi, the Lahu Shehleh, andthe Lahu Shi. The author notes thatlinguistic differences do not alwayscoincide with socio-cultural differences.He also discusses the relationship be-tween the Kucong and the Lahu proper.Whether the Kucong should be consid-ered to be a division of the Lahu or aseparate people (in China, they haveapplied, without success, for official rec-ognition as a shaoshu minzu) is a mootpoint. This leads to a discussion of thegeographical distribution and demo-graphy of the Lahu, dispersed as theyare in the mountain areas of southernYunnan (411,476, including 30,051Kucong, in 1991), the eastern ShanState of Myanmar (probably morethan 200,000 nowadays), northernThailand (60,321 in 1987), northwest-ern Laos (about 16,000, including atleast 3,000 Kucong, in 1985), and north-western Vietnam (about 5,400, mostly

Kucong, in 1993).The hard core of the book is entitled

“The diverse strands of Lahu super-natural ideas and ritual practices” (pp.111–547). The author investigates “ani-mism” and “theism” in Lahu ontology.Among the Lahu, there seems to be aconsensus on the existence in every hu-man being of both a material body andsome spiritual essence, which are inti-mately interrelated.

Whereas almost all Lisu would agreethat men have nine ha and that womenhave seven ha (a Lisu term which Iwould prefer to render in English as“vital spirit” rather than “soul”), theauthor’s Lahu informants were veryvague about the number of awv ha (aLahu term translated as “soul” in thisbook). Their replies to the author’s ques-tions ranged from two to thirty-two,such presumably mystic numbers asthree, four, twelve and seventeen beingmost often mentioned as possibilities orcertainties, while thirty-two is likely toreflect Yuan (Khon Müang) influence.What happens to these awv ha after aperson dies is equally vague. In the caseof “good deaths” or “natural deaths” –i.e. deaths which have not occurredduring childbirth or in bizarre circum-stances and that have not resulted froman act of violence such as murder, sui-cide or accident - at least one of the awvha departs for the Land of the Dead.Predictably, the anthropologist’s queriesabout where the Land of the Dead islocated and what it is like frequentlyelicited replies such as “How can Iknow, I’ve never been there! Have

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you?” (p. 126). Therefore the authortends to keep an open mind about “tra-ditional” Lahu ideas on this subject.

Walker then relates what he haslearned about “traditional” Lahu beliefsconcerning the world of the neˇ (spir-its) before going into the question ofLahu “theism”, certainly a major aspectof Lahu metaphysics. The Lahu (or, atleast, some of them) appear to be quiteexceptional among comparable peoplesin eastern and southeastern Asia in thatthey attribute great importance to G’uivsha, their original creator and supremedeity. The author admits willingly that“among almost all the other peoples wehave mentioned (and the dozens upondozens unmentioned) the high or al-mighty creator deity is regarded as aremote, almost insignificant supernatu-ral being in comparison with the muchmore immediate territorial guardians,sickness-bearing spirits, etc.” (p. 160).He contends that the interest of the Lahu(or at least, some sections of them) hasevolved gradually as a result ofMahayana Buddhist influence, begin-ning in the latter part of the eighteenthcentury.

A lengthy chapter concerns the prac-tice of “animism”. After having intro-duced the practitioners, maw- pa_ andshe_ pa_, the author describes variousmethods of divination practised amongthe Lahu (they vary somewhat, ofcourse, from group to group). He givesconsiderable details about the ceremo-nies in which awv ha are recalled when-ever someone falls sick as a result ofone or more awv ha wandering off.

Much detailed material is also offeredconcerning spirit propitiation and spiritexorcism. In another chapter, the authorexamines what he calls rather appropri-ately “the extremes of an animistic con-tinuum”, namely the garnering of meritand the practice of sorcery.

In the next section, Walker investi-gates the circumstances under whichMahayana Buddhism spread among theLahu of southwestern Yunnan in thelate eighteenth century - to the extentthat the rather scarce and often impre-cise historical records permit. He at-tempts to evaluate the legacy of thisepisode among what he calls the “post-Mahayana Buddhist Lahu”. Detailedethnographic materials are mustered toindicate how this Mahayana Buddhistheritage has been incorporated withanimistic and theistic ideas into theroutine of their ritual lives. Villagetemples, together with their attendantofficials and the rituals which take placein them, are described. Some attentionis also paid to the annual cycle and tothe life cycle. Particularly interesting isthe chapter concerning the messianicmovements that have led to significantchanges in the beliefs and rituals of vari-ous Lahu-speaking peoples. Indeed, arecurrent phenomenon is the appearanceof men - styling themselves as prophetsor messiahs - who claim unity withG’uiv sha, pretend to possess miracu-lous healing powers, and proclaim theneed for profound changes (includingthe end of Han or Dai hegemony in theirarea).

The third part of the book (pp.551–733) is concerned with the spread

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of Baptist and other forms of Christian-ity among the Lahu. The author strivesto identify the reasons why Christianmissionaries have been much moresuccessful in spreading their religiousconvictions among the Lahu than amongmost other highlanders in that part ofthe world. He estimates that about 10per cent of the Lahu have embracedChistianity, the percentage being muchhigher, perhaps 30 per cent, in Thailandthan elsewhere. However, it would seemthat some of the converts drift awayfrom Christianity almost as easily asthey have adhered to it.

The author incorrectly equates thePalaung with the Bulang. Thus he statesthat “the Austroasiatic (and Buddhist)Palaung (Bulang in Pinyin romaniza-tion) recognize Sagya in this role”(p.159). Elsewhere, one reads about“the Bulang (Palaung) of the Yunnan-Kengtung area” (p.144, note 69) and“the Bulang (Palaung) Mountains inXishuanbanna’s Menghai County” (p.381)... In fact, “Palaung” is not at all avariant of “Bulang”. It is a Burmeseexonym for the Ta’ang (De’ang) peoplewho live in the western and northwest-ern parts of the Shan State of Burmaand in adjacent districts of the DehongDai-Jingpo Autonomous Zhou in west-ern Yunnan. The Ta’ang are very seldomin contact with the Lahu, except to avery limited extent in an area north ofLashio, where there are significantnumbers of persons of both “ethnicgroups” (or “nationalities”, as they sayin Myanmar or “national minorities”, asthey are termed in China). The Bulang

are quite distinct socially and culturallyfrom the Ta’ang/Palaung and they speaka different Austroasiatic language.Living in southwestern Yunnan, theycome into contact more or less fre-quently with the Lahu. On the Chineseside, the Ta’ang and the Bulang consti-tute two separate entities among thefifty-five shaoshu minzu (nationalminorities) that are officially recog-nized.

One of the most welcome features ofthis book is its rich illustrative material.A large number of high quality photo-graphs, technically excellent and highlyinformative, are presented on 72 plates.Some of them are quite attractive andexceptionally striking.

This work is an important contribu-tion to the study of the ritual life of theLahu. It cannot possibly be overlookedby any future researcher in this specialfield or in related fields. The author hasgathered and published a huge amountof ethnographic details about routineand crisis in Lahu ritual life, which willbe invaluable for comparative purposes.Generally speaking, detailed ethno-graphic work of this kind is indispens-able to make well-informed compari-sons and to validate theoretical construc-tions.

William Lang Dessaint

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Norman G. Owen, editor, The Emer-gence of Modern Southeast Asia.Singapore, Singapore University Press,2005, pp.xxiii + 541.

The publication of The Emergence ofModern Southeast Asia (henceforthEmergence) is, as this review will go onto elaborate, very much to be welcomed.At the same time, and particularly forthose whose engagement in the South-east Asia region spans several decades,the book’s evolution deserves some ini-tial comment. Six of the eight authorsof the present book – David P. Chan-dler, Norman G. Owen, William R. Roff,David Joel Steinberg, Robert H. Taylor,Alexander Woodside and David K.Wyatt – were associated with thebook’s predecessor, In Search of South-east Asia (henceforth In Search) eitherin its initial, 1971 publication form, orwith its revised successor, published in1987. The newcomers to the book, atleast so far as the text is concerned, areNorman G. Owen and Jean GelmanTaylor: Owen as editor and contributor,and Taylor as a replacement for JohnR.W. Smail, to whom the new volumeis dedicated and whose particular inter-est was Indonesia.

In its initial form, In Search was aremarkably successful collaborativeeffort which drew on the country-spe-cific talents of its multiple authors, whileeach member of the group played a partin the chapters dealing with general is-sues. As is made clear in the ‘Preface’to Emergence, the period when InSearch was written shaped the authors’

approach to their subject. They wrote ata time of ‘the seeming triumph of secu-lar nationalism and the ongoing war inVietnam’. Although the revised 1987edition of In Search took account of themany great changes that had taken placebetween 1971 and the mid-1980s, it wasstill clearly recognisable as the revisedversion of an earlier text. Both editionsof In Search were graced by an outstand-ing and extended ‘Bibliography’, whichin the 1987 edition ran to no fewer thansixty-nine pages. With brief but helpfulannotations, this was an extremelyvaluable scholarly tool in itself. Theabsence of a similar bibliography, andof a glossary of terms that was also partof In Search, is one of the immediatedifferences apparent to a reader of Emer-gence. Presumably removed as a cost-cutting measure, the loss of both is amatter of real regret.

That the book has been conceived asa teaching tool is immediately apparentfrom the section headed ‘How to UseThis Book’, which notes the authors’assumption – surely correct – that fewof those who read Emergence will doso from cover to cover. Rather, the au-thors suggest, the book has been con-structed in a fashion that allows readerseither to focus on ‘general thematic’chapters or to follow the histories ofparticular countries within the SoutheastAsian region.

These are sensible observations, par-ticularly for those who are new to thediscipline of Southeast Asian history.But they are observations that raise thequestion as to just who will benefit from

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reading this book. It is no distractionfrom my enthusiastic endorsement ofthis book’s value to suggest that its idealreader is someone who has alreadydeveloped a basic knowledge and un-derstanding of the region’s history. Forthis is, indeed, a book that provides asophisticated account of an area of theworld that poses a challenge to thosewho seek to write about it. As the au-thors observe in their ‘Preface’, this is achallenge that ‘is compounded by itsmyriad peoples, each with its own past,sense of cultural and social identity, andshaping geographic reality’.

Without doubt the authors of Emer-gence rise to these challenges, whetherin relation to the histories of the indi-vidual countries or in the chapters de-voted to thematic analysis. In doing sothey demonstrate the detailed know-ledge and understanding of their sub-jects that are a reflection of the manydecades they have spent in studying andwriting about the region. Yet, to returnto an earlier remark, the depth of theirknowledge and understanding can, Ithink, be intimidating to a newcomer.

Chapter 17, ‘Channels of Change’,provides an example of the point I ammaking. I think it is admirable in itsanalysis and coverage, and there is noth-ing that I would wish to criticize aboutit. I simply think that the readers whowill benefit most from reading it arethose who have already gained a basicknowledge of the history of a numberof Southeast Asian countries, as well asmore general knowledge of issues as-sociated with urbanism and education,

to note the two issues that are the par-ticular preoccupation of this chapter.

The final chapters dealing with thevery recent history of each SoutheastAsian country bring the story of theregion almost up-to-date and are percep-tive accounts of the essential features ofsociety and politics within each of thosecountries. These chapters provide afitting end to the country-specific chap-ters throughout the book as a whole. Ineach case these final chapters end witha thought-provoking question or obser-vation - none of which have been in-validated by the passage of time sincethe manuscript was completed. To notejust two of these final country-specificpoints, I am struck by the accuracy ofthe chapter on Laos ending with thequestion as to whether that country canbe kept ‘from becoming an informalannex of southern China’, and by theobservation that, in the Philippines thereremains an unresolved issue in the‘struggle for the right to rule and repre-sent’ that country.

Overall, the book is a triumph of col-laborative effort and one that we canconfidently expect to stand the test oftime, even as the study of SoutheastAsian history continues to develop witha greater depth of scholarship and anexpansion of the topics that come un-der study. It is not too much to state thatthe text is essentially seamless, so thateven those acquainted with the writingsof the individual authors will not feelthat they are reading a collection of es-says. Read against the fact that the firstimportant general history of Southeast

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Asia – that of the late Professor D.G.Hall – was published only fifty yearsago, this book is a testimony to how farthe discipline and writing about it haveprogressed.

Milton Osborne

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Craig J. Reynolds, Seditious Histories:Contesting Thai and Southeast AsianPasts. Seattle and London, Universityof Washington Press, 2006, pp. xix +367.

Craig Reynolds is one of the mostdistinctive historians working on Thai-land, largely because he is fundamen-tally a historian of ideas – a relativelyrare variant of the genus on the worldscale, and almost unsighted in Thailanduntil his appearance on the scene.Through his writing, teaching and in-spiration he has helped to make this areaa relatively major part of Thai histori-cal writing in recent years.

Much of his output has been in ar-ticles, several of which have acquiredclassic status. This book assemblestwelve pieces, previously scattered injournals, proceedings, or edited collec-tions over three decades. Two appearhere for the first time. Four are signifi-cantly expanded and reworked fromearlier published incarnations. Theothers are reprinted with minor polish-ing, including new titles to keep upwith the times. The stolidly academictitle “The Case of K. S. R. Kulap:A Challenge to Royal Historical Writ-ing in Late Nineteenth Century Thai-land” (from JSS 1973) is transformedinto the rather harrypotterish, “Mr.Kulap and Purloined Documents.”

Three of the pieces are review ar-ticles. These include a contribution tothe debate on what defines SoutheastAsia as an idea in history; a roundup ofmodels of the premodern southeastern

Asian state, including the Asiatic mode,theatre state, and mandala; and a sort ofanti-review about the absence of gen-der in Thai historical writing.

The rest of the articles all have a dis-tinctive approach: they are about docu-ments. Reynolds selects a key text orclutch of texts, puts them in their his-torical context, and then squeezes outtheir significance and legacy by walk-ing round them and examining themfrom all angles.

The documents stretch across theBangkok era. They start with a Buddhistchronicle (Sangkitiyavamsa) of the FirstReign, and range through to the sound-bites of public intellectuals confrontingglobalization over the last decade.Along the way, Reynolds walks aroundChaophraya Thiphakorawong’sKitchanukit, the Traiphum, manuscriptswhich Kulap “borrowed” from the pal-ace library, Nirat Nongkhai, the culturalmandates of the Phibun era, historicaltexts on feudalism in the 1960s and1970s, the output of the official cultureindustry, and the whole genre of manu-als on everything from healing throughwarfare to business success. Reynolds’two book-length pieces were similar,more exhaustive studies of documents,namely Prince Wachirayan’s autobiog-raphy, and Jit Phoumisak’s Real Faceof Sakdina Today. This is quite a rangeof texts and subjects.

Although the articles span theBangkok era from the First Reign to thepresent, Reynolds does not present themto us in chronological order. Indeed,chronology is something which has be-

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come steadily less and less important inhis work. The first piece, written in the1970s, takes a lot of space anchoringPhra Phonnarat’s chronicle firmly in itshistorical context. The latest piece, writ-ten in the 2000s, ignores time almostaltogether and considers manuals rang-ing from the treatises on warfare in theAyutthaya period to the how-to booksthat crowd present-day bookstands as asingle genre with no considerationwhether there is any “development”over time. In his history of ideas, theideas increasingly surmount the history.

Instead of using chronology,Reynolds divides the articles into twobatches. The first batch contains the“seditious histories” that give the bookits title. These articles focus on docu-ments which were written to disrupt. K.S. R. Kulap not only challenged thepalace’s exclusive right to own thechronicles and other key texts of Thaihistory, but also challenged their exclu-sive right to change them. ThimSukkhayang used the poetic form of thenirat for the highly unusual (and, at thetime, dangerous) role of political criti-cism. Jit Phoumisak used the royalchronicles to up-end mainstream historyand drag Thailand into Marxist dis-course. Reynolds pictures all three ofthese intellectuals as pioneers whohelped to change the public culture, andsuffered jail as a result. In selecting thesesubjects of study, Reynolds was con-sciously disrupting the mainstream ofThai historical writing in the 1970s and1980s, which seemed bent on glorify-ing those who held power and thereby

dominated the production of ideas.Reynolds’ second category of “cul-

tural studies” is more in the mainstream.The main focus of these articles is theadjustment of the Siamese elite to theWest over the course of the nineteenthcentury. Reynolds shows how the elitechanged to accommodate new ideascoming from the powerful West, but ul-timately he stresses how much the elitemanaged to retain in the process. Thescience of the Traiphum was discardedso that its philosophical support ofsocial hierarchy could be retained.Polygamy was elegantly defended byChaophraya Thiphakorawong, usingarguments designed to appeal toa western moral sensibility.

The theme of the last two articles ishow “Thainess” has been manufacturedand manipulated over the past century.The first is an expanded version of theintroduction to National Identity and ItsDefenders. The second is rather lazilytitled “Epilogue”, which forces thereader to wade a long way in beforediscovering this is a discussion ofThainess and globalization.

Reynolds argues that “Thainess” wasmanufactured as an idea based on cul-ture and heritage rather than ethnicity,because the ethnic mix was always prob-lematic. It has always been bound upwith concerns for national security, andhas tended to be more of a state weaponthan a popular feeling. In the era of glo-balization, Thainess has been recruitedto every possible agenda. On the onehand, cultural expansionists gaze north-wards at various Tai-language groups

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beyond the borders. On the other, cul-tural defenders squeal about the threatto Thainess from globalization.

In the background of this collectionof articles is the post-modern revolutionin social science over the past genera-tion. Reynolds totally avoids the jargonof postmodern writing, and Foucaultgets only one passing mention, notworth even recording for the index. Butall through these articles, Reynolds isconscious that the writing of history it-self is part of the history of ideas. It isnot surprising that his work is popularwith the new generation of historianswho have grown up academically withthe postmodern view. But there is a cost.Some of the later pieces seem to plaitthe contending discourses andcounterpointed ironies so densely thatany overall conclusion is difficult to see.

This is a superb collection which any-one with an interest in Thai culture andhistory will enjoy.

Chris Baker

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Ronald Bruce St John, Revolution, Re-form and Regionalism in SoutheastAsia: Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.London, Routledge, 2006, pp. xvi + 282.

Indochina was a French invention, aproduct of colonial logic that wilfullydisregarded historical political and cul-tural realities. In particular it ignored themost significant cultural divide inSoutheast Asia, which runs down theAnnamite Cordillera between Confu-cian Vietnam and Theravada BuddhistLaos and Cambodia. But it also ignoredpatterns of historical interaction.

Not until the Nguyen dynasty in thenineteenth century did Vietnam evincemuch interest in extending its politicalinfluence west into Laos and Cambo-dia. Prior to that, the direction of bothVietnamese migration and its projectionof political power were from north tosouth, at the expense of the Cham, ratherthan of the Lao kingdoms to the west.Only in the last phase of Vietnameseexpansion were Cambodian interestsdirectly challenged. A Vietnameseattempt in the 1830s to extend politicalcontrol to the west encountered theequally expansionist ambitions of Siam.After years of inconclusive conflict,Vietnam and Siam agreed to exercisejoint hegemony over Cambodia.

Paradoxically, while claiming to havepreserved Cambodian and Lao indepen-dence, French colonial power held onlySiam at bay. For the Vietnamese the waywas left open for renewed migration andthe possibility of greater political influ-ence. The vision of an expanded Viet-

namese empire was shared by both theconservative right and revolutionary leftof Vietnamese politics. It was not sharedby Lao or Cambodians.

In post-colonial Indochina, it was thevision of the left - of Indochina held to-gether through ‘special’ relationshipsbetween ruling Marxist-Leninist parties- that dominated during what the Laocall the ‘thirty-year struggle’ from 1945to 1975 to throw off the last remnantsof colonialism (French to 1954 in theFirst Indochina War) and imperialism(American to 1975 in the SecondIndochina War). But then came thephenomenon of the Khmer Rouge, anda Third Indochina War was required tobring Cambodia back into the sort ofrelationship Vietnam wanted – to theannoyance of China.

After 1979 Vietnamese political in-fluence first waxed, then waned, inCambodia, while it diminished moreslowly in Laos. Changing relations havelargely been in response to externalcircumstances, though internal policydifferences have also contributed. Sincethe later 1990s, when all three countriesjoined the Association of SoutheastAsian Nations (ASEAN), intra-ASEANrelations and developing regionalismwithin the Greater Mekong Sub-region(GMS) - not least the inclusion of China- have further reduced the significanceof any exclusively ‘Indochinese’ re-gional grouping.

St John tells the story of the post-colonial, post-imperial unravelling ofIndochina since 1975, not as narrativehistory, but as a chronological survey

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of developments in the politicaleconomy of all three countries. In orderto do this, he begins by telling us whatthe French vision of Indochina was allabout, and saying something about theVietnamese conception of ‘special re-lationships’ linking the three countries.But the latter is covered too sketchily inthe opening background chapter, and theleap from French Indochina to 1975leaves out too much. We would like toknow something about the interveningyears, particularly with respect to Cam-bodian-Vietnamese relations. Indeed thewhole Khmer Rouge period from 1975to the end of 1978 gets very cursorytreatment. In contrast to Vietnam andLaos, no section is devoted just toCambodia in chapter two on the ‘rushto socialism’; though thereafter cover-age is approximately equal for all threestates.

