Overwhelming Terror: Love, Fear, Peace, and Violence among Semai of Malaysia

by Robert Knox Dentan

Overview

This powerful ethnography of a people believed to be the least violent in the world explores how they maintain peaceful relations even under the most dire circumstances. Robert Knox Dentan, the world's foremost scholar of Semai, brings its members vividly to life. His book includes translations of their poetry, dramatized accounts of particular events, and extensive quotations from a wide range of individuals. In a clear, gripping, sometimes novelistic style, Dentan introduces the reader to tortured Nakhoda; beautiful, stubborn Kliy; witty, ironic Grcaangsmother; doomed Rmpent; brutal, alienated Juni; and other memorable Semai.

The book opens with the horrific circumstances that the author argues gave rise to Semai peaceability, continues by illuminating their adaptation to those circumstances, and closes by sketching the eventual decline of that adaptation under the pressures of globalization. Unlike many behavioral scientists, Dentan argues that the Semai approach to conflict is a successful Darwinian adaptation. A recurring theme is the importance of psychological "surrender" to maintaining this adaptation. Throughout, the author highlights the mechanisms and costs of peace, underscoring their relevance to everyday life in all societies. Students and scholars of peace studies, conflict resolution, ethnography, and Southeast Asia will find this unique work an invaluable and compelling study.

Coda to Chapter 6: "'Surrender,' Peacekeeping, and Internal Colonialism: A Neglected Episode in Malaysian History," by Juli Edo, Anthony Williams-Hunt, and Robert Knox Dentan (PDF)

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780742553309
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	12/16/2008
Series:	War and Peace Library
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	292
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Robert Knox Dentan is professor emeritus of anthropology at State University of New York at Buffalo.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Writing Someone Else's Life Chapter 1: Spotted Doves at War: The Praak Sangkiil Chapter 2: Regrettable Undertakings: A Dirty Joke, a War, a Vacancy Chapter 3: Responding to Terror: Intellectually, Emotionally, Spiritually Chapter 4: Transforming Demons by Love and Surrender Chapter 5: Ceremonies of Innocence and "Positive" Peace Chapter 6: Freedom: Just Say "No" Chapter 7: For Fear of Finding Something Worse: Raising Kids Chapter 8: Juni Gone Astray Chapter 9: Inconclusion

Editorial Reviews

Overwhelming Terror, the product of four decades of research among Semai, demonstrates that Semai ways of life are not something rare and strange, but a continuation of the ways of successful ancient egalitarian societies. Robert Knox Dentan, applying lessons learned among Semai to contemporary American problems, succeeds admirably in a way that makes one proud to be an anthropologist.

Carol Laderman

Dentan notes that '[e]thnographies are mountains and endure, theories are mayflies and don’t.'. .. Anyone, irrespective of discipline or area of specialization, who traverses this mountain will gain intellectually. Its methodology is refreshingly experimental and its theoretical orientation eclectic. The arguments presented are persuasive and compelling. The moral lessons conveyed in this elegantly and eloquently expressed ethnography are insightful, pertinent, and significant, particularly for those living in a world in which terror and violence prevail.

Journal of Asian Studies

Overwhelming Terror, the product of four decades of research among Semai, demonstrates that Semai ways of life are not something rare and strange, but a continuation of the ways of successful ancient egalitarian societies. Robert Knox Dentan, applying lessons learned among Semai to contemporary American problems, succeeds admirably in a way that makes one proud to be an anthropologist.--Carol Laderman, City College-CUNY

Dentan notes that '[e]thnographies are mountains and endure, theories are mayflies and don't.' . . . Anyone, irrespective of discipline or area of specialization, who traverses this mountain will gain intellectually. Its methodology is refreshingly experimental and its theoretical orientation eclectic. The arguments presented are persuasive and compelling. The moral lessons conveyed in this elegantly and eloquently expressed ethnography are insightful, pertinent, and significant, particularly for those living in a world in which terror and violence prevail.--Journal of Asian Studies

From the Publisher

Dentan notes that '[e]thnographies are mountains and endure, theories are mayflies and don’t.' . . . Anyone, irrespective of discipline or area of specialization, who traverses this mountain will gain intellectually. Its methodology is refreshingly experimental and its theoretical orientation eclectic. The arguments presented are persuasive and compelling. The moral lessons conveyed in this elegantly and eloquently expressed ethnography are insightful, pertinent, and significant, particularly for those living in a world in which terror and violence prevail.

Journal Of Asian Studies