The Malays / Edition 1

by Anthony Milner

Overview

Just who are ‘the Malays’? This provocative study poses the question and considers how and why the answers have changed over time, and from one region to another. Anthony Milner develops a sustained argument about ethnicity and identity in an historical, ‘Malay’ context. The Malays is a comprehensive examination of the origins and development of Malay identity, ethnicity, and consciousness over the past five centuries.

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• Covers the political, economic, and cultural development of the Malays
  
• Explores the Malay presence in Brunei, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, and South Africa, as well as the modern Malay show-state of Malaysia
  
• Offers diplomatic speculation about ways Malay ethnicity will develop and be challenged in the future

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781444339031
Publisher:	Wiley
Publication date:	10/25/2010
Series:	The Peoples of South-East Asia and the Pacific , #5
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Anthony Milner is Basham Professor of Asian History at the Australian National University, and was Visiting Professor at The Research Institute for the Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa (Tokyo) in 2007. He has also held appointments as Raffles Visiting Professor of History at the National University of Singapore and Visitor at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. His writings on 'the Malays' include The Invention of Politics in Colonial Malaya (1995, 2002), and Kerajaan: Malay Political Culture on the Eve of Colonial Rule (1982). He is a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia.

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Table of Contents

List of Figures viii

List of Maps ix

Preface and Acknowledgements x

Note about the Author xiv

1 Thinking about ‘the Malays’ and ‘Malayness’ 1

2 Early Histories: Engaging India and Islam 18

3 The Sultanates 47

4 A ‘Malay’ or Kerajaan World? 75

5 Experiencing Colonialism, and the Making of the Bangsa Melayu 103

6 Building ‘Malays’ into Nation States 145

7 Multiple Forms of ‘Malayness’ 186

8 Ethnicity, Civilization and the Fear of ‘Disappearing from this World’ 229

Bibliography 243

Index 275

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"The Malays is a must read book for those interested not only on the ethnic Malays in Southeast Asia but also in the broader field of identity study in the social sciences."
–Shamsul A.B., Institute of Ethnic Studies, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia

"The Malays is an important contribution to the literature on the varied and changing meanings of what it is to be Malay by one of the most eminent historians of the peoples on insular and peninsular Southeast Asia. This book provides an interesting case study of the way in which group identities are 'constructed' and reconstructed in particular social and political contexts. Broad ranging in both his temporal and geographical scope and meticulously scholarly in his presentation of evidence, Milner produces fresh insights into the history and possible future of the Malays."
–Joel S. Kahn, La Trobe University, Australia