St John assumes some knowledge notjust of broad historical developments,but also of who the principal dramatispersonae were. Names are introducedwith few biographical references. De-spite this, however, the story of post-1975 ‘Indochina’ is well told, through awealth of political detail and economicdata. What are not covered are thosecultural and social dimensions that havecontributed to internal policy differencessince the early 1990s, as regimes in allthree ruling parties seek to shore up theirlegitimacy in a post-communist world.For example, there is little on religion.St John does have interesting things tosay about political culture in Laos andCambodia, but is strangely silent on the

very different political culture of Viet-nam. This is a pity, because a compari-son would shed light on the differentprospects for development for Vietnamon the one hand, and Laos and Cambo-dia on the other.

A strength of the book is the atten-tion it gives to regional relationships,notably between the three ‘Indochinese’states, but also more widely as theyengage with ASEAN in the 1990s.Diverging foreign policies are also wellcovered. So too is the history of regionalintegration, which goes back to themid-1950s, when the EconomicCommission for Asia and the Far East(ECAFE) produced two reports, andcontinued with the formation of theMekong Committee in 1957. Integrationwas placed on hold during the SecondIndochina War and the aftermath of theThird, but gathered strength after theUN-imposed political settlement inCambodia, in the form of the GMS,promoted by the Asian DevelopmentBank, and ASEAN membership.

St John is an indefatigable author, anindependent scholar who in his ownwords writes “with a three-fold geo-graphical focus on North Africa and theMiddle East, Andean America, andSoutheast Asia.” Given this wide rangeof interests, one might expect this bookto be a somewhat cursory study. But StJohn has combed the literature andcombined it with his own knowledge ofthe region to produce a broad andcompelling synthesis. A great amount ofinformation is packed into the pages ofRevolution, Reform and Regionalism,

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so much that at times one loses theargument in the mass of detail and therelentless parade of economic data. Thisis not a book for the casual reader or thefaint-hearted, but for those with a genu-ine interest in the region it is a usefuland informed addition to the literature.It will be of value not just to students,but also to all those working in theregion in the fields of aid, commerceand diplomacy.

Martin Stuart-Fox

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Pierre-Arnaud Chouvy and JoëlMeissonnier, Yaa Baa: Production,Traffic and Consumption of Metham-phetamine in Mainland Southeast Asia.Singapore, Singapore University Press,2004, pp.xxii + 210.

Yaa Baa, by Pierre-Arnaud Chouvyand Joël Meissonnier, is a well-re-searched and informative addition to thefields of ethnography and geopolitics.Yaa baa, or “crazy drug” as it is com-monly known in Southeast Asia, is anillicit amphetamine-type stimulant(ATS) or methamphetamine. While il-legal drug use has been present in South-east Asia for generations, this new syn-thetic and cheap alternative to “harder”drugs has taken a firm footing in theregion as people seek out alternativemeans of coping with the stresses of lifeand modern society. The study, a trans-lation of a 2002 French publication, setsout to investigate methamphetamineproduction, distribution and consump-tion in mainland Southeast Asia. Theresearch is useful in accounting for therecent rise in illicit synthetic “designer”drug production and consumptionthroughout Asia due to past and presentsocio-economic and political circum-stances. The complete range of meth-amphetamine production, traffickingand consumption is explored using ageopolitical approach, as this method-ology highlights production and traf-ficking patterns with which the study isconcerned (p.xix).

The book is divided into three partswith ten chapters, including a detailed

introduction and comprehensive conclu-sion. In Part 1, “Yaa Baa, An Illicit Drugfrom the Golden Triangle,” geographerPierre-Arnaud Chouvy provides anhistorical and geopolitical backgroundof methamphetamines and their produc-tion throughout Asia. Part 2, “The Cir-cuits of Yaa Baa,” by sociologist JoëlMeissonnier, describes the contempo-rary conditions in mainland SoutheastAsia, specifically Thailand, that aid insustaining the yaa baa market from itsorigins to its present status. Part 3, “So-ciological Context of the Explosion inMethamphetamine Use in Thailand,”also by Joël Meissonnier, is a chrono-logical outline of the conditions encoun-tered by consecutive generations of Thaiyouth and adolescents at the end of thetwentieth century. This section also con-tains an analysis of the present condi-tion of the school and the family in Thai-land in order to examine some of thereasoning behind the attraction to yaabaa and other illicit drugs among Thaiyouth. Each chapter of the book’s threesections delivers well-structured andassessed historical and current databased on research and observations inthe regions discussed. The informationis provided to lay the framework for thegeographical, geopolitical and socio-economic conditions and patterns thatsupport the development, production,distribution and consumption of yaa baaand other ATS in mainland SoutheastAsia. This allows for a detailed accountand investigation of the diversity of in-dividuals and institutions involved in theproliferation of illicit drugs, as well asthe people who buy and use them.

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Chapter 1 provides a scientific exami-nation and summary of methamphet-amines, including addiction, psycho-logical and physiological effects, andmethods of treatment for addiction.Chapter 2 is a general outline of ATS,specifically methamphetamines, fromits initial chemical synthesis in Germanyin 1887 (p.7) to present-day production.

Chapter 3 focuses on the emergenceand development of the “Golden Tri-angle” region formed between Burma,Laos and Thailand, beginning with theinitial cultivation of the opium poppyin China. Emphasis is placed on theWestern military presence in the region,Communism and its effects, and theIndochinese War, which are believed tohave facilitated opium cultivation, trans-portation and consumption in theIndochinese highlands. Also describedis the evolution of illicit drug produc-tion in Burma, including the country’srecent social and political history andits ever-present internal military con-flicts.

In Chapter 4, the final section ofPart 1, an analysis of how the GoldenTriangle emerged as a major productionsite, and mainland Southeast Asia as amajor consumption region, for syntheticillicit drugs is discussed. The situationin Burma, Cambodia, China, Laos andThailand is looked at with reference todrug patterns emerging during the1990s, a period viewed as the “boomtime” for methamphetamine productionand consumption in Asia. Also investi-gated are the routes of methamphet-amine trafficking in the Golden Tri-

angle, highlighting methods and pathsof transportation traditionally and fre-quently used in northern and southernThailand, southwestern Laos, westernCambodia and southeast Burma. Note-worthy is an examination in the rise inillicit drug abuse in the region seen indirect relation to poorer socio-economicconditions, especially the 1997 Asianfinancial crisis, which rocked the region.

Beginning Part 2, Chapter 5 is a de-scription of the modes and methods ofmovement of yaa baa from its produc-tion in Burmese towns along the Thaiborder, through its cross-country jour-ney, to its final destination in Thailand.The circulation of methamphetaminepills as they pass through the variousmiddlemen and intermediary drug run-ners and dealers to the eventual con-sumer is explained through an in-depthanalysis of activities and events. Thissection analyzes the various players thathave a role in yaa baa’s distributionnetworks. The complex distribution pat-terns of the drug and its users through-out various regions in Thailand aremapped, highlighting areas of high us-age density as well as possible explana-tions for the elevated level of consump-tion among various ethnic, social andeconomic groups in each region.

Chapter 6 analyzes the popularity ofyaa baa among manual laborers andlow income groups. The “uniqueness”of yaa baa consumers is noted, as theyinclude members from all levels andgroups of the Thai social strata, whichin turn creates a problem when tryingto identify or pinpoint the target con-

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sumer group. While in the past, drugabuse in Thailand was linked and cat-egorized by a consumer’s socio-eco-nomic status, such as opium and heroinwith low income rural or urban slumdwellers, and cocaine with high societyor upper class individuals, yaa baa hastranscended the standard division ofusers based on socio-economic catego-rization, creating one large encompass-ing group with members from each levelof society. In order to identify the so-cial profile of methamphetamine con-sumers, two corresponding methods areutilized. First, consumption habits ofmembers of the lower class in Thailandwho are commonly believed to be theinitial users of methamphetamines on awidespread basis are examined. Second,user trends among Thai youth and ado-lescents who more recently becamemajor methamphetamine users arediscussed, with several points beingraised regarding the rise in popularityof yaa baa in Thai society. Noteworthyis the rapid transition of Thailand froman agricultural-based society to a mod-ern and globalized industrial one over arelatively short period of time beginningin the 1970s. This rapid industrializa-tion and urban migration forced changesin the work habits of laborers andraised employer expectations of outputand productivity. Another reason forthe increase in yaa baa is ascribed tothe change in behavior among heroinusers who switched to yaa baa mainlydue to its low cost and relative ease ofavailability. Here yaa baa is described

by consumers as a means of escape andcoping with poverty and adverse homeor work conditions, corporal andmental fatigue, or numbing physicaland psychological pain.

Chapter 7 is a discussion of yaa baa’salarmingly high rate of consumption andacceptance among young people inThailand, now viewed as the target con-sumer group of the drug. An importanttheory regarding the exponential in-crease in the number of methamphet-amine consumers among Thai youth inthe last decade is presented. The authorsinfer that “in Thailand the propensity toimitate others’ behaviour is particularlystrong. Every young yaa baa user be-longs to a group of friends who alsoconsume the drug” (p.83). This explainsthe sociability and wide acceptance ofthe drug among Thai youth. As any keenobserver of Thailand would note, Thaisare rarely ever alone by choice; peer orgroup interactions and relationships arewhat binds Thai society together. Justas in the West, where drinking, eating,etc. are viewed as inherently social ac-tivities, so too is drug consumption insome degree in Thailand. Becausedrinking alcohol or taking drugs aloneis viewed as a sign of despair or evenaddiction, Thai society does not con-done alcohol or drug consumption byoneself. In this sense, yaa baa acts as acrucial link among group members. Theact of consuming drugs, as it is sharedamong group members, enhances andreinforces the group’s social bonds andcollective identity.

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Part 3, Chapter 8, provides an histori-cal overview of circumstances faced bysucceeding generations of Thai youthduring the last quarter of the twentiethcentury. This is undertaken to identifythe socio-historical origins of yaa baaconsumption among Thai youth andyoung adults. The authors surmise thatthe political, social, economic and cul-tural conditions of Thailand in the late1990s have been very favorable to themethamphetamine boom (p. 115). Thisis believed to have given rise to the cur-rent “fun-seeking” and hedonistic atti-tude popular among Thai youth andyoung adults. Environmental and socialconditions thus went well with and pro-vided further support for the prolifera-tion of yaa baa within Thai society. Yaabaa abuse is seen almost as a playfulgame, where consumption equals fun,enjoyment and excitement experiencedin a group or among peers with the in-dividual desire to have a good time.

Chapter 9 focuses on the currentstate of three major social establish-ments in Thailand: the school, Sangha(monkhood) and family. This is done todisplay how each has unintentionallyaided in increasing the number of Thaiyouth and young adults who consumeor experiment with yaa baa. The assess-ment explains how the mechanisms ofthese institutions effectively rendermany young people vulnerable andpowerless against the potential of beingenticed into illegal drug abuse inThailand.

Chapter 10, the final chapter, concep-tualizes a sociological model based onMax Weber’s “ideal type” theory. Thismodel enables the authors to create anamalgamated profile of yaa baa con-sumers based on certain “characteristictraits” (p.143). This model distinguishesmethamphetamine consumers based ontheir motives and economic interests.Additionally, this model acts as a basisfor increasing the geographical range ofthe study. From this original abstractmodel, associated hypotheses are cre-ated for ATS consumption in neighbor-ing Burma, Cambodia and Laos. Thismodel demonstrates the intricacy ofsocial patterns that promote and supportyaa baa production and consumption inmainland Southeast Asia. The chapterconcludes with a brief discussion of arecently introduced synthetic ATS inThailand, ecstasy, an expensive psycho-tropic drug usually imported fromEurope. This relatively new entrant intothe Thai illicit drug market has produceda new social class among ATS consum-ers. The switch to or preference forecstasy over yaa baa among recreationaldrug consumers in Thailand has createdan “ecstasy elite” of high-end, high pro-file, upper-class consumers.

The authors conclude that the yaa baaexplosion in Thailand is intrinsicallyconnected to the country’s own socio-historical conditions. It is asserted thatthe popularity and rapid growth of yaabaa consumption in Thailand, particu-larly among youth and young adults, isdue to a combination of (local) factors

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not present in Western societies. Theselocal factors have made yaa baa a“normal” drug believed to lack physi-cal or social consequences, thus remov-ing the possibility for temptation orattraction that a drug of such widespreadabuse and popularity would generallybe subjected to in the West (p.164).

The authors makes clear how andwhy yaa baa has taken such a strongfoothold in Thailand and surroundingcountries. In spite of this, there are a fewshortcomings which, if addressed,would greatly add to the book’s overallpresentation and clarity. For example,the book’s title is very deceiving, as theresearch is focused mainly on Thailandrather than mainland Southeast Asia asa whole. Although discussion is pro-vided on surrounding countries, nodefinitive explanations or conclusionsare made in any great detail in compari-son with the information on Thailand.

More specifically, Chapter 5 openswith a discussion of middleman distribu-tors of yaa baa, but does not expandon the subject and fails to refer toBonacich’s 1973 discussion of middle-man minorities, which is pivotal to anydialogue on the subject. In addition, theauthors claim of yaa baa being avail-able “in seemingly every nook andcranny of ordinary life in Thailand,”(p.61) is not correct for the present daysituation or even when the book wastranslated to English in 2004. For in-stance, since the last Prime Minister ofThailand, Thaksin Shinawatra, beganhis “war on drugs”, (p. 25) the positionand popularity of yaa baa in Thailand

has changed considerably, yet the au-thors fail to discuss any of the events orcircumstances that have evolved sincehis personal crusade began, only brieflymentioning this early in the book.

In Chapter 6, a discussion of yaa baaconsumption and distribution in Bang-kok’s Klong Toey notorious marketand slum district paints a false and veryoutdated picture of the current situationin the area. The authors’ claim that yaabaa is out of control and widely abusedin the area is based mostly on second-ary sources obtained from governmen-tal or state-run agencies that fail toaddress the problem in terms of the ac-tual situation. The availability and abuseof yaa baa in Klong Toey has changedconsiderably from the open-market at-mosphere of a couple years ago and isnow greatly frowned upon and discour-aged among residents and shopkeepersin the district. The statistics providedhere, as well as in the previous chapter,are quite dated and should have beenrevised for the current publication of thebook. A suggestion for future editionswould be to revise and update severalof the facts and figures regardingaddiction and consumption. The stateof affairs since Mr Thaksin’s crusadeagainst drugs, which began before thebook was translated, should have beenincluded, at least in the conclusion.

Yale Needel

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B.P. Groslier, Angkor and Cambodia inthe Sixteenth Century, translated byMichael Smithies. Bangkok, OrchidPress, 2006, pp.x+ 186.

The republication in translation ofBernard-Philippe Groslier’s 1958 book,Angkor et le Cambodge au XVIe siècled’après les sources portugaises etespagnols, is a notably welcome event.The original Presses Universitaires deFrance version of this work has longbeen out of print and was, in any case,originally restricted to a relativelylimited print run. That the book shouldnow be available in a clear Englishtranslation means that this importantwork is now accessible to a much wideraudience. Both Orchid Press and thetranslator, Michael Smithies, are to bewarmly congratulated in bringing thisproject to completion, and for makingthe book available in such high qualitybinding.

At the time of its publication the bookwas seen as contributing to ourknowledge of Cambodian history inthree main areas. First, Groslier, then theConservateur of the Angkor temples andmore broadly an archeological scholar,took up the much-disputed issue of theroyal succession following the death ofthe great Angkorian king, JayavarmanVII, in the thirteenth century CE. Eventsfollowing this event, in the periodleading up to the removal of the Cam-bodian court from Angkor and the tem-porary establishment of that court inPhnom Penh in the fifteenth century,have long been a subject of historical

debate. Secondly, the author, in thisbook, and with the assistance of CharlesBoxer, the noted historian of Iberianmaritime expansion, presented for thefirst time a coherent account of whatmight legitimately be called the ‘IberianPeriod’ in Cambodian history. And fi-nally, though far from exhaustivelysince the book is full of rewarding ‘asides’, Groslier used this publicationto advance his theories on the nature ofthe Angkorian hydraulic system, which,in his eyes, needed to be understood interms both of its practical agriculturaland religious symbolic character.

The first and last of the areas justnoted involve issues that are still notfully resolved. While it is probablycorrect to say that so far as the royalsuccession is concerned, scholars havemoved towards a greater degree ofagreement than was the case whenGroslier published in 1958, there are stillsome matters over which there is dis-pute among specialists. Moreover, andwhile it is still common to find 1431 CEcited as the date at which the court leftAngkor, there is no absolute certaintyabout this date. For there is the realpossibility that the move to Phnom Penhcould have taken place at any timebetween the 1431 date and, perhaps, aslate as 1450.

As for Groslier’s theories concerningAngkor’s hydraulic system, in which,simplifying greatly, he proposed that thewhole of that system combined practi-cal and religious considerations, thesehave come under sustained attack inrecent decades. In particular, his sugges-

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tion that the great Angkorian barays, orreservoirs, played a major part in en-abling the city of Angkor to feed a popu-lation possibly as large as one million,was forcefully rejected by more recentscholarship, notably by Philip Stott, W.van Liere and Robert Acker. (Theirarguments are helpfully summarised inChapter 8 of Charles Higham’s 2001publication, The Civilization of Angkor.)Nevertheless, the issue of just how thecity of Angkor supported its large popu-lation continues to be open to furtherdiscussion. In this regard the researchbeing undertaken by the Greater AngkorProject (GAP), primarily based at theUniversity of Sydney but also involv-ing APSARA, the Cambodian author-ity responsible for the administration ofthe Angkor temples, and the EcoleFrançaise d’Extrême-Orient, is highlyrelevant. The work already undertakenby the GAP, while not simply endors-ing Groslier’s proposals concerning thehydraulic system and the role it playedin sustaining a large population, increas-ingly points to the existence of large-scale canals as playing a vital part inenabling the cultivation of very largequantities of rice.

In contrast to the issues discussedabove, it is unlikely that the book’s dis-cussion of the role of Portuguese andSpanish missionaries and freebootingadventurers in Cambodia in the six-teenth century will be surpassed by anylater scholarly endeavour. The story thatGroslier has to tell is, of course, a recordof imperial greed and rapine mixed withevangelising zeal, all of which are now

the subject of politically correct oppro-brium. However that may be, the ac-count of the fruitless efforts of the mis-sionaries and the ultimately failed at-tempts by men such as Diego Veloso andBlas Ruiz to play a role in the gover-nance of Cambodia remains fascinatingnonetheless. What is more, so far as therole of the adventurers is concerned, itcasts an important light on the weaknessof the Cambodian court in the latesixteenth century and on its readinessin that period of weakness to turn toWestern foreigners for assistance.

Mention has already been made of thevaluable role played by Michael Smith-ies in translating Groslier’s work. Thefurther point should be made that notonly has he done so in a felicitous man-ner, he has in addition overseen the time-consuming transcription of Portugueseand Spanish names that were not alwaysconsistently cited in the original. So faras technical matters are concerned I willonly refer to one very minor typographi-cal error, which occurs on page 105,where the date for Doudart de Lagrée’svisit to Angkor is noted as having takenplace in June 1867. The visit was, in fact,in June 1866.

I beg the Journal’s editor and read-ers’ indulgence to allow this reviewer abrief personal observation in ending thisreview. I first met Bernard-PhilippeGroslier in 1960 and came to know himbetter in 1966, when I was carrying outresearch in Cambodia on the nineteenthcentury. He was both a man of greatcharm and a scholar of the highest re-pute. He was also someone who was

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ready to assist students, such as I was,through his deep understanding of theentire span of Cambodian history. Amember of the fourth generation of hisfamily to work in what was once ‘FrenchIndochina’, and the son of GeorgeGroslier, the long-time Director of thePhnom Penh museum, the final yearsof his life were tragic, personally andin scholarly terms. He was forced toleave Siem Reap during the Cambodiancivil war that erupted in 1970. Removedto Phnom Penh, he suffered seriousinjuries when he confronted a burglarin his apartment, wounds from whichhe never fully recovered. It is fitting thatthis important work has now beentranslated and so made accessible to awider audience. It is a fitting, additionalmemorial to his life and achievements.

Milton Osborne

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Sappho Marchal, Khmer Costumes andOrnaments of the Devatas of AngkorWat (1927). Bangkok, Orchid Press,2005, pp.xx + 99, 41 plates, $16.

Sappho Marchal’s book was first pub-lished in French in 1927. Her father,Henri Marchal, was a conservator atAngkor and so, says Victor Goloubewin his foreword, she “grew up in theshadow of the temples”. Indeed thedevatas, or apsaras as they are morecommonly known, may well have beenher surrogate companions despite beingsculpted in bas-relief. While many canbe examined at close quarters, others areless accessible. One can imagine theauthor, hatted to ward off the intenseheat, with binoculars or even a cameraat hand to record the data she sought.

The book has the translator’s note,followed by Goloubew’s foreword andMarchal’s concise notes on the apsaras’costumes, jewellery, flowers and coif-fures. An inventory of the numbers ofapsaras at different architectural loca-tions at Angkor Wat is followed by atable showing the distribution of coif-fure types in these locations. Forty-oneplates of drawings follow, accompaniedby brief comments on the salient distin-guishing features selected for illustra-tion, particularly the spectacular hair-styles and their ornamentation.

She numbers the apsaras at 1,737,excluding those on the towers of AngkorWat, which if included would bring thetotal to 1,860. But there were morewhich, over the course of time, suffereddamage due to natural and unnatural

causes that erased additional informa-tion. While apsaras are not unique toAngkor Wat, these particular examplesare the focus of Marchal’s work which,being almost life-size, facilitate depic-tion of details on the reliefs with a highdegree of accuracy.

