History, Culture, and Region in Southeast Asian Perspectives

Oliver W. Wolters

A study of regional history based on culture and intra-regional relationships, this collection of essays marks a difference in approach and focus on the part of the author himself, who explores questions of historiography (his lengthy postscripts give extensive commentary on the 1982 edition). Arguing for the need for interdisciplinary studies in Southeast Asian Studies, as well as for the necessity of history to establish a basis for such study, Wolters focuses upon classical Southeast Asia (whereas almost all other historical studies focus on modern or contemporary Southeast Asia). He explores ideas of geography, gender, kinship, religion (Hinduism, Buddhism), literature, and past European perspectives on the region.
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Many Ways of Being Muslim: Fiction by Muslim Filipinos

Coeli Barry, ed.

This landmark collection brings together a range of short fiction written by Muslim Filipinos over nearly seven decades, beginning in the 1940s. As these stories reflect, Muslims in the predominantly Catholic Philippines have helped define the contemporary Filipino identity and intellectual life in rich and varied ways.
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Thailand: The Politics of Despotic Paternalism, Revised Edition

Thak CHALOEMTIARANA

In 1958, Marshal Sarit Thanarat became prime minister of Thailand following a bloodless coup. This book offers a comprehensive study of Sarit's paternalistic, militaristic regime, which laid the foundations for Thailand's support of the US military campaign in Southeast Asia. The analysis documents the ways in which Sarit shaped modern Thai politics, in part by rationalizing a symbiotic relationship between his own office and the Thai monarchy. This book was awarded the first Ohira Prize (Japan) in 1985 and translated into Japanese by Professor Tamada of Kyoto University in 1989.
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Views of Seventeenth-Century Vietnam: Christoforo Borri on Cochinchina and Samuel Baron on Tonkin

Olga DROR and K. W. TAYLOR (introduced & annotated)

This volume introduces two of the earliest writings about Vietnam to appear in the English language. The reports come from narrators with different interests who are viewing different parts of Vietnam at an early stage of European involvement in the region.
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