Suchergebnisse

A review essay on books by (1) Raj Chandavarkar, The Origins of Industrial Capitalism in India: Business Strategies and the Working Classes in Bombay, 1900-1940 (Cambridge: Cambridge U Press, 1994); (2) Ian Kerr, Building the Railways of the Raj (Delhi: Oxford U Press, 1995); (3) Dilip Simeon, The Politics of Labour under Late Colonialism: Workers, Unions and the State in Chota Nagpur, 1928-1939 (Delhi: Manohar, 1995); (4) Raj Chandavarkar, Imperial Power and Popular Politics: Class, Resistance and the State in India, c. 1850-1950 (Cambridge: Cambridge U Press, 1998); (5) Janaki Nair, Miners and Millhands: Work, Culture and Politics in Princely Mysore (New Delhi: Sage, 1998); & (6) Chitra Joshi, Lost Worlds: Indian Labour and Its Forgotten Histories (Delhi: Permanent Black, 2003).

While following the probes of foreign individuals into various obscure parts of Southeast Asia over the centuries is a diverting and entertaining pastime, the purpose of this volume is to investigate this past with the mind, to question and postulate upon the historical patterns that have developed from earlier study of the area, and to bring concepts from other areas and disciplines to bear on the existing information. The product of this effort, as it is encompassed in this volume, is not an attempt at the definitive study of any of the topics. It is rather a series of speculations on the directions feasible for the further study of the Southeast Asian past. As such, the answers proposed in these essays are really questions. Are the ideas presented here true within the specific historical contexts for which they have been developed? If so, can we use these ideas, or variations of them, to interpret the history of other parts of Southeast Asia? If not, what other ideas may be brought to bear on these situations in order to understand them? The ultimate aim of this volume is thus a challenge to the profession at large not only to criticize what we have done, but also to go beyond our postulations and create new ones. [xi]

Suzanne Moon (2023), Technology in Southeast Asian History. Johns Hopkins University Press, 208 pp., $39.95 (Paperback), $39.95 (e-book), ISBN: 9781421446912.

Let me start these notes with two caveats. First, apart from the many un-published sources on the Iberian involvement in Asia there is also a great number of published sources available. This is in itself a considerable repository of knowledge on Asia. Most of these source publications, though, have appeared in journals that are often riot available outside the Iberian peninsula. Though H. Scholberg, Bibliography of Goa and the Portuguese in India (New Delhi 1982) provides a considerable service to the researcher, a bibliography of Portuguese source-publications is still in urgent need. Second, I should emphasize that for this report I have not been able to look at the Spanish records on the Philippines.