Marchal has ordered her drawingsaccording to a particular plan. The firstplates (1-XVI) demonstrate the simplesthairstyles, where long tresses are dealtwith by simply looping, knotting orbinding. The next group introduces or-namentation commencing with plateXV11 (figs E, G, I), which shows thehair supported by a “diadem”, while onplate XV111 no tresses appear, onlyheadpieces termed “bonnet[s]” byMarchal. It is not clear visually whetherthere is any difference between the bon-net and the diadem, though English doesdistinguish between them, the formerhaving ties beneath the chin, and thelatter being a “lightly jewelled circlet”.On some Khmer statues sculpted in theround, a diadem with ties at the back ofthe head does appear. The most elabo-rate of the apsaras’ head adornments,with their characteristic triad of talltriangular cone shapes and a variety ofadditional ornamentation, feature onplates XXX1V to XL. The final plate,XL1, shows headpieces with a singlecentral pointed cone, which the authorargues is in effect the prototype of themkot that has since became the form ofthe crown in Siam and Cambodia forroyalty and dance dramas such as theReamker.

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The author speculates about the wayother, more complex, hairstyles mayhave been devised. About one style(plate VI figs. B, C) she says it must use“pierced patterned cloth” through whichthe hair is pulled. It can, however, moreeasily be explained with reference tohair styles contemporary today, wherefine plaits in multiple narrow bands ly-ing close to the head are currentlyfavoured by so-called ‘rap artists’. Inother styles Marchal uses the word cuilletranslated as “cut” (plate 1X sketch I;plate XV1 fig. G). This is difficult tointerpret as sketched and most probablyis more appropriately glossed as“parted”. This look would then corre-spond to the fashion called “Frenchplaiting” so popular in the 1980s-1990s,where loosely parted locks of hair areintertwined. Indeed, chronologically,the Angkor styles may be regarded asprototypes of these styles.

Marchal speculates as to how the hairitself was dressed so as to allow thoselocks to maintain their upright sweep if,actually, the forms thus depicted werenot simply the sculptor’s interpretations.Was it a frame secured to the head overwhich the dark tresses were draped? Wasperhaps some sort of pomade applied?Twentieth century Khmer custom mayyield some clues. Informants report thathair is dressed with oils from coconutor papaya to which ash was added if “...you wanted to have stiff hair that wouldnot fall down”.1 There is also a hair

product made from samrong fruit mixedwith wax. Men used it to twist mous-taches into buffalo horn shapes, for in-stance. These traditional preparations,the ingredients of which are endemic toCambodia, may well have been avail-able in Angkorean times.

Marchal also surmises that some par-ticular ornamental additions were prob-ably flower stalks of coconut palm andareca nut plants, the ends of which weredirectly inserted into the hairstyle.Present-day custom indicates that whitejasmine flowers threaded onto stalks andfound everywhere as ornamentationcould well have been similarly con-structed and used.

This wealth of details, though con-cerned principally with hairstyles, hasunexpected benefits for those interestedin Khmer costume of the time. Marchalhas sketched the apsaras’ costumes insome cases. The Khmer term for thisstyle of hip wrapper is sampot. She at-tempts to explain the construction of thepatterned waist to ankle hip wrappers,“sarong”, with flowing or archingsidepieces (Figs. 1–3). Her conclusionis “merely a hypothesis”, but on closeexamination, it fails the test on twogrounds, one conceptual and one tech-nological. The main objection concernsthe fact that the length of cloth is cut tofit the form with one end scalloped.Cloth used as hip wrappers then or nowwould never have been cut and tailoredin this part of Asia or in the Hindu tra-

1 Muan I. (ed.), Seams of Change. Clothing and the Care of the Self in 19th and 20th CenturyCambodia, pp. 252–3. Phnom Penh, Reyum Publishing, 2003.

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dition from which Khmer hip wrapperstyles were derived. And scissors wouldbe needed to cut the scalloped edges ofthe cloth and the slot for a belt arrange-ment as indicated. Scissors were not oneof the tools of the time.

But the appearance of a few apsarafigures (plate X1V fig. F: XV111 figs.A,b,E) wearing simple wrapped gar-ments which would now be termedshorts or culottes, with a voluminousbow at the back and with the endsflowing to the side, provides much moreuseful evidence as to how the presti-gious hip wrapper ensembles were con-structed. If these shorts were wornunderneath the wrap-around length ofcloth — the sarong — then the mode ofconstruction of this ensemble becomesquite clear.

Finally, jewellery in the form ofupper arm bands, bangles, “gorgets” orneckpieces, belts and chunky earringscomplete the look of the day, in Ang-korean times, at least for these compan-ions of the deities in their virtual heaven.Lotuses complement these man-madeadornments in the patterns on the head-pieces and in the hands of the apsaras.

What was Mlle Marchal’s purpose inrecording these decorative details, ifindeed she had one other than a love ofdesign and the opportunity to recordthese unique examples? We do notknow. Goloubew suggests that theFrench love of all things Khmer result-ing from the 1906 visit of the royalKhmer dance troupe to France could

have inspired designers to try to sourcetraditional patterns for adapting Khmer-style fashion to French taste. In whichcase, Marchal’s drawings would havebeen a unique source.

Whatever the purpose, scholars ofKhmer cultural history have tremendousreason to be grateful for what she did.As noted above, she has detailed deco-rative features which have been moreor less bypassed in the study of classi-cal Khmer sculpted art. Little details,such as the culotte forms worn by someapsaras, have rarely been noted by oth-ers, but now their visualisation hasafforded confirmation of the apsaras’elaborate hip wrapper forms as beingconstructed of two layers of cloth assuggested elsewhere.2

The strength of this slim volume is inthe wealth of illustrations serving asreference detail for scholars both Cam-bodian and beyond. Sketches maytranscend language, so the benefit oftranslating the accompanying text fromthe original French into English is notin the translation per se. Instead, firstly,it re-introduces this 1927 publicationinto the mainstream and, secondly, itallows non-French speakers access tothe questions raised by Marchal, despitebeing presumably secondary to herartistic purpose. It could have a furthervery positive outcome. It may stimulatesome munificent benefactor to fundscholars to delve into those Frencharchives which shelter other documen-tary treasures and translate them to make

2 Green, G., Traditional Textiles of Cambodia. Bangkok, River Books, 2003, p. 32.

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them accessible to a wider, non-French-speaking readership. First on thisreviewer’s list would be the recordsof the Commission des Moeurs etCoutumes, compiled in the few decadesprior to their deposition in 1950 asmicrofilm at the Asiatic Society in Paris.These record cultural practices asrelated by Khmer achars (ceremonialofficiants), monks and villagers which,in subjects similar but different, couldreveal much more to illuminate Khmercultural studies.

Gillian Green

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Vittorio Roveda, Images of the Gods:Khmer mythology in Thailand, Cambo-dia, and Laos. Bangkok, River Books,2005, pp.544, Bt.2,495.

Images of the Gods fills 548 pagesand is illustrated with over 2,400 colorphotographs, with 856 digital photo-graphs indexed in a database on an ac-companying CD-ROM. An ambitiousundertaking, it explores Khmer Bud-dhist and Hindu mythology and visualnarrative through relief sculpture. Paint-ings, free standing sculpture and cultimages are not within the scope of thestudy, though a few modern narrativesculptural compositions are included. Inhis introduction, Roveda states that“Khmer sculptural reliefs are the majorartifacts that survive to document thisnation’s history and culture from the 8th

to the 14th centuries,” that sculpturalreliefs are important beyond their aes-thetic value as works of art, that theycontain important information not onlyabout Khmer culture and religion, butalso that the development of narrativereliefs can aid in confirming the chro-nological development of art and archi-tecture. He then briefly introduces manypoints crucial to the understanding ofboth religious art and its context: whatis the meaning of mythology; how doreliefs function in their environmentalcontext; and what visual parameters ofKhmer mythology will be covered. Thebook is divided into three parts, begin-ning with a study of the making of im-ages of deities and their planned place-ment, followed by an “attempt at a com-

prehensive overview of the visual nar-ratives found not only in Cambodia, butalso in Thailand and Laos, once part ofthe Khmer empire.” All the images usedto illustrate this and other portions ofthe text are, wherever possible, in theiroriginal context, in situ on the templesfor which they were created or nearbyon temple grounds, with very few ex-amples depicted from museum collec-tions. A conscious decision was madeto exclude reliefs that were no longerin their original context. The last sec-tion is “an attempt to verify the impactof Khmer visual narrative on the indig-enous culture of Thailand.”

The first section, Making Images ofthe Gods, explores the reasons for thecreation of images of the gods and theprocesses involved, largely from theperspective of the Hindu and Buddhisttraditions of South Asia. This is fol-lowed by a discussion of a brief historyof the development of the Hindu andBuddhist religions, especially as is rel-evant to Khmer belief and practice. Themajor deities and their principle sym-bols are clearly and concisely intro-duced, illustrated sparsely with imagesfrom Khmer temple reliefs. There arethen subsections further discussing re-ligious syncretism, local beliefs andanimism, the Devaraja, the cult of an-cestors, and historic personages whowere deified. South Asian literarysources are then presented, with thegreat epics, the Mahabharata, Hari-vamsa, Ramayana and the Puranas,introduced in a direct and concise man-ner, again providing material essential

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to placing Khmer temple reliefs inproper context.

The next section, Images in KhmerArt, covers the technical and physicalaspects of images in Khmer art and ar-chitecture, beginning with the funda-mental division of relief types into deco-rative or purely ornamental, heraldic orfigures posed in a static or proclaiming/announcing attitude and not engaged ina narrative action, and narrative reliefswhich depict an event or action thatprogresses in time and leads to or fromanother event. The location to whicheach of these relief types is usuallyassociated is discussed and artistic ele-ments such as composition and the es-tablishment of pictorial space are intro-duced. A brief synopsis of the relation-ships between heraldic and narrativereliefs and architectural elements uponwhich they are placed follows, illustrat-ing the interrelated development of thesetypes of reliefs and the stylistic devel-opment of pediments, lintels, and pilas-ters. This is followed by a subsectionon the history of scholarship concern-ing the function of the reliefs and theirsymbolism in terms of royal power. Thestructural symbolism of Khmer templesis introduced to further help the readerunderstand the reliefs in their originalcontext. This section ends with a briefdiscussion of portraiture, use of land-scape scenes, and the iconoclasm anddestruction of Buddhist reliefs duringthe thirteenth century after the death ofJayavarman VII.

Section 3, Chronology of KhmerImages and Styles, consists of two clear

and well thought out timelines. The firstpresents the relative development of vi-sual narrative by architectural position,illustrated with key monuments, on onepage. The other, a three-page foldout,presents the reigns of Khmer kings rela-tive to the artistic styles and key monu-ments of Khmer architecture in bothCambodia and Thailand.

Sections 4, 5, and 6 present the ac-tual religious subjects depicted onKhmer temple reliefs. Section 4 and itssubsections cover myths relating to bothVaishnava and Shivaite Hindu practice.The first subsection includes reliefsabout the deity Vishnu and his avatars.The second subsection discussesmyths about Krishna, the third theMahabharata, and the fourth theRamayana, the Legend of Rama. Thefifth subsection explores myths aboutShiva. The sixth subsection covers thelesser Hindu and Vedic gods. Section 5covers the portrayal of mythical animalsand demi-gods such as ganas andyakshas, and local legends in reliefs.Section 6 presents Buddhist reliefs, withthe first subsection discussing the lifeof the Buddha, the second portrayals ofthe Jataka stories, the third Mahayanaand Vajrayana images, while the sixthsubsection explores heraldic images ofthe Buddha. Section 7 presents reliefsdepicting historical and secular subjects,Section 8 tapestry or decorative reliefs,and Section 9 reviews reliefs where theidentity or source of the subject materis unknown.

All of the above sections and subsec-tions are clearly and logically in the

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same format and thus a discussion ofsection 4.4 on the Ramayana also ap-plies to all. The Ramayana is introducedas it appears in the Khmer context, aswell as how its presentation in Khmerart differs from that of South Asia. Theseven kandas, or sections of theRamayana, are then briefly outlined,presenting the themes that appear intemple reliefs. The specific events por-trayed in Khmer visual art are thenlisted, with brief comments on how fre-quently they appear and whether theyare more common in certain periods orregions. Each scene from the Ramayanathat appears in Khmer art is then intro-duced, with Roveda’s personal observa-tions, as well as those of other scholars.The discussion of each scene is illus-trated on the opposite or following pageswith color photographs, often drawnfrom different monuments and periodsof Khmer history. Where appropriate,examples from Thailand and Laos arealso included. A CD symbol accompa-nied by image numbers at the bottom ofthe page indicates that additional imagesare available in the image database onthe CD-ROM that accompanies the text.The story or deity is discussed with ac-companying photographs, which pro-vide a clear idea of the iconographic andstylistic variations that occur on Khmertemples in an easily accessible location,not at the end of the chapter, a photosection, or the end of the book. Ratherthan looking at the images on theCD-ROM as being inconvenient to lookat while reading or while actually visit-ing temples, it should be viewed as a

bonus that a significant amount of ad-ditional material that could not be in-cluded in the book has been made avail-able. While some readers might findproblems with some of the author’s in-terpretations of specific reliefs, the studyof Khmer visual narratives is still a rela-tively new field and there are many sub-jects about which scholars are not yetin full agreement and which are open todiscussion. What is most important isthat this book makes available on thesame page many reliefs that have neverbeen published, are published in bookswhich are out of print, or are not easilyaccessible.

Section 10: the Diffusion of Images,has two subsections, one covering thediffusion of images in Cambodia and theother in Thailand and Laos. While theproceeding sections of the book presentKhmer reliefs by subject, this sectionis more properly a guide to Khmertemples. It moves away from thebook’s stated core subject of Khmermythology as presented in reliefs, tovery broadly introducing individualtemples, with their brief histories, de-scriptions of their layouts and free-standing sculptural programs, as well asvery brief descriptions of the locationand identification of reliefs.

The text concludes with VisualNarratives: A Summary, which raisesspecific questions about the narrativesand suggests possible theories concern-ing the significance of deities holding astaff or dander, the reason for the pau-city of Shivaite narrative reliefs, thepresence of Buddhist reliefs prior to the

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reign of Jayavarman VII, and the rela-tionship of patronage and the develop-ment of narratives through the arrivalof succeeding waves of fresh Hindu in-fluence from South Asia. This conclud-ing section is followed by the groundplans of some of the most important sitesin Cambodia, as well as the temple com-plexes of Phimai and Phanom Rung inThailand. A short glossary and bibliog-raphy conclude the book.

Attached to the rear cover of the book,as mentioned, is a CD-ROM with an856-image database that is optimized forboth PC and MAC operating systems.As tested on a PC, the format of the da-tabase permits searches on single ormultiple fields and groups of images canbe formed across different fields usinga clear, logical command interface.Controls are in a column to the left. Awindow with thumbnail images selectedis in the middle and the main windowdisplays the image selected for study.At the bottom of the main window isthe image information displayed infields that are also used for searchingthe database, including: title, location,additional information, reference num-ber, page reference, personage, andarchitectural object. Searches and im-age displays are quick.

The book is well conceived and is avaluable addition to any library onSoutheast Asian art, as well as Hinduand Buddhist studies. There are a fewproblems which appear to have occurredin poof reading and editing, the mostserious of which are that some of thereferences noted in the text, such as

(Moore, Stott, and Sukasvasti, 1996) onpage 496 (a reference to Ancient Capi-tals of Thailand), are missing from thebibliography and, hopefully, this will becorrected in future editions. As alreadynoted, the fields of Khmer art historicaland religious studies are evolving andas epigraphical and textual sources arelimited, some intriguing areas such asthe synchronism between Shiva and theBuddha, as well as the meaning behindcertain reliefs, have a far more complexscholarly dialogue surrounding themthan can be addressed in the scope of abroad survey such as this. As a result,there will be disagreements over someof the theories presented or privileged,as well as some of the identifications, afact that should not detract from thevalue of this work.

John Listopad

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John Marston and Elizabeth Guthrie,History, Buddhism and New ReligiousMovements in Cambodia. Chiang Mai,Silkworm Books, 2006, pp.270, Bt.650.

After some two decades of isolation(or virtual isolation), Cambodia openedits doors to independent field researchin the early 1990s on the heels of theUnited Nations-brokered peace settle-ment. Yet even before the 1970–75 civilwar, only the anthropologists MayEbihara and Gabrielle Martel engagedin any extensive fieldwork in Cambo-dia, while philologist François Bizot,who was detained and miraculously re-leased by the Khmer Rouge in 1972–73,began collecting heterodoxical Buddhistmanuscripts in remote Khmer wats.With the recent opening of Khmer soci-ety, a number of younger scholars, inlarge part American students of (or en-couraged by) cultural anthropologistsCharles Keyes and Jane and LucienHanks and historian David Chandler,turned to Khmer studies. History, Bud-dhism, and New Religious Movementsin Cambodia, a well edited volume ini-tially published by the University ofHawai´i Press in 2004, has broughttogether findings by a number of thesehumanities-oriented researchers.

A spate of political science studiesalso emerged on Cambodia that focusedon the United Nations-sponsored peace-keeping process. These internationalrelations-type studies distinguishedthemselves by being more or less oblivi-ous of the local historical-cultural, so-cial, and political realities, which rest

on a fluid bedrock of “religion,” that isthe strength of the present volume. Mostchapters in this book stem from articlesoriginally presented in 1998 to an As-sociation for Asian Studies panel onCambodian religion. As in the neighbor-ing Therav¡da countries, religion inCambodia cannot be categorized as aseparate sphere of human activity, muchless as a basis for effecting a westernseparation of religion (“church”) andstate. In spite of decades of westernsecular-scientific official vocabularies,whether capitalist- or socialist-spon-sored, religion in Cambodia since thesocial upheavals of the 1970s and 1980shas revived as a multi-dimensional wayof life rather than as a religion in thatwestern sense. In his introduction, edi-tor John Marston affirms that religionin the social space of post-socialistCambodia is anything but a staticphenomenon removed from everydayreality, but is rather a “matrix of socialchange itself” that is “in a perpetualprocess of reforming and recreatingitself”(p.1).

The convulsions of the 1970s and1980s, a by-product of warring foreignideologies, led to a settlement sponsoredby the international community basedon principles of liberal democracy. Astenuous as this template has provento be, it has produced a free-marketeconomy (whose downside has includedthe plundering of Cambodia’s naturaland public resources, the introductionof the drug and sex trades, a flagrantwidening of the gap between rich andpoor, and a consumer culture concen-

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trated but not confined to Phnom Penh),greater freedom of expression, the ap-pearance of a multi-party system, andthe return of a marginalized monarchy.This veneer of western-type democracyalso provided cover for the re-emer-gence of less perceptible (to the out-sider) religious forces in the 1990s docu-mented in this book.

After being subjected as a specialtarget for destruction by the KhmerRouge, Buddhism spontaneously sprangback to life at the grassroots level in the1980s, albeit under the tight control ofthe Vietnamese-backed regime. Majorrestrictions on the practice of Buddhismwere lifted in 1989 with the departureof Vietnamese troops, triggering theU.N. peace process between resistancefactions based in Thailand and theVietnamese-installed Peoples’ Republicof Kampuchea. Villagers began inearnest to rebuild their wats and ordaintheir sons. A month after PrinceNorodom Sihanouk returned to Cambo-dia in November 1991 at the invitationof the regime (now renamed the interimState of Cambodia), he restored the twoBuddhist orders, the Mahanikaya andThammayutikaya. Yet as this book at-tests, Theravada Buddhism as part ofCambodia’s cultural-religious matrixdid not revert to a pre-1970s status quoante, except at the official level where,for example, the 1960s administrativestructures and curricula for monk edu-cation were re-instated. Far more reveal-ing, for its human response to the con-flagrations of the previous decades, hasbeen the religious revival at the societal

level. A strong thread woven through most

of the essays is the phenomenon of aspontaneous upsurge in the 1990s ofcultic and other supernatural and sym-bolic religious acts. This surge clearlyspoke to psychic needs for healing andreconciliation — personal, communal,and “national” — in part as a way offinding meaning from the catastrophicevents. Bertrand Didier discusses therevival of mystic param™ (sacred poweror energy) practices and their closerelationship not only to TheravadaBuddhism but also kingship. Unlike inThailand, Burma/Myanmar, and SriLanka, the gru param™, or mediums,who risk losing their power if they arenot moral exemplars observing the FivePrecepts, frequently occupy ritual spacein Buddhist temple premises. For themediums, who “reveal the creativevitality that animates Cambodian soci-ety,” the param™, tellingly, “have cometo make order among the living and thedead and to repair a collective trauma....These param™ identities link political,social, and cosmological orders so thatthey can address the contemporary situ-ations and expectations of Cambodiansociety” (pp.168,166). The 1990s alsowitnessed the re-emergence of religiousasceticism within or on the margins ofTherav¡da Buddhism. The female as-cetics, yay or tun j™, seeking nibbana asdescribed by Elizabeth Guthrie, are as arule more disciplined and morally ex-emplary than the new generation ofmonks, few of whom harbor personalsalvation as their goal. Marston’s article

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on tapas (ascetics frequently claimingsupernatural powers) cult movementssuggests a linkage between individualand national identity, or “the practice ofindividuals exercising symbolic agencyto rebuild the nation”(p.188). He moni-tored five prophetically linked buildingprojects in the country, completion ofwhich would augur an era of peace andprosperity. In a newer turn, the peaceand reconciliation walks, or Dhamma-yatras, organized in the 1990s by thespiritual leader of Cambodian Bud-dhism, Ven. Maha Ghosananda, areinterpreted by Kathryn Poethig prima-rily as a modern, or postmodern,transnational expression of Buddhismwith some indigenous roots. Translatedas a “walk for righteousness,” this “re-parative” public ritual nonethelessstruck a deep, cathartic chord among thevillagers touched by these annual pil-grimages. They were initially organizedand always funded to a large extent byexpatriate peace organizations whichdiscretely remained behind the scenes.But the Dhammayatras’ link to globalissues embraced by “socially engagedBuddhists” (peace through non-vio-lence, banning of landmines, environ-mental concerns) belied how the walkwas ritually experienced and interpretedby many of the villagers. In the pro-phetic terms of the Buddhamnay, theysaw the appearance of the light-skinnedKhmer “holy man from the west” com-ing back to save his people after the bru-tal reign of the damil (dark-skinnedinfidels). Hours before daybreak andwell into the morning, thousands of

families lined the roads on their knees,palms clasped, next to buckets oflustral water (blessed by P¡li chants),with lotus flowers, candles, and incenseready to be sprinkled or washed byGhosananda and the monks to “extin-guish the fire of war” (p.197). It deservesto be noted parenthetically that while themonks led the processions, the drivingforce of the Dhamma- yatras, both interms of numbers and disciplined com-mitment, were the lay devotee nuns (tunj™).

The unique features of theDhammayatra notwithstanding, it re-mains difficult to determine in an em-pirical sense the extent to which theabove experiences, with their millennialundertones, were characteristic ofBuddhism in pre-1970s Cambodia. Thepaucity of social research for earlierperiods renders informed comparisonsless than adequate. Millenarian ideasand movements in general, though, havebeen shown to flower in times of exis-tential crises, when the social order issubjected to stress or radical change.The historical chapters in this volume,covering the so-called Middle Period(between the fall of Angkor and theonset of modernity) and the colonialperiod, when, respectively, the Cambo-dian polity was under the threat ofextinction and the stress of adapting towesternization, suggest that magico-cosmological thinking, the breedingspace for millennial movements, hasbeen a constant of Khmer conscious-ness. Relying largely on iconographicevidence, cultural historian Ashley

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Thompson postulates an association ofthe stupa with the Maitreya (“Buddha-to-come”) cult, where the promise of theBuddha’s return is seen not in terms ofushering in a new world but restoringthe old through the consecration of apolitical renaissance by the cakkavattinking. She makes a persuasive case forKhmer cosmological order based onMaitreya as an attempt to re-establishsociopolitical order amidst the turbu-lences of the Middle Period. In a relatedarticle on the iconography of the LeperKing (purportedly Jayavarman VII),Thompson associates the body of thestatue, whose subject suffers for wantof healing, with the body of the Khmerkingdom, where the idea of the king asa body stands metonymically for hiskingdom, paralleling ways that the bodyof the Buddha is seen as integrating andordering the physical world. She definesthe “spectral structure of power” inCambodia as consisting of the king’snatural (and infected) body/the bodypolitic/the body of the dhamma, wherethe king as a sovereign standing in forthe whole of society becomes throughthe principle of substitution a vehicle forhealing power.

Both Anne Hansen and PennyEdwards, using primary documentarysources, deal with the colonial period,revealing in nuanced ways howBuddhism and the Khmer languagewere appropriated by a few moderniz-ing Khmer intellectuals to construct anew Khmer identity embodied in the“nation”. Central to this project was thedemystification of the Khmer cosmo-

logical Buddhist universe in favor of arational worldview through, in part,scriptural literalism. One cannot helpwonder to what extent this process ofdisenchantment, where the cultural na-tionalism which they illuminate laterspilled over into political nationalism,a pattern starkly similar to what un-folded in Europe in the nineteenth andthe first half of the twentieth centuries,played a role in unraveling the Cambo-dian socio-political order. The mainvalue of this volume is in how it bringsto light spontaneous initiatives in the so-cial complexity of 1990s Cambodia tore-knit that order at the level of thepsyche.

The editors anticipated lacunae inthis book by choosing not to deal withnon-Khmer religious practices (viz., theindigenous peoples, Vietnamese,Muslim Chams, and Chinese, who inall comprise less than ten percent of thepopulation) and by not delving into aconcerted effort since the mid-1990s toevangelize the Cambodian population.Outcomes of the latter project, led byAmerican Protestant evangelical-pentecostals, many of them usingKhmer-American converts, were inany case too early to assess in thisadmirable and in many ways path-breaking collection of essays on theunderbelly of Cambodia’s still discor-dant political system.

Peter Gyallay-Pap

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Harris, Ian, Cambodian Buddhism: His-tory and Practice. Hawaii, Universityof Hawaii Press, 2005 and Chiang Mai,Silkworm Books, 2006, pp.368, Bt 650.

Ian Harris’ Cambodian Buddhism:History and Practice represents a sub-stantial contribution to scholarly litera-ture on Cambodia and a significant steptoward putting Cambodia on the largermap of Buddhist studies. If one looksfor a precedent for this volume, as adetailed overview of specifically Cam-bodian Buddhism, one must go back asfar as Adhémard Leclère’s 1899 volume,Le Bouddhisme au Cambodge, and it isthe first book in English to attempt totreat Cambodian Buddhism in this de-gree of thoroughness. We are not likelyto have another one anytime soon.

Harris draws on an impressive rangeof sources, which he brings togetherwith intelligence and ingenuity. Thebook’s extensive bibliography is itselfa helpful tool. The book glistens withinteresting, illuminating details, manygleaned from sources having little to dowith Buddhism per se. He uses astraightforward chronological narrativethat follows standard periodization fromthe Angkor period to the present, depart-ing from the historical record to insertchapters on the “Territorial and SocialLineaments” of Cambodian TheravadaBuddhism – basically, the kinds ofthings documented in ethnographies –and “Literary and Cult Traditions” – away of combining discussion of the tex-tual tradition with the esoteric Buddhismdescribed by Bizot. As a guide to infor-

mation of time and place and forms ofpractice, attempting a degree of com-pleteness, it will be an invaluable re-source to students and scholars ap-proaching the issue of Cambodianreligion.

The most notable specific strengthsof the book are perhaps that: 1) Harris’knowledge of Sanskrit and solid ground-ing in the historical schools of Bud-dhism and Brahmanism enable him toprovide a nicely nuanced assessment ofprevious scholarship on the pre-Angkorand Angkor periods, often based on theevidence of inscriptions. 2) He hasthoroughly assimilated the work ofFrançois Bizot on esoteric traditions ofCambodian Buddhism, a topic some-times daunting to English-speakingscholars. Beyond his useful summary ofBizot’s work, Harris succeeds in illus-trating the influence of esoteric practicesthroughout different periods. 3) His fieldresearch on Buddhism and politics in thelast 25 years has uncovered much im-portant, fascinating information.

Any work as detailed as this isbound to have a few factual errors andscholars devoted to different aspects ofCambodian Buddhism may come upwith their own lists. The section I wasleast comfortable with was that on spiritpractices. The disparate secondarysources that Harris draws on here haveled him to some mistaken conclusions:that boramei “spirits” are always femaleand that arak mediums are also alwaysfemale. Many key Khmer terms aremistranslated, for example rup as“priest,” beisach as “retinue,” and ktom

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as “shrine”. But these are relatively mi-nor details that do not too greatly de-tract from the overall weight of the book.

The fact that Harris does not have aconsistent transliteration system forKhmer has been criticized in a previousreview of the book, and one risks beingpedantic in dwelling on it. But it be-comes more than an issue of translitera-tion when, as occurs several times, onefinds the same word transliterated morethan one way (bray and priey, for ex-ample). In the most embarrassing cases,there is some question as to whetherHarris realizes that the two spellingsrepresent the same word and the sameconcept. A Khmer word list at the backof the book, which gives a key to howtransliterated words are written inKhmer script, should in theory havepointed to the problem and helped tosolve it – but turns out to be only a par-tial list. This is something which shouldnot be too difficult to resolve if, as onehopes, there are future editions of thebook.

With the possible exception of thediscussion on esoteric Buddhism thatthreads through the volume, the plea-sures of the book are more in the rich-ness of its details than what it revealsabout the broader contours of Cambo-dian Buddhism – although any criticismof its overview must be prefaced by theacknowledgement that the mere fact ofbringing together masses of informationhelps us to raise questions which weotherwise might not have been able todo. I am uncomfortable with the book’sreference to “the essential conservatism

of Cambodian religious traditions”(p.80) or that “Theravada Buddhismsubsisted in a relatively steady state withno major shocks or shifts to the estab-lished religious order for several hun-dred years” (p. 227), a perspective thatcertainly has precedent in the literaturebut in the end is more a statement ofwhat we do not yet know than a mean-ingful assessment of Cambodian history.Harris gives no hint of being aware ofthe post-colonial argument that colonialintervention was justified by a discourseof a changeless past. Needless to say, itis precisely at the moment of colonial-ism that, in Harris’ account, change be-gins to occur in Cambodian Buddhism.One cannot accuse Harris of taking apro-colonialist position, but he also doesnot particularly challenge or rethink theassumptions of colonialist discourse ordelve too deeply into the power dynam-ics of Buddhism under colonialism.

Since he sees a division between atimeless past and the changes beginningwith colonial intervention, it is not toosurprising that in the modern period heemphasizes the difference between“non-reformed” and “reformed” Bud-dhism, a dichotomy which perhapsmakes sense in pre-Pol Pot twentiethcentury Cambodia, but is more strainedas he applies it to Cambodian Buddhismin the wake of socialism, where theterms re-emerge but begin to signifydifferent things. To say that MahaGhosananda, the expatriate Khmermonk who organized peace marches inthe 1990s, is in the same “reformed”category as the prewar patriarch Chuon

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Noth, obscures more than it reveals.Similarly, it seems naive not to distin-guish between the “non-reformed”Buddhism of remote rural areas and theself-styled “non-reformed” magicalBuddhism of monks close to high-rank-ing politicians. Harris’ analysis does notgo so far as to capture the irony that,after the years under socialism, theBuddhism that called itself “reformed”was often the most conservative,whereas some of the Buddhism whichcalled itself “non-reformed” was moredaring in its adjustment to new politicaland economic realities.

John Marston

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Colin Poole, Tonle Sap: The Heart ofCambodia’s Natural Heritage, photo-graphs by Eleanor Briggs. Bangkok,River Books, 2005, pp. 172.

The Tonle Sap easily ranks as one ofthe wonders of the natural world. Dur-ing the rainy season, the Mekong Delta,unable to absorb overwhelming vol-umes of monsoon run-off, blocks theMekong’s downstream flow, forcing theriver to reverse its direction. The swol-len waters pulse up the Tonle Sap Riverand into the lake itself, swelling it to fivetimes its dry season dimensions. Withthe end of the rainy season, a tamerMekong again flows freely to the SouthChina Sea, draining the lake and return-ing it to its original contours.

For eons, this phenomenon has beenvital to Cambodia’s prosperity. As inancient times, the lake holds theworld’s largest concentration of fresh-water fish. It also nourishes the secondof the country’s two staple foods: rice.During the Angkorian period, the reced-ing waters exposed moist, fertile soil,which was planted in the rice consumedby Angkor’s population. Nineteenthcentury travelers like Henri Mouhotcommented upon its fecundity and thewealth of flora and fauna of Cambodiain general.

Its ecology and the people who havedepended upon its bounty comprise afascinating story. This book’s title, back-cover blurb, and table of contents withevocative sub-headings—Mountainsand Forest, the Ancient Environment,Living on the Lake, the Fishing Lots of

Battambang, Core Areas of the Bio-sphere Reserve, the Tonle Sap River andPhnom Penh, and the CambodianMekong—enhance the reader’s expec-tation that he will traverse this bountyand learn of the interrelationship be-tween the people and their lake.

He soon discovers, however, that thetitle is a bit misleading. While the TonleSap forms the core of the book, theauthor wanders the length of Cambodiaand even up the Mekong to China in atext that meanders through a consider-ation of the sad state of the forestsand wildlife in the regions along theMekong. The reader encounters dis-heartening tales of the demise or im-pending extinction of tigers, crocodiles,waterbirds—nearly everything exceptthe fish. The text also embraces a cur-sory consideration of the lifestyles of thepeople who harvest these beasts for sus-tenance and sale.

The author brings considerable cre-dentials to his task – Director of the AsiaProgram for the Wildlife ConservationSociety (WCS) – and has worked andtraveled in Cambodia for eight years.His travels have imbued him with anunderstandable pessimism about thefuture of the country’s natural heritageunder the onslaught of burgeoningpopulation, lack of economic alterna-tives, absence of vision or political will,and lack of control (or unwillingness tointervene) over its resources by Cam-bodian authorities.

While laudable for its wealth of de-tail and while its heart is in the rightplace, the book suffers from a frustrat-

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ing lack of organization. Because theauthor fails to provide a roadmap, thereader wanders all over the map (liter-ally and figuratively) of environmentalabuse in the past 30 years of Cambo-dian history (whose abuses of humans,even today, far outweigh those imposedon the landscape).

The book’s principle problem is thatthe author fails to integrate the variouselements. As a result, the reader is leftwith a bag of bits without a structure,an interpretation, or a greater compre-hension of the culture that depends uponthe Tonle Sap’s—or Cambodia’s, forthat matter—largesse, nor the mindsetthat is hastening its environmental de-struction. Worse yet, the text soon de-volves into a laundry list of abuses moreappropriate to a United Nations ‘Stateof Wildlife in Cambodia’, a dry litanyof environmental destruction. Instead ofevoking the magic and wonder of theTonle Sap, thereby making us want tosave it, the reader is banged on the headwith numbing detail of disappearingnature. It is all valid, but we have readit elsewhere about most of the world’swild areas. A few anecdotes would haveparticularized it for Cambodia, anddriven home the point in more poignantmanner, integrating the reader into whatis happening and how it affects individu-als, rather than standing back and sur-veying from a great distance.

What the book needs is a foundationstone. It begins with a consideration ofPhnom Kulen, then, a short while later,mentions in passing Angkor’s stone re-liefs depicting a plethora of wildlife and

waterlife at Angkor. It then digresses toa section on the tigers of Mondulkiri onthe Vietnamese border; one of manyboxed stories which disrupt the flow. Afew pages later, it devotes an entirechapter to Angkor and its historical notein the region. The book might betterhave started here and followed a chro-nological progression, illuminating thetragedy of disappearing species by dis-cussing early in the book what was therein the past.

These types of digressions are re-peated elsewhere. On page 64, the au-thor provides a somewhat lyrical settingevoking the magic of the Tonle Sap, andthe reader begins to gain an apprecia-tion of the lake’s wonder. But soon theauthor tugs the reader in a new direc-tion. On page 74, he considers the his-tory and fate of the freshwater croco-dile. It then moves to a consideration ofintroduced pests like golden apple snailsand African catfish, and then continueswith a two-page discussion of herbalpests like mimosa pigra, water hyacinth,and on to a new port project and theproblem of immigrants. There, the chap-ter ends. The reader turns the page tofind another boxed story, only one pagelong, devoted to...crocodiles.

The book is also riven with asides andnon-sequiturs. For example, in themiddle of a discussion of the wildlifeblack market trade, there appears a para-graph on artifact looting which is notgermane to the text. These asides appearto have been dropped on the pagehaphazardly without consideration oftheir importance or relevance, and with-

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out integrating the diverse elements intoa whole. The tragedy is that they marone’s appreciation of the author’s schol-arship.

Throughout, one seeks an analysis ofroot causes beyond grinding poverty andofficial corruption. At the very least, oneexpects a summation and perhaps aprognosis and prescription. Instead, thefinal chapter is devoted to the Mekongdolphins and the dangers they face. Oneturns the page and abruptly finds one-self in the book’s footnote section. Thus,there are no concluding thoughts, noanalysis of how to remedy a dire situa-tion, and not a single mention of theTonle Sap the book title led the readerto assume would be the subject, sincethe dolphins inhabit the Mekong nearthe Lao border.

In the end, the reader emerges unclearabout what makes the Tonle Sap unique.With no blueprint of how the situationmight be rectified, the book becomes atract rather than a treatise, seeminglyreflecting WCS hand-wringing impo-tence—evident in every page—in find-ing solutions to halting the depredation.The reader can only conclude that thesituation is hopeless and beyond rem-edy, yet the photos superbly capture thelake’s teeming human and natural life.

Readers seeking a comprehensiveexploration of how the stories of natu-ral resources and people are interwovenare in for some hard work. Perseverancehas its rewards, but the task would have

been considerably lightened with greatercare in its presentation.

Steve Van Beek

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L. E. Bagshawe (tr.), The Kinwun Min-gyi’s London Diary. Bangkok, OrchidPress, 2006, pp.412.

This book involves two men wellknown for their contributions to ourknowledge of Burma. The first, UGaung, otherwise known as the KinwunMingyi (actually a title, not a personalname), a scholar-official of pre-conquestBurma (and collaborator with thecolonial regime afterwards), travelled tothe West twice (London and Paris) inthe early 1870s, made meticulous notesof his travels, and introduced the Bur-mese court to Europe. The second, L.Euan Bagshawe, is a former colonialofficer (Indian Civil Service from 1941until independence) and later employeein the Rangoon office of ImperialChemical Industries until nationaliza-tion in 1964 (see the foreword to TheManiyadanabon of Shin Sandalinka).After a subsequent thesis written oncolonial education in Burma at theSchool of Oriental and African Studies(London), Bagshawe embarked on aseries of useful translations of someof the most significant texts of theKonbaung period (Shin Sandalinka’sMani-yadana-bon and U Po Hlaing’sRaza-dhamma-thingaha-kyan) andcolonial-era, retroactive compilations ofdata on it (U Tin’s Myanma-Min Ok-chok-poun-sadan).

The translation offered in the presentvolume is that of U Gaung’s diaries ofhis journey to London and back in1872–1873, as published in two vol-umes under the editorship of Pe Maung

Tin in 1953–1954 (another edition, usedby the present reviewer, was publishedin 1908 and edited by U Ba Gun).Bagshawe’s is not the first translation.An earlier translation of sorts was madein 1974 by the Burmese nationalist his-torian Maung Htin Aung in the Journalof the Burma Research Society, but HtinAung’s version amounts to a summaryrather than a formal translation.Bagshawe, who completed his owntranslation before he read the former, hasmade use of the very useful introduc-tory matter provided by Htin Aung inhis 1974 publication. In addition toGaung’s diaries, Bagshawe has col-lected a number of articles on the em-bassy, printed in various newspapers inthe British Isles, that help to shed morelight on the events discussed.

Gaung’s travels had a major impacton the Burmese court and on Burmeseintellectual trends. Until then, the Bur-mese had only vague notions about theworld outside of Asia (and even largeparts within it). Newspaper accounts,drawings, information gathered fromEuropean visitors, and so on, certainlyprovided some data, but it was reallyonly with the circulation of Gaung’sreports of his travels that this informa-tion could be brought together within anew conceptual framework. This wasespecially so with distances travelled,giving the court a much more realisticidea of the dimensions of the globe andBurma’s place (and size) on it. Never-theless, it is easy to overestimate theimpact of Gaung’s records, as theywould suggest, from the numerous

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sentences pregnant with intimations ofsurprise at the scale and organization ofWestern industry, that this was some-thing completely new to the Burmesemind. It was not. Burmese had becomeknowledgeable about such things dur-ing visits to government installations inCalcutta (and earlier through texts onWestern science) over the previous fourdecades, and indeed the Burmese them-selves had already begun to experimentwith Western machinery. What thereader might miss in what appears to beevidence of Burma’s backwardness inthe face of Western superiority is thatthis text is really about a quite appositedevelopment—for the first time, Bur-mese (aside from a few youths takenaway by missionaries to Europe for re-ligious training) had left Asia on theirown initiative to build connections withthe West and to gain more informationregarding it. It was a major moment inBurma’s opening up to the outsideworld.

Bagshawe provides a very thoroughhistorical introduction, although focusedon British-Burmese relations (however,one would have expected much more onGaung himself, such as personal con-tacts with the British on the frontierwhere he was posted and his personalconnections to Mindon), in pp. ix-xlvi.The translation itself represents asignificant amount of labour onBagshawe’s part. The original text is notalways easy to translate into English,especially since Gaung was describingmany technical subjects for which Bur-mese terms did not yet exist and

attempting to make sense of thingswhose internal mechanisms he did notunderstand (the mechanical Turk, forexample, on p. 392). It is also a verylengthy text. For these reasons it is com-mendable that Bagshawe undertook thisproject rather than focus on many of theshorter texts available from theprecolonial period (although these tooare important for their own reasons).The result is a very rewarding text, apleasure to read and informative withevery page. As with Bagshawe’s othertranslations, the original editor’s intro-ductions have been retained and trans-lated.

The only real drawbacks to the book,and these are minor in view of thetranslator’s greater contribution, are that(1) his footnotes are extremely informaland (2) more research could have beenconducted regarding proper names. Thisreviewer suspects that comments madein the footnotes may be the original,unadulterated jottings one takes downon paper in the process of translation.Footnote 108, “Literally ‘iron headfillet’—don’t know what it means”should not have remained in this formin the published work. Although minor,sentences of this kind pepper the foot-notes throughout and it gives the readerless confidence in the translation, as ifthe whole remains a work in progress.On a similar note, the identification ofWestern proper names, the people UGaung met, the companies he encoun-tered, and the places he visited are toofrequently given with a parentheticalquestion mark. Again, the reader hesi-

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tates to place much confidence in theidentification in question. Yet thesequestions could have been resolved witha little more effort at the identifications.Perhaps this problem can be rectified inlater editions of the work. A problemperhaps attributable to the publisher andnot to Bagshawe is the index, whichmisses key topics in the text and some-times organizes them in confusing ways(one can only find automata under‘Crystal Palace,’ not independently, asit should have been).

The present volume is an enormousboon to scholars working on precolonialBurma, although it may be especiallyuseful to a growing number of scholars,not trained in the Burmese language,who seek to do comparative work onBurma and other South-East Asiansocieties. The present translation, just aswas the case with Bagshawe’s earliertranslations, thus provides a bridge intothe understudied, yet critical, Konbaungperiod. The present reviewer highlyrecommends the volume for scholarsand students alike.

Michael W. Charney

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Justin Watkins, ed., Studies in BurmeseLinguistics. Canberra, Pacific Linguis-tics, Australian National University,2005.

For many reasons this book is wel-come. One is that the Burmese language,its amazing specificity, its richness andvariety of styles, and its long life as awritten language, deserved such a re-markable set of contributions. Anotherreason is its dedication to John Okell.He has constantly promoted this lan-guage in various forms and through allsorts of activities. For instance, whenmixing with a Burmese itinerant theat-rical troop, he heard the literary lan-guage of plays throughout whole nightson end, and during the day noted theplayers’ colloquial speech. He becameexpert in esoteric poetry, in laborioustranslations from Pali (nissaya), and indialectal Burmese, thanks to his field-work in ‘restricted’ areas, etc.

Useful indications are given at thevery beginning concerning the generalstructure of the book. The list of abbre-viations and conventions includes thetranscription and transliteration of Bur-mese. Then come subtle analyses of thecontributions in James A. Matisoff’spreface, and the genesis of the work isexplained in Justin Watkins’ foreword.

The contributions are arranged logi-cally. First come those concerning pho-nology, then syntax and verb semantics,linked together by (the last paper onsyntax) ‘The verb “give” as a causati-viser in colloquial Burmese’; then fol-low discourse and stylistic register, a

new approach particularly appropriatefor Burmese, where the meaning is sodependant on the context. More classi-cal are contributions concerning oldBurmese, but they are enlightening forthe history of the language. The last partconcerns lexicography, with a clear pa-per pointing out the specific difficultiesof Burmese in that field. References aregrouped in a general list at the end.

In the introductory part, the transcrip-tion of consonants and vowels appearsas simple as it could be, systematicallyusing IPA international symbols. Fortones, specifically Burmese, John Okellhad already used (1969) an economic— and very Burmese — method: onetone unmarked, two others each markedby an accent. But here, Okell’s accentfor the creaky tone indicates high tone,his accent for high tone indicates lowtone and an additional mark under thevowel indicates the creaky tone. Is thisprogress? The transliteration is certainlysuch. It is used in the Library of Con-gress as well as internationally and im-proves the system of Epigraphiabirmanica since it allows a better ren-dering of the Burmese writing: for in-stance, simple and double ‘ñ’ are nowdistinguished. Constant use of both sys-tems throughout the book facilitatesone’s reading. A note at the end of Jus-tin Watkins’ foreword invites ‘readersto regard the terms Burmese andMyanmar as equivalent and inter-changeable’, so the title of the book isjustified.

Turning to the different contributions,D. Green’s ‘Word, foot and syllable

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structure in Burmese’ applies to Bur-mese the theory of optimality, a con-straint-based theory. The author de-scribes carefully the segments of thelanguage, from syllable to phrase; hisapproach allows him to detect con-straints specific to Burmese. His distinc-tion between major and minor syllablesis equally fruitful. Describing compet-ing constraints, he points out how thecanonic form of Burmese syllables isshown in loanwords. However, theBurmese writing of ‘chocolate’ is sur-prising (p. 24). Usually the last syllablewas written -lak and not -lek. It may bea case of orthographic evolution, show-ing the constant evolution of languages,especially Burmese.

Andrew Simpson and Justin Watkins’paper, ‘Focus in Burmese: an investi-gation and experimental study of infor-mation structure and prosody’ is a sys-tematic and well-documented study. In-formation was provided by talks withBurmese speakers and recordings, andcompleted by the remarks and com-ments of experienced Birmanophones.Experiments were conducted with na-tive speakers and the help of acousticanalyses. The investigation ‘Concerningthe area of Eastern Asia’ might be lessnew than is stated in the introduction tothis contribution: René Gsell, a Thaispecialist and phonetician, was perfectlyaware of the importance of prosody (in-tensity, duration, intonation and pause)in languages of Southeast Asia. Such aninvestigation in Burmese is promisingand calls for a larger exploitation ofprosody versus structure.

D. Bradley’s ‘Reflexives in Literaryand Spoken Burmese’ shows reflexivesas a category of terms amazingly recur-rent in written and spoken Burmese.They are studied from the twelfth cen-tury up to the present. On the way, onelearns that the literary reflexive mi miis a reduplication of ‘person’ in Tibeto-Burmese, and is reminded that pause hasa grammatical role in Burmese. Even ifone hesitates to admit that reflexive‘body’ and the syntactic particle -kohave the same etymon, one can appre-ciate how comparative Tibeto-Burmesestudies and historical background ben-efit from such an investigation.

V. B. Kassevitch’s ‘Syntactic andmorphological markers in Burmese: arethey really optional?’ insists on the vari-ous possibilities of marking syntax andmorphology without using markers.Possibilities are word order, word-classspecification, and context. Despite aconstant avoidance of redundancy – ‘atypological feature of Burmese’ forKassevitch – the choice, between mark-ers or other possibilities, is far from be-ing free. Let me quote a personal ex-periment: deletion of an agent markerafter a personal name, which functionedas a substitute of the pronoun ‘he’,changed the meaning of that name to‘I’, an unpredictable change in a ‘mark-drop language’.

In ‘The verb “give” as a causativiserin Burmese’, Kenji Okano illustrates anew trend in Burmese language: themultiplication of versatile verbs. Theyare functioning now either as pre- orpost-head verbs. Formerly ‘give’ fol-

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lowed the head-verb and carries stillmore meanings in this position. Con-cerning the possible Mon origin of theuse of ‘give’ as auxiliary, the author hasdoubts, for historical reasons.

In her contribution, Uta Gärtner givesa complex answer to the title: ‘Is theMyanmar language really tenseless?’.The Burmese language is said to be‘tenseless’, according to a concept oftense based on Indo-European lan-guages; ‘however, Myanmar turns outto be ambiguous with respect to tense(as well as in other respects)’. Her analy-sis, illustrated by numerous examples,shows a subtle use of numerous verbalparticles and grammaticalised lexicalitems, following or preceding the verb.This environment might indicate aspect,modality and even tense. The indicationis clear only if the verbal syntagma isembedded in a context. The great num-ber of examples is very useful. Theyenlighten the complexity of the subject:in several of them, where the statementrefers to past tense, the final marker is -may, the marker of supposition mostoften referring to the future.

There is a clarification of thiscomplexity in F.K.L. Chit Hlaing(Lehman)’s paper: in ‘Towards a formalcognitive theory of grammatical aspectand its treatment in Burmese’, he dem-onstrates the imbrication of time, aspectand modality, basing his theory onanalyses of Burmese examples. It be-comes clear that an event already past,or a previous state, therefore bothcarrying the factual modality, might beenunciated as a supposition, by thespeaker, in a cognitive perspective.

Alice Vittrant’s ‘Burmese as a modal-ity-prominent language’ is near toLehman’s theoretical position. She in-sists on the pervasiveness of modality.Her demonstration is based on a pre-cisely delimited corpus of sentences,collected and controlled ‘in the field’and placed in their situational context.The prominence of modality would,perhaps, appear more clearly if the pos-sibility of aspectual signification wereconsidered.

Paulette Hopple’s ‘Topicalisation inBurmese expository discourse’ is thefirst paper among three concerning‘Discourse and stylistic register’. In factmost of the papers in the book indicatewhich style their examples belong to andin which kind of discourse they appear;but here, the influence of discursive andstylistic register on grammar is the tar-get of the contribution. Hopple concen-trates her study on one linguistic sub-ject: topicalisation, on one text only, theNational Day text, expository discourse,and one style: modern written Burmese.Burmese is one of those topic-prominentTibeto-Burmese languages, where thetopic to comment relation has more im-portance than the subject to predicaterelation (Kassevitch already signalledthat the presence of a grammatical sub-ject is not necessary in Burmese). In fact,implications are numerous in Burmese.Let us quote P. Hopple’s realistic ‘cul-tural’ remark: ‘the unstated knowledgeimplied by the writer...can leave secondlanguage readers of Burmese per-plexed’. Less fruitful is the choice of asingle text, of the ‘expository’ genre,

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where the style is more official than rep-resentative of modern written Burmese.

San San Hnin Tun also, in ‘Discourseparticles in Burmese’, writes about thesituation-dependant nature of particles;she, also, focuses on only two particles:two only. She chose them because thespeaker’s or the writer’s feelings showthrough them, their use is sometimescharacteristic of a speaker, and theaddressee himself is cognizant of theirpresence. But their emotive functionappears only when they are used in con-nection with certain other particles. Thissubtle analysis is based on various ex-amples, belonging to written and spo-ken styles, but also on the knowledge aBurmese linguist has of her nativetongue.

U Saw Tun’s ‘Writing Modern Bur-mese: an examination of the status ofcolloquial Burmese’ has the same ad-vantage. The contribution begins witha clear history of the matter, at least from1965 onwards. In fact the gap betweenwritten and spoken Burmese alarmedBurmese writers long before. But in1965 began the organized modern at-tempt for solving the problem, argu-ments for and against the renewal ofwritten Burmese spread, and the gov-ernment entered the controversy in or-der to extend its control in the linguisticfield. In spite of consultations with spe-cialists of the Burmese language, theauthorities were not always expert, andfashion dictated many things, includingerrors: unsuitable literary markers weresubstituted for proper ones used in bothstyles. U Saw Tun evidences these

errors and deplores the introduction ofspoken vocabulary in literary texts andof sophisticated literary terms in thespoken language. Numerous exampleshelp to understand his criticisms.

Rudolf A. Yanson in his ‘Tense inBurmese: a diachronic account’ re-ex-amines the problem of tense in Burmese.For him, in the modern language thesemantic content of the final markersdoes not justify their assimilation totense markers. As for old Burmese, thenumerous inscriptions show that theverb was obviously tenseless. Concern-ing classical Burmese, the author dem-onstrates how innumerable translationsfrom Pali provoked an evolution of an-cient Burmese verbal markers, whicheventually modified their grammaticalcategory and led to the introduction ofa few Pali grammatical elements (suchas the optative suffix).

Ohno Torru’s contribution, ‘Thestructure of Pagan-period Burmese’gives the reader an impressive amountof information. It is perfectly organizedand easy to consult, sources are listedat the beginning, and an index of thegrammatical forms follows the text. Themain source is the collection of rubbingsof inscriptions published between 1972and 1983. The numerous examplesquoted have been deciphered by theauthor. As Burmese writing was not yetsettled in Pagan, the same word waswritten in different forms. The list ofvowels, the words where they appearand the study of phonology show animportant evolution of the Burmese vo-calic system: modern ui was uiv, eiv, i,

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modern e was i. In fact it is still i inArakanese and in Marma, dialects ofBurmese. As for the consonants, theauthor assumes that aspirated andunaspirated stops were contrasting, butexemplifies the contrast between voicedand voiceless consonants only with loanwords. In modern Burmese it is still dif-ficult to find contrasting voiced andvoiceless consonants. As one might ex-pect, contrast between aspirated andunaspirated consonants is seen also intwo categories of verbs: causatives andnon-causatives. Interrogation marks (fora ‘yes or no’ question), hi for ‘to be’ andnegative sentences ending with the verbof Pagan Burmese were still used in theMarma dialect this reviewer collectedin 1951.

Annemarie Esche, in ‘The experienceof writing the first German-MyanmarDictionary’ speaks of her ‘arduous en-terprise’ as somebody who could nothelp undertaking it and who loved to doit. She begins with a detailed presenta-tion of her sources, Myanmar Dictio-nary, Myanmar-English Dictionary, andmany others, evaluating their respectiveadvantages, and includes standardizedorthography, short examples, indicationof the pronunciation, and botanicalnames of plants. As for the lexicographi-cal problems, equivalency of termscomes first; it is already difficult whenthe translation is between two Europeanlanguages, but it is worse to try to findequivalents between two different cul-tures: the translation might become anexplanation. Orthographic reforms inMyanmar were another problem, and

the choice between written and spokenlanguage another one. One of her finalremarks is to accept the fact that ‘sucha work...is never finished’.

All these contributions have painteda vivid portrait of Burmese language,a mysterious entity with a long historyand a strong personality.

Denise Bernot

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Judith L. Richell, Disease and Demog-raphy in Colonial Burma. Copenhagen,NIAS Press, 2006, pp.xiv + 327, tables,maps, glossary, bibliography, appendi-ces, index.

As Ian Brown explains in his fore-word to the book, Judith Richell died in1999 at the age of fifty-six while en-rolled in the doctoral programme in His-tory at the School of Oriental and Afri-can Studies (London). Although closeto completion, school regulations pre-vented the posthumous submission ofher thesis, leaving publication as theonly available route to circulating thisvaluable study. As a result, the authorwas absent in the final editing processand thus we do not know exactly whatchanges would have been made or in-deed how the final volume would havelooked. A review must thus examine thebook within this context. As the readerwill find, Richell’s voyage into Burmesedemography and public health is inno-vative and much needed.

In addition to an introduction andconclusion, Richell’s book is dividedinto six chapters covering (1) “Number-ing the People,” (2) “Birth Rates andDeath Rates in Colonial Burma,” (3)“Infant Mortality,” (4) “The Family andChildhood in Colonial Burma,” (5)“Adult Morbidity and Mortality and theDevelopment of Public Health inBurma,” and (6) “The Determinants ofMortality: Nutrition and Malaria inColonial Burma.” The appendices alsoinclude compilations from the censusdata on the numbers of Chinese, Mus-

lims, and Hindus in Burma covering thedecades between 1911 and 1931. Scat-tered throughout the text are very cleartables and graphs and some very usefulmaps.

The book can generally be dividedinto two broad sections. The first sec-tion, consisting of Chapters One andTwo (pp. 1–84), is heavily quantitative,with the discussion focused on the prob-lems of locating reliable statistics, cal-culating more reliable figures, and iden-tifying the boundaries (time and space)of Richell’s case study. The lack of asubstantial general body of work ondemography in Burma (previous workon Burmese demographic history hasbeen limited to the works of A. R.Vyatkin and R. M. Sundrum) presentedRichell with both a challenge and anopportunity, both of which she fullyundertook. On the one hand, the lack ofsubstantial secondary literature forcedRichell to undertake the onerous task ofsifting through censuses and related re-ports for detailed statistics and, on theother, the paucity of literature allowedher a free hand in shaping a demo-graphic study on her own terms. ForRichell, a number of factors weighedheavily in favour of a more circumspectanalysis of Burmese population statis-tics. Difficulties in discerning betweenindigenous and immigrant Muslimswere avoided, by excluding Arakanfrom the study. The necessity for reli-able government data also favouredLower Burma and several districts justto the north, due to the consistency andlonger duration of colonial record-keep-

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ing. Thus, much of Upper Burma, in-cluding all the hill (and thus ethnic) ar-eas, as well as most of Tenasserim, werealso excluded. Ultimately, Richell’s casestudy focuses on areas of the IrrawaddyDelta that coincidentally share certainfeatures: (1) predominant sedentaryagriculture, (2) “Burmese” culture, and(3) Theravada Buddhism as the prevail-ing religious orientation (p. 6). Richellsimilarly had to reject several sourcesof information that would have other-wise seemed useful. The annual reportsfrom 1862–1865, for example, weresubject to severe underestimation, bothby local headman and colonial admin-istrators alike, while the 1872 and 1881censuses, both covering years prior tothe annexation of Upper Burma, neces-sarily only referred to Lower Burma.

The second section of the book,which include Chapters Three to Six,while rich in statistics, becomes muchmore qualitative in its analysis than inthe first section and this discussion isfocused on public health (as it impactsdemography). In Chapters Three andFour, Richell carefully considers howchild-bearing women’s nutrition andbreast milk feeding, infant food supple-ments, and various infant diseases(smallpox, malaria, venereal diseases)affected infant mortality rates, as wellas Burmese attitudes toward child-bear-ing and child-rearing. Richell also docu-ments the British public health response,which was deficient in part because ofhesitance to appoint female doctors (p.125). Chapters Five and Six focus onadult mortality, including the impact of

diseases (cholera, plague, smallpox, andmalaria) and nutrition levels. In this con-text, Richell also provides informationon the emergence of the colonial publichealth department. Richell makes an im-portant contribution in her argument thatthe much feared epidemic diseases ofcholera, smallpox, and the plague werethe cause of only ten percent of adultmortality (p. 169). Richell turns to othercauses of adult mortality, such as diar-rhoea and dysentery, which actually sawa steady and significant decline in thelate colonial period, while deaths fromrespiratory disease saw a roughly com-parable inverse trend. The major factorsin adult mortality, Richell finds, wereactually two problems for which thecolonial reaction was either very slowor almost non-existent. First, chronicand widespread malnutrition among theBurmese population made them vulner-able to all sorts of health problems, es-pecially beri-beri. Second, under theguise of “fevers”, malaria laid low manyBurmese to an astounding degree, madeworse by commercial factors and civilengineering projects. Curiously, how-ever, the classic study of this problemin Sri Lanka (Rhoads Murphey, “TheRuin of Ancient Ceylon”, Journal ofAsian Studies 16.2, 1957), which alsomade allusions to this problem for theclassical and early modern era Burma,has escaped this discussion and the bib-liography. In any event, “fevers”, ofwhich fifty percent of deaths were dueto malaria, Richell concludes, consti-tuted the single greatest threat to theindigenous population in terms of deathscaused by disease (p. 258).

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There are minor drawbacks. Evenwithout being able to draw up statisticscomparable to the Irrawaddy Valleydistricts, more attention probably shouldhave been paid to Arakan, Tenasserim,and the hill areas, if only in terms ofqualitative data and if only to includethe bulk of non-Burman ethnic groupsin a study that seeks to examine healthand demography in colonial Burma. Thestudy also does not make use of Bur-mese-language material, which mayhave otherwise enriched the discussionof problems in gathering health data oryielded light on how Burmese viewedthe shaping of public health around (andfor) them. Even so, the present volumerepresents a very important contributionto the field and one that should standthe test of time.

The book presently under review is asolid, comprehensive examination ofpublic health in colonial Burma thatmust be read by any researcher work-ing on this period and place. The break-down of chapters into clearly outlinedsub-topics of public health makes it anespecially effective case study for com-parative studies of the state of health inAsia generally. This book is highly rec-ommended as well for undergraduateand postgraduate courses focused on themore human side of Southeast AsianHistory.

Michael W. Charney

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Emma Larkin, Secret Histories: Find-ing George Orwell in a BurmeseTeashop. London, John Murray, 2005,pp.vii + 232.

Emma Larkin is a journalist with anM.A. in Asian History at the School ofOriental and African Studies. In thepresent volume, Larkin explores thestate of contemporary Burma and lo-cates its past by following a trail pinnedto major points in the experiences ofGeorge Orwell during his stay in Burmain the 1920s as a colonial policeman.Orwell’s numerous books, includingAnimal Farm, Burmese Days, and Nine-teen Eighty-Four painted a bleak pic-ture, in the age of totalitarianism inwhich they were written, of the controlof man by man and the suppression ofthe individual and the human spirit. Sev-enty years on, Larkin finds, Orwell’swritings are just as relevant to the Burmaof today, a “much more terrifying land-scape ... a real-life Nineteen Eighty-Fourwhere Orwell’s nightmare visions arebeing played out with a gruelling cer-tainty” (p. 4). Moreover, Burma re-mained relevant to Orwell’s perspec-tives until his last days for, as Larkinexplains, Orwell had left at his death-bed plans to write another book, onewhich would revisit his memories ofBurma. In the present volume, Larkinin one sense completes a journey Orwelldied too soon to make.

Between the Prologue and Epilogueare five chapters devoted to (1)Mandalay, (2) The Delta, (3) Rangoon,(4) Moulmein, and (5) Katha, all pointsfollowing Orwell’s experiences in the

country. Throughout the chapters,Larkin introduces the reader to ghosts,Burmese Orwell fans, teashop intellec-tuals, an unwitting bicycle trip into amilitary compound, and everywherestories of personal tragedy. To these twonarrative strands is added a third, a sum-mary of Burmese historical eventsplaced at different points in the book tomake the reader aware of the broadersignificance of what Larkin sees orhears. The book is not, and was notintended to be, an academic study,but relatively light reading. Even so,Larkin’s impressions of contemporaryBurma, seen through the frameworkprovided by Orwell’s life, provide apotent reminder to readers sitting com-fortably in the West of just how badlyoff the contemporary Burmese are. Assuch, Larkin’s book is not so much anew contribution as it is an updated con-tribution to an extensive field of travelliterature regarding contemporaryBurma, all of its parts seeking to relaythe same basic account of Burma.Larkin’s book is more intelligent thanmost and the emphasis on Orwell (for,by the end of the book, one clearly seesthat this is really more a story of Burmathan of Orwell), helps to make thevolume as a whole engaging reading.

There is, of course, a problem withdepending too much on the informationin the book. Many people in this bookexist in a realm of anonymity and thusare unavailable for verification, prob-ably due to the need to avoid retaliationby the state. Some vague statements inthe book may mislead readers unfamil-iar with Burma’s past: “Not long after

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Burma became independent from Brit-ain in 1948, a military dictator sealedoff the country from the outside world,launched ‘The Burmese Way to Social-ism’ and turned Burma into one of thepoorest countries in Asia” (p. 2) is rathersweeping, even if one does accept that1962 happened not long after 1948(fourteen years), and the suggestion thatemancipating local businesses and tradefrom Western control amounted to iso-lation from the outside world misunder-stands both the Ne Win years and therole of the Soviet Union and Czecho-slovakia (and other Communist blocstates) during the period. More strikingis Larkin’s observation that “it is noteasy to get English-language books inBurma” (pp. 7–8). This is a major mis-representation, as one quick jot downto Pansodan or 37th Lan, or hundreds ofshops in Rangoon, Mandalay, and else-where, would quickly reveal. Larkin’sdiscussion of the changing of placenames in Burma also fails to discuss thefull dimensions of the issue. Myanmar,for example, is not a “new” name asLarkin suggests (p. 11), but rather a formof the original name (Myanma) that wasgrossly corrupted by Europeans(Burma). There is also good reason whyMandalay was unchanged: it was oneof the examples of indigenous namesthat the British failed to change beyondrecognition, hence it was retained, andthis should have been stressed as it sup-ports the government’s claim, dismissedby Larkin, that this was simply a moveto delete “colonial tags”.

Although unnamed, the very re-spected and prolific Burmese historian

referred to (p. 32) appears to be the lateProfessor Than Tun. Even if not, ThanTun’s experience can suggest a wordof caution of reading too much into the“erasure” of identity plot. Than Tun’sexperience, for example, as bad as itwas, was not like that in NineteenEighty-Four, as suggested by the un-named writer quoted by Larkin in refer-ence to the equally unnamed historian.In Than Tun’s case, government censor-ship did not amount to a permanenterasure of his identity, but on and offharassment that continually relaxedafter tempers had subsided. Certainly,this was a grave, difficult time for ThanTun. Nevertheless, comparing thesekinds of experiences to the Orwelliannightmare does not do the latter justice,nor does it give accuracy to the experi-ences of such men (and women) as theformer. This is not to rob critics of theregime of the legitimacy of their goals,but rather to suggest that such inaccu-racies do not do anyone any good in at-tempting to understand Burma accu-rately.

Such problematic observations aside,the volume remains an interesting per-spective on the state of the country. It isa well-written book, stylistically, and iscertainly accessible to the general read-ership. The general readers will find thatthe numerous stories in the volume willheighten the attraction of travel toBurma, to see for themselves whatBurma is really like.

Michael W. Charney

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Susan Conway, The Shan: Culture, Artand Crafts. Bangkok, River Books,2006, pp. 212, 300 photographs andcolour illustrations.

This is a beautiful book. It is beauti-fully produced, and beautifully written.It is worth buying for the illustrationsalone: not just for the colour photo-graphs of Shan arts and crafts, architec-ture and textiles, but also for the won-derful collection of historical black-and-white photographs that the author hasassembled. But the book also makes avaluable and fascinating scholarly con-tribution to a little studied and poorlyunderstood part of the Tai world.

Susan Conway is that rare combina-tion of both artist and scholar. She is acurator of exhibitions (most recently onLan Na, Shan and Siamese NineteenthCentury Court Dress at the Jim Thomp-son Centre in Bangkok), and exhibits herown art work. And she is a ResearchAssociate at the School of Oriental andAfrican Studies in London who has pub-lished widely in scholarly journals. Herprevious book, Silken Threads LacquerThrones, was about the court textiles ofLan Na. So this volume on the Shan is alogical progression.

As in Silken Threads LacquerThrones and her catalogue for herBangkok exhibition, in this volume onthe Shan Conway brings together poli-tics, social status, and culture (from ar-chitecture to textiles and dress to craftssuch as lacquerware and silver) in or-der to show how one reinforces theother, how the politics of status were

served by dress and the display of artis-tic finery.

The importance of dress in definingsocial status is not much appreciated inthe present age of dark suits and discreetcocktail dresses. Nor are fine arts itemsof public display by presidents, primeministers or company CEOs in theirdealings with each other. But both werewell understood by the Burmese in pro-mulgating their sumptuary regulationsdefining exactly what each tributaryruler had the right to wear and display.Conway shows us how dress matteredfor the Shan, as both a badge of identityand a statement of political association.To flaunt Burmese sumptuary laws, forexample, would be to claim autonomy— or at least the protection of a morepowerful suzerain, such as China.

Conway begins by setting the scene,something that is not easy to do for sucha geographically and ethnically diversearea as the Shan states of Burma. Herway in through maps and landscapeworks nicely. Where she encounters dif-ficulty, as anyone would, is in the defi-nition of ethnic groups. Here severalcriteria intersect: geography, altitude,linguistic affiliations, and culture. Thisis the same difficulty encountered in try-ing to categorize the ethnic diversity ofLaos. No single criterion will work, butto apply a combination only multipliesdiversity.

Conway lists four groups in the Shanregion: Tai, Wa, Kachin and Karen,which in the glossary are defined purelyin terms of overlapping geographicallocation, but later mentions a fifth, the

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Palaung. This does not get us very far.None but the Tai figure much in the text,which is understandable: this is a bookabout the Shan. But difficulties arisewith the Tai, four groups of which forConway constitute the Shan (a termnone of them use). All overlap, and noneare limited to the Shan states. The larg-est group, the Tai-Yai (also known asTai-Ngio), are also found in Lan Na, butfor Conway comprise the Shan proper.But she also uses the term to include theTai-Khoen (also found in Lan Na) andthe Tai-Neua and Tai-Lue, both of whomspill across from the Sipsong Pan Na.

To these overlapping geographicalrelationships can be added historicalones resting on claims to priority.Conway refers to George Young to sortthis out, but Georges Condominaswould have been more useful. Politi-cally Conway rightly focuses on themuong/meuang, an institution finelytuned to variations in the balance ofpower and status, but most confusing inits multiple shifting relationships. Thesedrove the British nuts, but if they hadlearned to read the language of courtdress, they might have been less con-fused.

Muong structure and relationships asexpressions of Tai political culture areimpossible to understand outside thecontext of the Theravada Buddhistworldview. Here Conway should cer-tainly have said more. ‘Karma’ does noteven warrant an entry in the index(though ‘merit’ does). And since it iscourt dress as indicative of political sta-tus that she is interested in (and very

good on), the basis of Tai political cul-ture really does deserve elaboration.

Conway does, however, cover a lotof ground — from the organization ofShan society to the role of women, thesocial importance of Buddhist monas-teries, spirit worship and astrology,villages and palaces, and back to womenagain. A separate chapter is devoted tothe history of the Shan states. But asConway lists 43 such states (five com-prising the northern states and 38 thesouthern ones), her task is well nighimpossible in a few pages. Sensibly, shedeals with the Shan as a group, differ-entiating only a few major states, andexamines their relations with Burma, theupper part of which was ruled in thefourteenth century by Shan kings, withLan Na and Siam, and with the SipsongPan Na and China. With colonialismcomes a clearer narrative, and somewonderful photographs.

The strength of The Shan lies in thenext four chapters on male and femaledress, court life, and arts and crafts. HereConway is in her element, making fulluse of archival sources, travel memoirsand historical photographs from the latenineteenth and early twentieth centuries.The photographs of Burmese court dressare extraordinary. Both for men andwomen, this resembles nothing so muchas samurai armour and looks quite un-comfortable compared to the dress menand women wore even on more formaloccasions back in their home states.

The rigidity of Burmese sumptuarylaws and extreme consciousness of sta-tus led to some innovative use of pat-

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terns and materials by Shan princes, thusadding to the amazing variety of maledress. Rank was of supreme importance,indicated by multiple collars, chains andumbrellas held over princes in proces-sion. Beside such symbols the later Brit-ish honours system of sashes and med-als was but a pale reflection!

Male dress in particular had politicalimplications. The prince of Muong Sing,for example, whose territory then cov-ered both banks of the Mekong, some-times wore Tai-Lue dress to indicate hisidentification with the Sipsong Pan Na,and sometimes a Chinese dragon robeas a tributary of China. In the end, themore substantial part of his realm wasincluded in French Laos.

Female dress was more variable, re-flecting the cross influence of ethnicelites, or marriages arranged to cementpolitical relationships. The wives of aShan prince might be Wa or Karen orPalaung, as well as Shan. Each wouldwear ethnic dress on appropriate occa-sions, to reflect both ethnicity and po-litical relationships.

The greater versatility in female dresssometimes reflected fashion, incorporat-ing new silks from China, or styles ofembroidery using silver or gold thread,or machine-made lace from Europe.Conway also explains how female dressreflected religious belief. Thus Buddhistwomen always wore skirts with waistbands, so as to differentiate waist fromeasily polluted hem, which was not aconsideration for animist Karen,Kachin, or Wa.

Conway describes different femaledress styles by state, though only ten are

mentioned. One wonders what was thebasis of choice? Perhaps only the avail-ability of photographs whose prov-enance could be identified. Beautifulexamples of Shan fabrics (both indig-enous and imported), skirts and embroi-dery are illustrated, most from privatecollections.

In a fascinating chapter on princesand palaces, Conway shows how thearchitecture of palaces, their furnishingsof elaborate thrones and decoratedshrines, their gilded couches and artis-tic treasures, all proclaimed the statusof the ruler. Drawing on the descriptionsof early explorers and officials, Conwayreveals the life of the palace. Servants,who lived outside the palace compound,were summoned by drum. Food wasbrought from kitchens in containers. Butwhat did they use as toilets? There is nomention of garderobes of the kind foundin medieval European castles.

There is a drawing by Louis De-laporte, the artist of the French MekongExpedition, which Conway reproduces,showing the prince of Muong You re-ceiving the French explorers. Aroundhim are placed his finest possessions,which attest to his status. These includelacquer ware, repoussé silver work, ce-ramics and inlaid wood carving. Forthese Shan craftsmen were famous.Conway devotes a chapter to Shan artsand crafts, giving prominence especiallyto weaving, embroidery and appliqué,but also revealing the finer points ofmetalworking and the preparation ofpalm leaf manuscripts.

The final chapter is on trade. TheShan were great long-distance traders.

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Conway discusses trade routes and theitems traded with China to the north andBurma to the south. But Shan tradersalso made their way down the Mekong,through the Lao territories as far asCambodia. Many village traders werewomen, who played a far more signifi-cant economic role (as did women allacross the Tai world) than women inChina.

In the end it was trade that under-mined Shan arts and crafts, especiallyweaving, by introducing cheap mass-produced materials. Tourism has cheap-ened the quality of the Shan arts oncecrafted for princes. And the Burmesemilitary has put an end to Shan courtlife. Conway records a world that issadly lost, and she does it remarkablywell.

Martin Stuart-Fox

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Anthony Grant and Paul Sidwell, eds,Chamic and Beyond: Studies inMainland Austronesian Languages.Canberra, Pacific Linguistics, AustralianNational University, pp.xvii+271,A$63.00.

With his twin specialisms in Chamicand Mon-Khmer, no human on earth isbetter situated than Paul Sidwell to teamup with Anthony Grant, the author ofnearly half the material in this volume,to edit a collection of articles represent-ing the cutting edge of research intothe problematic Chamic branch ofAustronesian. Chamic resists the rela-tively more straightforward classifica-tory paradigms of other branches ofAustronesian because of its typologicalproximity to Mon-Khmer and othermainland South-East Asian languagefamilies. The mechanisms, processes,stages and details of this typologicalshift are, put simply, complex.

Mark Brunelle’s ‘A phonetic study ofEastern Cham register’ aims to addressthe question of the Mon-Khmerisationof Eastern Cham in a phonetic context,by examining the phonetic detail of theMon-Khmer-style registral contrast inEastern Chamic, uncontroversially de-rived from a loss of initial consonantcontrasts, possibly as a result of contactwith Mon-Khmer languages.

Brunelle investigates whether or notthe Eastern Cham registers have evolvedfurther into lexical tone as a conse-quence of coda-consonant weakeningand subsequent deletion. He finds firstthat Written Cham labial and palatalcoda consonants typically debuccalise

to homorganic glide+glottal stop se-quences (or laryngealised homorganicglides), while Written Cham final coro-nal, velar and glottal stops are usuallyarticulated as such. The experimentalwork is reported in detail. The 3-Dgraphic representations of the effects onfundamental frequency of final conso-nants are particularly well-conceived,though a range of other phonetic corre-lates of final consonants are also ex-plored, with supporting statistical analy-sis. Especially valuable is the comple-mentary perceptual test, which suggeststhat the register contrast is perceivedfrom a complex of acoustic cues.

‘The Effects of Intimate Multidirec-tional Linguistic Contact in Chamic’ isthe first of two chapters contributed tothe volume by Anthony Grant, one ofits editors. This is a substantial articleof some 70 pages which examines thesocio-historical reasons for the relativelymuch greater divergence of Chamicfrom its Proto-Malayo-Chamic rootsthan Malayic languages. Grant providesa considered and digestible account ofa highly complex set of linguistic influ-ences on Chamic languages broughtabout through contact with various lan-guages at various times, and relates pho-nological changes in Chamic in specificterms to events during two millennia ofChamic speakers’ social history. Thisarticle builds in particular on the workof Graham Thurgood’s (1999) articleFrom ancient Cham to modern dialects:two thousand years of change.

Grant’s second article, ‘Norm-refer-enced Lexicostatistics and the case ofChamic’ assesses the merits of various

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lexicostatistical methods, contrasting‘horizontal’ with ‘vertical’ varieties. Hediscusses the shortcomings of IsidoreDyen’s (1965) ‘horizontal’ pair-refer-enced study A lexicostatistical classifi-cation of the Austronesian languages,in which all forms are compared to allothers, for determining higher-levelinterrelationships between branches ofMalayo-Polynesian. Grant endorsesinstead ‘vertical’ norm-referencedlexicostatistics, a methodology whichcompares many forms to one historicalnorm (which must have been recon-structed independently of the languagesunder examination). Applying hischosen method to Chamic, using the‘default’ Austronesian word list drawnup by Robert Blust (1981), Grant findsthat Acehnese is as similar to moreconservative Chamic languages asMalay is. The findings are discussed atlength and the statistical data are pre-sented in full in tabular form.

Peter Norquest’s ‘Word Structure inChamic: Prosodic Alignment versusSegmental Faithfulness’ is an optimalitytheoretic account of the stages in shiftfrom light disyllables to heavy mono-syllables, changes wrought on Proto-Malayo-Chamic word structure underthe influence of Mon-Khmer, as de-scribed in Graham Thurgood’s (1999)monograph From ancient Cham to mod-ern dialects : two thousand years of lan-guage contact and change. For eachstage in the process – first from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian to Proto-Malayo-Chamic, thence to Proto-Chamic and oninto diverse Chamic daughter languages

(looking in particular at Kwara’ae, Hlai,Rotuman and Tsat), Norquest providesa readable and accessible summary ofthe facts, illustrated with abundant ex-amples, and then applies the OT frame-work.

Pittayawat Pittayaporn’s article‘Moken as a Mainland Southeast AsianLanguage’ looks at the variety of Mokenspoken at Rawai on Ko Phuket, Thai-land. Pittayawat’s main argument is thatMon-Khmerisation is too blunt a theoryto account for the ‘mainland’ featuresobserved in Moken phonology, and as-signs these features instead one of threecategories: the influence of loanwords,internal restructuring or conservativeProto-Austronesian word structure. Hejustifies his argument in terms of alanguage-contact model (based onThomason and Kaufman, 1988 andRoss, 2003) which characterises Mokenspeech communities as internally close-knit, but yet multilingual and maintain-ing open relationships with the speechcommunities nearby. On the one handthe internal tightness of the communityassures the continued use of Moken asthe primary language, but with inevi-table interference from imperfectlearning of mainland South-East Asiancontact languages.

Paul Sidwell’s article ‘Acehnese andthe Aceh-Chamic Language Family’examines the position of Acehnese rela-tive to Malayic and Chamic generally.In several areas, Sidwell raises as manyquestions as he seeks to answer. For in-stance, he finds a phylogenetic modelwith a process of separation and branch-

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ing an implausible explanation for therelationship between Malayic andChamic. He posits the presence of anunattested and extinct ‘substratu- mised’branch Mon-Khmer in Chamic. Sidwell’s conclusion, after detaileddiscussion of Thurgood’s (1999) treat-ment of Acehnese and extensivediscussion of the complex historical-linguistic context, is a reconfigurationof the higher branches of the Malayo-Chamic tree, with an Acehnese-Chamicsubfamily yielding Acehnese and Proto-Chamic, in preference to Thurgood’s(1999) classification of Acehnese as‘Chamic’. This in itself calls for muchre-examination of the data.

Graham Thurgood seems to be look-ing over the shoulder of the readerthroughout much of this volume, but hemakes an actual appearance, along withEla Thurgood, in the last article of thevolume: ‘The Tones from Proto-Chamicto Tsat [Hainan Cham]: Insights fromZheng (1997) and from Summer 2004fieldwork.’ The Thurgoods chart thedevelopment of suprasegmental phe-nomena in Tsat from Proto-Chamic. Thepresent-day five-tone system is de-scribed in terms of its diachronic ori-gins, identifying laryngealised allotonesof four of the phonological tones con-ditioned by glottal finals. The creakyphonation of the glottal allotones isclearly demonstrated by well-illustratedinstrumental analysis.

One of the strengths of this book isthat it contains, on the one hand, workwhich builds on, clarifies and adds de-tail to our existing understanding of

Chamic languages. On the other hand,in particular in the work of Pittayapornand Sidwell, the book challenges our un-derstanding, providing a very valuablesafeguard against the fossilisation of un-justifiably ‘received knowledge’, whileso many facts, both present-day and his-torical, remain unknown, or at least un-clear or in doubt. The significance ofThurgood’s (1999) monograph, along-side other major contributions to thefield, remain paramount throughout thevolume, but the work contained in thisbook collectively represents a majornext step in Chamic scholarship.

Justin Watkins

References:

Blust, Robert A. (1981). ‘Variation inthe retention rate in Austronesianlanguages.’ Paper presented at theFifth International Conference onAustronesian Languages, Denpasar,Bali.

Dyen, Isidore (1965). A lexicostatisticalclassification of the Austronesianlanguages. Baltimore, MD: Interna-tional Journal of American Linguis-tics, Memoir 19.

Ross, Malcolm (2003) ‘Diagnosingprehistoric language contact.’ InR. Hickey (ed.), Motivations forlanguage change. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, pp.174–198.

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Thomason, Sarah and TerrenceKaufman (1988). Language Con-tact, Creolization, and Genetic Lin-guistics. Berkeley, LA; Oxford, UK:University of California Press.

Thurgood, Graham (1999). From an-cient Cham to modern dialects: Twothousand years of language contactand change. Oceanic LinguisticsSpecial Publication No. 28. Hono-lulu: University of Hawai’i Press.

Zheng Yiqing (1997). Huihuiyu yanjiu.[A study of Tsat]. Shanghai yuan-dong chubanshe [Shanghai Far EastPublishing House].

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Anthony Reid, ed., Verandah of Vio-lence: The Background to the AcehProblem. Singapore, Singapore Univer-sity Press, in association with Seattle,University of Washington Press, 2006,pp. xxx + 397.

The initial versions of the fifteenchapters of this book were originallydiscussed at a conference in Singaporein May 2004 when, as the editor pointsout in his preface, ‘the prospects for anegotiated consensual solution to thelong-standing problem of Aceh ap-peared particularly dark’ (xiii). Aceh’sprospects looked even worse when, atthe end of that year, the province washit by a huge earthquake and tsunami(which took the life of one of the con-tributors, the Acehnese historian, M. IsaSulaiman, to whom the book is dedi-cated). Yet, most extraordinarily, a littleover half a year later representatives ofthe Indonesian government and the FreeAceh Movement (GAM) met inHelsinki and signed an agreement thatbrought an end to the fighting of theprevious three decades.

The authors of the chapters in the firsthalf of the book, which are concernedwith pre-colonial and colonial history,were not forced by developments dur-ing 2005 to re-consider their perspec-tives, but the authors of the later chap-ters now face the challenge of trying toaccommodate the successful outcome ofthe peace talks into their generallygloomy pre-tsunami prognoses. On thebasis of most of these chapters, readerscould not have predicted that at least part

of the ‘Aceh Problem’ was on the brinkof being solved. The chapters, the edi-tor reminds us, were undergoing finalediting at exactly the time that theMemorandum of Understanding wasbeing signed in Helsinki. Several of theauthors have added a few hurried para-graphs to take account of the peace ne-gotiations, but the reader gets the im-pression that these are just ‘add-ons’ thatare difficult to integrate with the pre-2005 discussion. This reviewer, I shouldadd, sympathizes very much with theirpredicament because he too shared theirearlier pessimism and was surprised bythe eventual outcome.

The early chapters trace develop-ments in Aceh up to the Indonesian revo-lution against Dutch colonial rule. Theauthors of these chapters have their ownconcerns, but together they provide acoherent overview of a long period.Edwards Mckinnon surveys archaeo-logical evidence indicating early Indianand Chinese trading contacts during thefirst millennium and he notes Muslimtombstones from the early twelfth cen-tury. It was only in the early sixteenthcentury, as Peter Riddell explains, thatan Islamic Sultanate began to emergeand develop, in the seventeenth century,into a major regional power extendinginto the Malay peninsula during thereign of Sultan Iskandar Muda. Aceh’sIslamic identity was strengthened, al-though customary law (adat) continuedto coexist with Islamic law. During thelast six decades of the seventeenth cen-tury the Islamic state of Aceh was ruledby a succession of women until the Sher-

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iff of Mecca issued a fatwa outlawingthat practice in 1699. Anthony Reid out-lines the expansion of Aceh’s trade, es-pecially with the Ottoman empire, andthen with Europeans. But by the nine-teenth century Aceh was seeking widerinternational contacts as the Dutch threatloomed larger, culminating with the warlaunched in 1873 which eventually sub-jugated Aceh. Lee Kam Hing notes thatAceh’s external links were more withthe British Straits Settlements than withBatavia and asks why it was not able tosurvive as an independent entity likeSiam, which was balanced between theFrench and the British. He finds the an-swer in the 1824 Treaty, which left theIndonesian archipelago within the Dutchsphere while the Malay peninsula wasleft to the British. Anthony Reid thentakes the story through the Dutch inva-sion of Aceh and eventually toIndonesia’s war of independence. Fi-nally Teuku Ibrahim Alfian provides alink with the contemporary chapters inhis discussion of the concept of HolyWar in Acehnese history.

The second half of the book is con-cerned with the ‘Aceh Problem’, par-ticularly the resistance to Jakarta thatbegan under the leadership of the DarulIslam (DI) in the 1950s and continuedunder GAM from 1976 to 2005. IsaSulaiman’s chapter traces the evolutionof Acehnese resistance to Jakarta fromDarul Islam (DI) to GAM by focusingon the life of Hasan di Tiro. DI andGAM were separate movements, oneaiming to achieve an Islamic Indonesiannation while the other sought indepen-

dence from Indonesia, but they hadcommon roots in Jakarta’s treatment ofAceh in the 1950s. Initially an Indone-sian nationalist, Hasan worked for theDI and advocated federalism, but theDI’s defeat led him eventually to launchGAM in 1976. As Isa points out, ‘thenationalist movement started by Hasandi Tiro did not emerge suddenly in 1976or the 1980s, but developed gradually’(139). The continuity between DI andGAM, despite their different objectives,is also a theme of Edward Aspinall’schapter. Although he agrees that NewOrder military brutality was a major fac-tor driving GAM’s demand for indepen-dence, he points out that such brutalitywas also common in the 1950s. Al-though military outrages did not turn DIinto a separatist organization, they pro-duced ‘the first signs of the processwhich decades later gave rise to full-blown ethnic separatism’ (151).

William Nesson even more stronglyrejects the view that GAM was prima-rily a reaction to brutal repression dur-ing the New Order. He suggests thatGAM’s struggle for independence was‘a product of longer-standing historicalsentiments that stretch back to the fightagainst the Dutch and of even deeper,centuries-old feelings that the Acehnesehave about their unique place in theworld’ (185). GAM is strong in the northand east of Aceh not because of socialdisruption caused by New Order exploi-tation of oil and natural gas in those ar-eas but because ‘the north and the eastwere historically the heart (not the en-tire body) of Acehnese resistance from

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Dutch times through the PUSA[All-Aceh Union of Ulamas]-led social revo-lution and DI’ (186). This argument,however, does not make it easy to ex-plain GAM’s post-tsunami acceptanceof a peace agreement without indepen-dence. Damien Kingsbury and LesleyMcCulloch’s study of military businessin Aceh faces a similar question. Likemany scholars, they explain that themilitary is dependent on extra-budget-ary funding obtained from its own busi-ness enterprises and various forms ofextortion. Thus, ‘the economic interestsof the military explain, at least in part,the government’s reluctance to pursuea political solution to the problems inAceh’ (211) and ‘To facilitate such profi-teering and enrichment, the military nowhave a vested interest in maintaining alevel of conflict that justifies their pres-ence’ (212). These were reasonablejudgements before 2005, but we nowneed to ask why the military acceptedthe peace agreement. Why is the mili-tary not actively undermining the agree-ment as it did in the cases of the earliercease-fire agreements in 2001 and2003? These questions could not, ofcourse, have been anticipated by thewriters when they first wrote their chap-ters but, as the peace agreement be-comes increasingly embedded, furtherexplanation is needed. Michelle Millershares the pessimism of these authors.Her chapter analyses ‘special au-tonomy’, especially the special au-tonomy law adopted in 2001. This lawnever generated much enthusiasm inAceh and virtually lost any meaning

after the introduction of the militaryemergency in 2003. In a Postscript writ-ten after the tsunami but before thepeace agreement, she expected that ‘thecapacity of civilian institutions to gov-ern in Aceh will continue to be con-strained by the interests and prioritiesof the Indonesian military’ and that ‘theTNI [military] is unlikely to leave anytime soon’ (311).

The remaining three authors are moredetached in their approach. KirstenSchulze carefully examines the militaryand political strategies of both GAM andthe Indonesian government. On thegovernment’s side she notes that ‘be-tween 1977 and 2004 there was not onesuccessful attempt at addressing the pri-mary causes of the conflict - economicand social inequalities, the feelings ofexploitation, and the loss of dignity andof the space for political, cultural andsocial expression ...’ (264). On the GAMside, she mentions ‘increasingcriminalization of some of its rank andfile as well as the ethnically and politi-cally motivated targeting of civilians.’(265). Aleksius Jemadu warns that ‘it istoo simplistic to depict the Aceh prob-lem as a conflict between a sovereignstate and a separatist movement.’ (275).To understand government policies it isnecessary to examine rivalries betweenpolitical and economic interests inIndonesia’s new democracy. He there-fore discusses the shaping of Acehpolicy during the Habibie, Wahid andMegawati presidencies. Writing as theinformal talks were just beginning inHelsinki, he asks ‘How much of the

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current tendency towards peaceful con-flict resolution is based on the pragma-tism of some Indonesian political lead-ers and businessmen whose main inter-est is the lucrative business of Aceh’spost-tsunami reconstruction projects?’(288). (Being somewhat pragmaticallyinclined myself, I would add ‘If it works,why not?). Like Jemadu, RoddMcGibbon also dismisses the tendency‘to pit Aceh against Jakarta in a simplevertical conflict between centre and re-gion’ and argues that one of the keys tothe conflict is ‘the failure of successivelocal elites, and their Jakarta-based pa-trons, to establish leadership claims overlocal politics’ (315–6). His chapter pro-vides a masterly detailed survey of therise and fall of local elites from the co-lonial period to the present and, unlikemost of the contributors, ends on aguardedly optimistic note.

This book covers a lot of ground andprovides a comprehensive overview ofAceh’s history and recent politics. It alsoincludes many insights and informationon the events of recent years. The peaceagreement, reached in the totally unex-pected circumstances caused by the tsu-nami, have brought into question someof the judgements on the recent period,but the authors can hardly blamed forthat. Maybe they will be spurred to bringout an updated edition.

Harold Crouch

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Elizabeth Morrell, Securing A Place:Small-scale Artisans in Modern Indo-nesia. Ithaca, NY, Cornell UniversityPress, Cornell Southeast Asia ProgramPublications, 2005, pp.220.

This book is of greater relevance thanits title suggests. Findings of fieldworkin South Sulawesi are pertinent to small-scale enterprises throughout SoutheastAsia. It is concluded that regional artand craft production articulate transfor-mations and paradoxes. Although suchproduction can ensure continuity oflocal material culture and strengthenroles for artisan producers, economiccontinuity and strength will be more dif-ficult to achieve.

The author’s lengthy professionalpreoccupation with two of Sulawesi’smajor population groups, the Bugis andthe Sa’dan Valley Torajan, entailedfieldwork from 1994 until 2004. Hence,both research ventures are longitudinalstudies.

The author is commended for heradmirably executed ethnography, whichappears well balanced between strongempathy and critical assessment. Thestudies have in common the geographi-cal location on Sulawesi’s southwesternpeninsula, and the distinctions, withineach population, between self-em-ployed, home-based artisans and small-scale entrepreneurs operating with em-ployee artisans. Most other aspects arein stark contrast, including historicalcultural traits, present-day religious af-filiation, residual impact of deep-rootedsocial organization, gender roles, hori-

zontal mobility, tourism impact, demandfor handicrafts, and tendency towardmodernity.

This review is structured to attract alarge readership, also rationalized byreferring to the author’s emphasis onhow small-scale artisans secure a placein their homeland’s dual economy.

To get to know the Bugis artisans, itis suggested to read, first, chapter 4,about “The Sound of Life”. It was ‘re-corded’ in two locales, one filled withthe voices of independent, self-sufficientwomen weavers, and another where therhythmic clicking of non-mechanizedlooms operated by employee weaverswas resounding. The author introduces13 weavers of different socio-economicstatus, some of whom weave out of eco-nomic necessity, or to generate supple-mentary income, or for lack of formalemployment matching professionalqualification, or else for the pleasure ofcreating elaborate designs.

There is a stark contrast betweenself-employed backstrap weavers andweavers employed by enterprises oper-ating a non-mechanized loom known asATBM, short for Alat Tenun BulanMesin. Labour divisions and productionmethods are determined and controlledby entrepreneurs. Four entrepreneurs areintroduced, including one woman,which reflects the dominance of maleowners. With minimal working capital,they use synthetic fibres to avoid highinitial costs, and to maximize incomethrough bulk production.

Most weaving and associated activ-ity is generated in the surroundings of

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Sengkang, officially promoted as the“City of Silk”. Two streams of silkweaving have emerged, which can beclassified as “independent-traditional”and “entrepreneurial-modern”.

Almost exclusively, women operat-ing the “independent-traditional” streamavoid competition by producing eithercomplex brocaded textiles or simplersarongs in brilliantly colored patterns.They are backstrap weavers using silkto produce the sarung Bugis of heavyfilaments and strong texture. Their“phonic quality” gives wearers theenjoyment of the sound made by silkcloth as they walk.

The “entrepreneurial-modern” streamis dominated by operators of workshopsin which weaving and associated tasksare separate activities performed bydifferent employees, mostly producingsynthetic textiles. Thread preparation,dyeing, painting, and tying are largelydone by women, in a system of dis-persed labour, where no single workeracquires the skills to complete the pro-cess from concept to finished textile.

Drastic changes are reported in chap-ter 5, “Commerce, Autonomy, and Cre-ativity”. The officially planned revital-ization of the silk industry in Wajo, anhistorical kingdom and now a district,was envisaged as a small, specializedhandloom manufacture of high-qualityfabrics. As of 1995, Wajo plans wereappropriated by officials interested ineconomic growth and by entrepreneurs.Independent backstrap weavers, how-ever, retain a niche that holds potentialfor extension. In the method of altering

a pattern known as seribu semacam,“from one come a thousand”, one basicmotif offers opportunities for innovationthrough modest experiments andgradual changes. Despite the success ofthese artisans in creating a place in themarket and earning enough to supportthemselves, independent weavingactivity is still widely dismissed asinsignificant to regional and nationaleconomic development.

Whereas the silk industry has beenpublicized by regional and governmentdevelopers to project a corporate imageof progress arising from highly re-spected traditions, the textile industry isdependent upon low wages and on struc-tures of employment that restrict devel-opment of the individual capabilities andresourcefulness which characterizesmall-scale household weavers. In thepolitical economy of development, thestatus accorded to silk textiles is greaterthan the status accorded to the maker,and the artifact takes precedence overthe artisan.

An historical overview is given un-der the heading of “Identity, Silk, andStatus” (chapter 2). Discussed are pat-terns encapsulated in quadrate domains;interfacing between center and periph-ery; the question of concord or compe-tition; the sarung Bugis as signifiers ofcommerce; the influence of Islam; theinterplay of silk, Islam, and power; andthe importance of textiles as politicalemblems.

Upland Toraja population groups aredifferent in fundamental aspects. Again,

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the reviewer recommends to makeoneself familiar, first, with “TheArtisans” (chapter 8). The authorherself emphasizes that “the objectscreated by Torajan artisans are wellknown, yet the artisans themselvesremain anonymous”.

The author distinguishes the catego-ries of fine artists and souvenir makers,producers of antiques made to order,ceremonial sculptors, women engagedin carving, entrepreneurs dealing inproducts created by artisans, andwoodcarvers as artists.

Examples of fine artists and souvenirmakers are the members of one particu-lar family of full-time, creative and in-novative artisans, who observe markettrends yet do not use an assembly-lineproduction process.

The category of producers of antiquesmade to order is personified by a sculp-tor who sees himself as an interpreterof Torajan tradition responding to mar-ket demand. His portfolio comprisesreproductions of sculptures such asantique ancestral figures, known astau-tau, many sold as antiques, whichconform to measurements of cargocontainers that demand more precisionthan do the customary funerarycarriages.

The exact opposite is a ceremonialsculptor who produces mainly funeraryfigures used by Torajans in their rituals.He rejects primitivism and createsmodern tau-tau memorial figures. In oneof the many paradoxes found in ethno-graphic art, this sculptor polishes withcommercial varnish the ritual objects

created for use by Torajans to expressmodernity, while he artificially ages theobjects produced for the tourist con-sumer to express tradition.

Women engaged in carving representthe lowest socio-economic level ofTorajan artisans who, as a group, areamong the poorest. Most carve smallwooden and bamboo objects for the sou-venir industry. Need for income haslocked many women into production ofthe low-cost, high-turnover sector, re-stricting the development of widerskills.

The exemplary entrepreneur dealingin products created by artisans valuescreative autonomy, and subcontractswork so that carvers produce a numberof objects in a limited range. They re-tain control of their own production. Ayoung, successful woodcarver is repre-sentative of artists who create landscapepanels depicting images of Torajan dailylife.

Supporting artisans, redefinition ofartifacts, influence of the external mar-ket, the innovators, and tradition andtransition are addressed under the head-ing of “Innovation and Transition”(chapter 9). Most supporting artisanshave been forced into the souvenir in-dustry by lack of alternatives. However,the exponential expansion of labor andproduction in the limited tourist art mar-ket restricts incomes.

The influence of the external markethas bordered on the bizarre. Most fineart works commissioned by foreigndealers adhere to notions of traditionwhich are defined largely by Western

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concepts of Torajan authenticity. Amajor influence is the body of printedmaterial. The photocopy machine hasbecome a standard tool for artisans,needed to copy photographs of objectsin museum catalogues and booksbrought by visitors intent on orderingreproductions of artifacts. Photocopiesimpose notions of historical veracitygoverned by consumer desire for theprimitive and exotic.

Tradition and transition run in paral-lel. Externally, international attentionhas been a catalyst for the assertion ofTorajan identity in transition. Internally,the rationale for elaborate ceremonies,and for the building of tongkonanhouses, ancestral physical foci for thekinship groups, and rice barns, remainswithin the institutions and structures ofTorajan society, and tourism provides ameans of generating income to fundsuch traditional activities.

The author identifies and describes“An Emerging Art Industry” (chapter 7).It has produced traditional objects forlocal consumption; re-integrated syncre-tism in the form of such items as screen-printed textile banners; and developedcommercial fine art objects as well asreplicated antique objects, souvenirs,popular arts, decoration objects, andpopular music; as well as fostered cul-tural assimilation solely through finelydetailed sculptural human figures.

Modern artisan activities are per-formed by bead workers, weavers, andwoodcarvers. The majority are indepen-dent workers who carry out all stagesof production. Weavers produce sarongs

and other textiles in brightly coloredcommercial cotton yarn, woven onbackstrap looms. During periods whendemand is strong and production steady,even the poorest artisans are able to at-tain their individual levels of self-suffi-ciency.

An overview of cultural roots andtraits is heralded with what reads like aTorajan artisan’s exclamation “We HaveNo New Art ...” (chapter 6). The authorstresses ancestral connections, tracessocial networks, describes modes ofarticulating ideals and the interfacingof Christianity and the material cultureof animism, refers to “Toraja Hand-made”, and characterizes changing aes-thetics. In the author’s words, “whileurban artisans’ creations are removedfrom the souvenir objects made bypeasant artisans, this small group hasparadoxically introduced primitivismthrough non-traditional techniquesrequiring higher levels of technology.They have capitalized on the Westernappreciation of primitivism, which theyutilize to establish themselves within themodern world.”

A peculiar feature of the presentationof the two studies is the inverted over-lapping of the contents of the openingsection, entitled “Artisan in Society”(chapter 1), and the concluding section,entitled “Negotiating Change” (chapter10). At the outset, the author presents asingle, elaborate introduction, coupledwith a summary of select findings, in-stead of raising questions or expressingassumptions.

Some such salient findings appear tobe of significance overall. Thus, the sur-

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vival strategy is propelled by “resource-fulness, tenacity, and resilience”. Theapparent contradiction of invoking tra-dition to achieve progress is overriddenby local concepts of modernization asan evolutionary mechanism. Above all,“the motivation to express ethnic iden-tity is so compelling that it shapes mod-ern creativity.”

In drawing comparisons, the authorstresses the following points: distribu-tion of familiar crafted objects resultsin standardization; cultural uniquenessis collective and articulated throughimagery which is distinctively Bugis orTorajan; Bugis identity is upheld in that“tradition provides the foundation,rather than the medium of moderniza-tion”; Toraja identity is based on “tradi-tion that acts as a medium of modern-ization through visual practices of ani-mist belief, reinforced by tourist con-cepts of exotic primitivism”.

To sum up, the author’s introductory,albeit not explicit, research propositionis confirmed in the concluding section.The question as to how small-scaleartisans fared in “securing a place”, or“which place” rather, is answeredthrough the author’s words that “mostartisans return profits to the familyrather than the business, and they pri-oritize self-sufficiency over entrepre-neurial ideals”.

The author’s critical appraisal ofimplementation as well as managementof related governmental plans is encap-sulated in two among several suchevaluative inferences. She concludesthat “for most artisans, production is

merely a stop-gap activity which doesnot offer the relief from unemploymentthat planners have hoped to achieve”.In general terms, she stresses the pointthat “assuming the premise that eco-nomic development should provideimproved access to a range of services,including education, nutrition, andhealth, then it is clear that artisans havelargely been excluded from the devel-opment process”.

The author also deplores the officialdisregard of the dynamics of contem-porary culture owing to official priori-tizing of the “exotic” and “primitive”,which has restricted the evolution ofmodern fine arts.

Among the author’s numerous, highlyuseful references is one to Thailand’smodern handloom silk industry. Herlongitudinal study of how small-scaleartisans have fared seems to convey alesson for Thailand’s current OneTambon One Product project.

Karl E. Weber

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Vu Trong Phung, The Industry of Mar-rying Europeans (Ky nghê ⁄ lây Tây),translated, with introduction, by ThúyTranviet. Ithaca, NY, Cornell SoutheastAsia Program, Cornell University, 2006.

This book is a translation of the 1930sreportage written by a famous Vietnam-ese writer, Vu Tro.ng Phu.ng. Westernreaders have only recently been able toenjoy Vu Tro.ng Phu.ng’s wit and sharpobservations. The Light of the Capital:Three Modern Vietnamese Classics,published in 1996, includes GregLockhart’s translation of a short pieceby Vu Tro.ng Phu.ng entitled Cóm thâycóm cô (translated as ‘Household Ser-vants’). More recently, since 2004,thanks to the efforts of Peter Zinomanand Nguyen Nguyet Cam, foreign read-ers have been able to absorb themselvesin the adventurous exploits of RedHaired Xuân, the protagonist of thenovel Sô Ð ó (Dumb Luck). Alongsidethese now takes its place ThúyTranviet’s translation of Ky nghê. lâyTây (The Industry of Marrying Europe-ans).

By the time the Vietnamese writer VuTro.ng Phu.ng was born, in 1912, theFrench had firmly established theircolonial presence in Indochina. Thepenetration of Western culture andthinking facilitated through the Frenchmission civilisatrice resulted in an in-evitable clash of cultures and fosteredfundamental changes in the political,social and cultural consciousness of theVietnamese population. For a writerwith keen observation skills, razor-sharp

wit and a heightened sense of scepti-cism, Vietnam at that time provided asetting saturated with endless potential.The interaction between different cul-tures is an intricate process. While somemay view it as an enriching journey ofdiscovery, a source of excitement andanticipation of change and new discov-eries, for others it becomes a barbaricact of destruction, which pollutes andannihilates indigenous values. In earlytwentieth century Vietnam these oppos-ing attitudes to modernization wereepitomized by a generational divide. Forthe older generation of traditional schol-ars, the radical challenges to the pre-existing cultural paradigms were pain-ful and irreconcilable; not only were thenew values ushered in by a conqueringcolonial civilization, in an aggressivemanner, with military power propped upby a mighty political and administrativeapparatus, but also, most importantly,these changes defied the core of theirphilosophy of life. The younger genera-tion, already born into the new regime,on the other hand, found it easier to ad-just to the changes and embrace them.Although Vu Tro.ng Phu.ng opted, moreoften than not, for satirical renditions ofthe clash between tradition and moder-nity in Vietnam, his humorous dialogue,amusing characterizations and use ofparody conceal a sombre social critiqueand expose the complex nature of thehuman character.

Vu Tro.ng Phu.ng was a prolific writerwho managed to cram a remarkableliterary career into his short life. Helived most of his life in the heart of

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Hanoi in the area known as the 36 GuildStreets, a buzzing commercial part ofthe city. This lively neighbourhoodplaced him at the epicentre of socialtransformation: a colourful panoptic ofpeople from all walks of life — traders,craftsmen, prostitutes, beggars, pettycriminals, servants, rickshaw pullers,street peddlers, gamblers, opium ad-dicts, domestic servants and their mas-ters — provided the writer with suffi-cient examples of how the people ofVietnam adapted to the changing socialorder.

For most of the twentieth century,with the exception of a few years dur-ing the 1950s, the work of Vu Tro.ngPhu.ng remained marginalized and evenbanned in Vietnam. The Vietnamesecommunist authorities suppressed theauthor’s significance by eliminating himfrom official histories of Vietnameseliterature. They objected to his lack ofrevolutionary zeal, to his rejection ofcommunism (he refused to join theParty) and to his refusal to use histalent to promote the revolutionary re-construction of Vietnam on its road tosocialism. Censorship of his work meantthat he remained unknown to theyounger generation of Vietnamese. Itwas only after 1986, when the politicalclimate was liberalized and censorshipsoftened following the introduction ofrenovation (dô

,i mo,i), that he was reha-

bilitated and the younger generation hadthe opportunity to acquaint itself withhis work. Vu Tro.ng Phu.ng would haveenjoyed the paradox inherent in hisposthumous transformation from a

banned author marginalized by a politi-cal regime to a stalwart of bookshopsfirmly installed in the school syllabus.

The Industry of Marrying Europeans(Ky nghê. lây Tây) was first publishedin 1934. In this work, Vu Tro.ng Phu.ngpresents his readers with an unconven-tional genre which blends reality andfiction. This ‘documentary narrative’ or‘fictional reportage’ is a genre he lovedand perfected. His ability to fictionalisethe truth, to reconstruct, invent, andimagine dialogues, earned him the titleof ‘a king of reportage’ (ông vua phóngsu.). As Thúy Tranviet reminds us, ‘hewas known for writing a reportage thatreads like a novel and a novel that readslike a reportage’ (p.11). The Industry ofMarrying Europeans is the outcome ofthe author’s interviews with Legion-naires and their Vietnamese ‘wives’ ina village of Thi Cau north of Hanoi. Thework offers a fascinating glimpse into across-cultural society, a hybrid society‘where imported cheese and butter havecrossed the oceans to conquer peoplefrom different social status’. Vu Tro.ngPhu.ng admitted that he became curiousabout the nature of relationships be-tween the European Legionnaire sol-diers and Vietnamese women upon hear-ing a Vietnamese woman in a courtroomstate that her occupation was ‘marryingEuropeans’. In the foreward to the trans-lation of Vu Tro.ng Phu.ng’s novel, Sô Ðó(Dumb Luck), Zinoman points outPhung’s well-known reservations about‘the new woman’ and his fondness fortraditional Confucian morality andfemale virtues. This sentiment is mani-

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fested in his intentional use of the wordky nghê. (industry) in the title; the termimmediately satirises such unions andleaves no space for any misunderstand-ing of the motivations behind suchliaisons, which have nothing to do withlove, romance and commitment andhave everything to do with mutuallybeneficial business transactions.

The Industry of Marrying Europeansis a fascinating work and it is a credit tothe translator that her version presentsa masterful rendition of the Vietnameseoriginal. The complex and layered Viet-namese original presents many chal-lenges, as translating from Vietnamesehas its own specific problems, for ex-ample, the complicated system of termsof personal reference dependent on gen-der, marital status, age, social positionand level of familiarity. Furthermore, theoriginal text is imbued with satiricallanguage, puns, double meanings andcultural connotations, which requirecareful unwrapping. Yet by far themost demanding challenge lies in theoriginal’s use of a mixture of languages.Apart from the Vietnamese, the origi-nal contains passages in French and ina hybrid ‘pidgin’ French. In order toconvey the speech of the lower classes,who lacked a proper knowledge ofFrench, Phu ⁄ng employs a Vietnamizedtransliteration of French called Tây bôi.Neither the women nor their Legion-naire ‘husbands’ are native speakers ofFrench and they communicate in thisdistorted ‘mishmash’ language – a veri-table trial for the translator. The trans-lator first transliterates this pidgin

French into proper French and thentranslates the French into English.

As Thúy Tranviet points out, thetranslator not only needs to understandthe literal meanings of the words, butmust also take into account the culturalaspects of the language, as well as themood of the author, in order to capture‘the tone’ of the work. This translationcertainly succeeded in this respect.

Vu Tro.ng Phu.ng’s work still awaitsserious scholarly evaluation both insideand outside Vietnam. The introductoryessay included in this volume places VuTro.ng Phu.ng in a wider historical andsocial context and provides a usefulanalysis of The Industry of MarryingForeigners.

Remembering Vu Tro.ng Phu.ng, theVietnamese poet Lu,u Tro.ng Lu, oncesaid that ‘Vu Tro.ng Phu.ng’s work ex-poses and condemns all that is ugly,corrupt, and grotesque about humankindduring our era’. Times have changed buthuman beings remain prone to the se-duction of the glitter of superficiality.Contemporary Vietnamese society, at atime of globalization and consumerism,finds itself in the midst of a clash ofcultures; the collapse of traditional val-ues, the uncritical adoration of Westernconsumer goods, the blind worship ofmoney and lack of respect for genuinemorality – all spawn confusion over val-ues and generate tension. In this con-text, Vu Tro.ng Phu.ng’s work seems sur-prisingly topical.

Anyone interested in Vietnameseliterature, modern history and colonial-ism or fascinated by the French Foreign

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Legion will enjoy this excellent trans-lation. Most of all, it will be enjoyed byall who are intrigued by the nature ofhuman behaviour.

Dana Healey

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Karen Fjelstad and Nguyen Thi Hien,editors, Possessed by the Spirits:Mediumship in Contemporary Vietnam-ese Communities. Ithaca, NY, CornellSoutheast Asia Program, Cornell Uni-versity, 2006, pp. 186.

Since the 1980s, Vietnamese popularrituals and religions have been revital-ized, including Len Dong spirit posses-sion rituals and the worship of femalegoddesses. The connection betweeneconomic development and the revivalof popular religions in contemporaryVietnam has become an intriguing ques-tion among those who are interested inVietnamese studies. The volume Pos-sessed by the Spirits: Mediumship inContemporay Vietnamese Communitiesgives readers a vivid picture of variousaspects of contemporary Vietnamesespiritual life in the midst of the rapidchanges of lifestyles and values due tothe economic reform, known as Doi Moi(Renovation), in the late 1980s. Whatmakes this volume different from otherprevious works on Vietnamese popularreligions and rituals, such as ThienDo’s Vietnamese Supernaturalism:Views from the Southern Region, andPhilip Taylor’s Goddess on the Rise:Pilgrimage and Popular Religion inVietnam, is its focus on the study of LenDong spirit possession rituals andmediumship in contemporary Vietnam-ese communities, both in urban andcountry areas, as well as in the home-land and abroad.

The volume starts with the article“The Mother Goddess Religion: Its

History, Pantheon, and Practices” byNgo Duc Thanh. It explores the devel-opment and practices of Len Dongrituals which are closely connected tothe worship of the Mother Goddessreligion in pre- and post-RenovationVietnam. The author also providesthorough background knowledge of theworship of mother goddesses in Viet-namese society, including the origins ofthe Mother Goddess religion, its pan-theon and main practices. The authoralso tries to establish why the MotherGoddess religion is considered anindigenous religion of the Kinh peopleand how it is incorporated with Taoism,Buddhism and the beliefs of other in-digenous ethnic groups in Vietnam.

Pham Quynh Phuong’s article “TranHung Dao and the Mother GoddessReligion” introduces the worship ofSaint Tran (Tran Hung Dao), a generalwho served the Tran Dynasty, who freedthe country from the Mongol andChinese occupation. He is unarguablyregarded as a national hero and thusvenerated as a saint who can expel evilspirits. The author points out that theworship of Saint Tran in the pantheonof the Mother Goddess religion and thefact that female mediums are possessedby Saint Tran is an interesting phenom-enon in Vietnamese society, becausefemale mediums have been seen assexual wantons and immoral. The incor-poration of the cult of Saint Tran intothe Mother Goddess religion shows theattempt to avoid political authority in theSocialist era, when the practices of LenDong were illegal. This is because the

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incorporation of Saint Tran gives legiti-macy and higher status to the MotherGoddess religion.

The author also suggests that thepopularity of the belief in supernaturalpower in Vietnam is linked to the rapidgrowth in the business and economicsector. More people in urban areas havebecome involved in spirit possessionrituals because of their exposure to ‘theuncertainty of the market economy’.Likewise, Nguyen Thi Hien’s article,“A Bit of Spirit Favor is Equal to a Loadof Mundane Gifts: Votive Paper Offer-ings of Len Dong Rituals in Post-Reno-vation Vietnam” observes that the prac-tices of Len Dong and the use of votivepaper offerings of Len Dong rituals inPost-Renovation continues to grow de-spite the government’s restrictions. Thisis because:

While the increase in ritual prac-tices may be in response to thestressful and difficult living con-ditions for many Vietnamese, aswell as their religiosity, somepeople have found a way out ofpoverty by building lucrativebusinesses that capitalize on thegrowing demand for votive paperofferings. (p. 127)

Nguyen Thi Hien not only gives aclear explanation as to why votive pa-per offerings have been an importantpart of the Len Dong rituals, but alsoraises an interesting question about re-ligion and business by giving a compari-son of two case studies: a female expe-rienced medium turned to business to

help her practice as a medium; whereasa fourth generation specialist of votivepaper offerings became a medium tosupport his business. A concern aboutmaterialism in Len Dong performancesand the tension between materialism andreligion are also found in Vietnamesecommunities in Silicon Valley, in theUnited States of America, where themediums are criticized for ‘buying andselling spirits’ [buon than ban thanh],as shown in Karen Fjelstad’s study,“We Have Len Dong Too: TransitionalAspects of Spirit Possession”.

A great contribution to this volumeis the cross-boundary study of Vietnam-ese popular beliefs. Two articles byKaren Fjelstad and Lisa Maiffret high-light the important role of Len Dongrituals and mediumship in the Vietnam-ese communities of Silicon Valley.There is a sense of nostalgia in the per-formances of Len Dong among overseasVietnamese:

The earliest arrivals to SiliconValley found emotional solace inpossession ceremonies that evokedmemories of Vietnam and a homethey had recently left. For laterarrivals, spirit possession ceremo-nies are important symbols of aculture and tradition they value andwant to keep alive. (p. 100)

Other articles in this volume alsopresent different aspects of the studyof Len Dong. For example, BarleyNorton’s article discusses how the ideaof gender and the construction of gen-der are reflected in chau van bands,

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performing for the Len Dong rituals, andthrough views concerning mediums.“Spirit Performance and the RitualConstruction of Personal Identity inModern Vietnam” by Kirsten W. Endresprovides interesting stories of mediums.The article, “Children of the Spirits,Followers of a Master: Spirit Mediumsin Post-Renovation Vietnam”, co-authored by Viveca Larsson and KirstenW. Endres, explores the relationshipbetween masters, mediums andfollowers in a temple community.

Laurel Kendall’s study, “Do the FourPalaces Inhabit an East Asia Land-scape?” ends this volume by summariz-ing what is discussed in previous chap-ters. The author also attempts to put theMother Goddess religion and Len Dongpossession rituals in the larger contextof East Asia, where Confucian influenceprevails.

Ethnographical reports and anecdotesfrom fieldwork are also a strong pointof this collection, because they providereaders with good first-hand informa-tion on practices. In sum, the scholar-ship of this book is admirable becauseit helps fill a gap in the studies of thereligious practices in Post-RenovationVietnam. It is also an invaluable addi-tion to the understanding of contempo-rary Vietnamese communities, bothinside and outside Vietnam.

Montira Rato

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Sadia N. Pekkanen and Kellee S. Tsai,eds, Japan and China in the World Po-litical Economy. London, Routledge,2005, pp.245.

This book analyses the experiencesin recent economic reform in Japan andChina in a comparative framework. Thefocus is given to structural reform sincethe bursting of the asset bubble inJapan, and to reform and opening upsince the late-1970s in China. While theliterature about these two reform poli-cies considered separately is abundant,it is quite rare for them to be taken up atthe same time in a comparative way. Inthis sense, this book can be viewed as apioneering achievement.

Over the past 15 years or so, Japanand China, which sharply contrast witheach other in stages of economic devel-opment and political systems, havefaced the common trend of so-calledglobalization and have struggled toadjust their economic systems to in-creasing pressure for world economicintegration. The basic idea of this bookis that under such circumstances theonce popular concept of the develop-mental state, which was conceptualizedby making post-war Japan and “newlyindustrializing economies” (NIEs) amodel, is not relevant any more whenconsidering the role of the state foreconomic development. Instead, thisbook commends the concept of the lateliberalizer as appropriate to describe therole of the state in the contemporaryworld political and economic situation.It is widely understood that the devel-

opmental state adopts state-centered orstate-dominated economic policies withvarious protection measures and incen-tives, and actively promotes infant in-dustries and exports. In contrast, theliberalizer in this book is thought to pur-sue the freeing-up of the domesticeconomy by adopting market-orientedpolicies in response to increasing pres-sure from globalization. The word “late”used above means that the countrystarted implementing market-orienteddomestic policies at a later historicaljuncture than others and is likely to facegreater international pressure to carryout liberalizing policies that maydestroy or significantly modify the oldeconomic system. Therefore, comparedto the developmental state, the lateliberalizer will more often encounterstrong resistance from vested interestgroups or from losers created by itspolicies. Battles between pro- andanti-liberalization forces characterizethe policy process in the era of liberal-ization.

There are two viewpoints emphasizedthroughout this book. One is how therole of a state has shifted from the de-velopmental state to the liberalizingstate, and the other is on the latestsituation in the battle between pro- andanti-liberalization forces in each coun-try. Although China deviates from thedevelopmental state model in many re-spects, the description of how Chinadeviates from such a model helps thereader to understand the characteristicsof Chinese policy-making institutionsand policy. This book’s approach makes

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the comparative policy analysis of twodistinctively different countries interest-ing and its contents rich.

Five key areas, i.e. development,trade, investment, finance and technol-ogy, are considered separately by spe-cialists for each country. Two articles inthe development section give a generaloverview of economic development af-ter the war in Japan and China, respec-tively. By helping the reader to under-stand difficulties encountered by policymakers in the transition from develop-mental state to liberalizer, this sectionserves as a good guide for the follow-ing sections. The author of the Japanesepart of the development section, T. J.Pempel, writes:

...instruments and characteristicscritical to success at one point intime might themselves becomeimpediments to continued growthonce initial development goals hadbeen achieved. It is this difficultyof adaptation that continues tohamper the political and economicreorientation of Japan to a worldin which economic liberalizationhas become the predominantparadigm. (p. 42)

This is exactly the point which theproponents of structural reform in Ja-pan have repeatedly emphasized duringthe long stagnation after the bursting ofthe economic bubble. This type of his-torical dynamism in the policy-makingprocess also exists in China and isdescribed in the Chinese part.

The four sections which followanalyze areas of specific development,with trade and investment sectionsexplicitly dealing with internationalpressure to liberalize and domesticresponses to it. As the form or strengthof resistance against liberalization is notnecessarily the same and sometimesquite different according to area, thestructure of this book seems appropri-ate to clarify the factors which havecontributed to the acceleration of liber-alization and the factors which haveobstructed it. With findings in each areabeing integrated by the editors to drawoverall lessons and implications, read-ers are able to obtain both the overallpicture and area-specific details aboutthe processes of recent liberalization inthe two countries.

Looking back at the post-war eco-nomic development of Japan and China,economic relations between the twowere negligible, even though both coun-tries were geographically close, andeach traced a distinctly different devel-opment path up until the end of the1970s. It is since the early 1990s, whenthe two governments further strength-ened market liberalization efforts, thateconomic relations between the twohave deepened significantly. At thattime, Japan experienced an unprec-edented sharp appreciation of the yenagainst the dollar, accompanied by alarge-scale shift in production overseas,which in turn led to increased efforts instructural reform by the government. Atthe same time, the Chinese governmentaccelerated reform and the opening-up

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process under a new slogan, the “social-ist market economy”. As economicconditions were strongly complemen-tary to each other, the acceleration ofliberalization policies in the two coun-tries led to a significant deepening ofthe economic relationship betweenthem. In this, the two governmentsvigorously acted as liberalizers from theearly 1990s, resulting in new economicopportunities for both countries in amutually beneficial way.

At present, the economic integrationof East Asia is proceeding spontane-ously and both countries are trying totake a leading role in this integrationprocess. Ideas for more formal integra-tion, such as the “East Asian Commu-nity”, are surfacing. In such a situation,the future directions of both countrieswill be of great concern for manypeople, because they will have a signifi-cant influence on the process and theway in which East Asian economic in-tegration will be formulated. Will thetwo countries which dominate EastAsian economies by their size continueto advance in the direction of liberal-ization? Or is it more likely for them toencounter a backlash against liberaliza-tion? This book seems to reserve an-swers to these questions and cautionsagainst the simplistic idea that the poli-cies of the two countries will advancestraightforwardly in the direction ofliberalization. In addition to the uncer-tainty stemming from the dynamism ofthe process of policy formation onwhich this book lays great emphasis, thefollowing viewpoints or findings by the

authors and editors of this book seem tocontribute to cautious reservations aboutthe future: firstly, the Japanese govern-ment still seems to retain the attitude ofa developmental state, and has not em-braced wholeheartedly all the liberaliza-tion measures in the past; and secondly,in China, because of growing internaldifficulties, such as an increasinginequality in income distribution as aresult of economic liberalization andrapid growth, there exists a not negli-gible risk with respect to the acceptabil-ity of a policy of liberalization in thefuture.

Globalization is likely to continue andpressure to make economies moreconsistent with so-called global stan-dards will increase. But, as this bookemphasizes, there still exists manyforms of resistance to further liberaliza-tion. The case of the liberalization of thepostal services in Japan exemplifies thispoint. In Japan, prime minister Koizumistruggled hard to overcome resistanceto his agenda of structural reform, evenwithin the ruling Liberal DemocraticParty (LDP). In the case of theprivatization of the postal services, whenstrong resistance within the LDP led tothe rejection of draft privatization lawin the Diet, Koizumi purged opponentsin the LPD, dismissed the lower houseof the Diet and called a general elec-tion. He won the election and the postalservices privatization law was enacted.This occurred in 2005, four years afterhe began his campaign for this reform.If Prime Minister Koizumi had been de-feated in that election, the privati-zation

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of the postal services wouldhave been postponed indefinitely. Dra-mas of this kind have happened in thepast and will be repeated in the future.The situation in China will be more orless the same, in that there have beenbattles between pro- and anti-market-oriented policy groups within the Com-munist Party, which will also be re-peated. Therefore, to talk about futurepolicy formation requires careful inves-tigation of the balance of power betweenrelated groups even within the rulingparties and the government. The authorsand editors of this book are quite awareof this point. This book certainly helpsreaders deepen their understandingabout policy formation in the two coun-tries, and also provides a useful frame-work for considering developmentpolicy in general.

Shunichiro Ushijima

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309Journal of the Siam Society 2006 Vol. 94

BOOKS RECEIVED FOR REVIEW

Bressan, Luigi, and Michael Smithies,Thai-Vatican Relations in theTwentieth Century. Bangkok,Apostolic Nunciature, 2006.

Cunin, Olivier, The Face Towers ofBanteay Chmar. Tokyo, GotoShoin Publishing, 2005.

Dijk, Wil O., Seventeenth centuryBurma and the Dutch East IndiaCompany 1634–1680. Singapore,Singapore University Press, 2006.

Douaire-Marsaudon, F., B. Sellato, andC. Zheng, Dynamiques identitairesen Asie et dans le Pacifique, 2 vols.Aix, University of Provence, 2006.

Hasan, Noorhaidi, Laskar Jihad. Islam,Militancy, and the Quest for Iden-tity in Post-New Order Indonesia.Ithaca, NY, Cornell UniversityPress, 2006.

Loos, Tamara, Subject Siam: Family,Law and Colonial Modernity inThailand. Chiang Mai, SilkwormBooks, 2006.

Marcinkowski, M. Ismail, From Isfahanto Ayutthaya: Contacts betweenIran and Siam in the 17th century.Singapore, Pustaka Nasional,2005.

McCargo, Duncan, ed., RethinkingThailand’s Southern Violence.Singapore, National University ofSingapore Press, 2006.

van Oenen, Johan, Thai Ceramic Art:The Three Religions. Singapore,Sun Tree Publishing, 2006.

Pompe, Sebastian, The Indonesian Su-preme Court: A Study of Institu-tional Collapse. Ithaca NY, CornellUniversity Press, 2005.

Thiounn, Okna Veang, tr. Olivier deBernon, Voyage du Roi Sisowathen France. Paris, Mercure deFrance, 2006.

Vatthana Polsena, Post-War Laos: ThePolitics of Culture, History andIdentity. Singapore, Institute ofSouth-East Asian Studies, 2006.

Vatthana Polsena and Ruth Banomyong,Laos, from Buffer State to Cross-roads? Chiang Mai, Mekong Press,2006.

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REVIEWS - Siam Society

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