AltaMira Press
Pages: 336
•
Trim: 6⅜ x 9⅜
978-0-7591-1862-1 • Hardback • January 2011 • $160.00 • (£123.00)
978-0-7591-1863-8 • Paperback • January 2011 • $65.00 • (£50.00)
978-0-7591-1864-5 • eBook • January 2010 • $61.50 • (£47.00)
Robert L. Winzeler is professor of anthropology emeritus at the University of Nevada, Reno.
Chapter 1. Introduction
Chapter 2. Prehistory and Languages
Chapter 3. Early States, Prehistory, and Colonialism
Chapter 4. Ethnic Complexity in Modern Southeast Asia
Chapter 5. Hunter-Gatherers, Real and Imagined
Chapter 6. Swidden Farmers
Chapter 7. Peasant Farmers and their Transformations
Chapter 8. Indigenous Religions
Chapter 9. Religion, Society, and the State
Chapter 10. Religious Conversion on the Ethnic Margins
Chapter 11. Tourism and Local Peoples
Chapter 12. Development for Better or Worse
Chapter 13 Bibliography
Robert Winzeler has written a balanced, intelligent, and refreshing book on the anthropology of Southeast Asia. The sensitivity shown on minority issues and non-urban populations is laudable.
— Jean Michaud, Université Laval
Southeast Asia is a remarkably diverse region: geographically, of mountains and lowlands, coasts and interior; ecologically, of hunters/gatherers, swidden cultivators, agriculturalists, and city dwellers; religiously, of multiple indigenous practices coexisting with the world's largest formal religions--Buddhism, Christianity (both Catholic and Protestant), Islam, and Hinduism. Winzeler (emer., anthropology, Univ. of Nevada, Reno) captures all of this in his remarkably inclusive book, a rare and very useful attempt to encompass the complete region, both the northern mainland and the southern islands. He succeeds by simultaneously sketching the region and the anthropological efforts to understand it, alternating broad-brush generalization with focused case example. This is a book, then, that is valuable as a resource both on the region and on how people have tried to understand it. Although the book as a whole is an essential reference, the three chapters that outline the range of religious beliefs and practices (including the difficult subject of conversion) deserve particular note for their insight and balance. Winzeler also provides a thoughtful review, pro and con, of tourism.
— Choice Reviews
• Winner, CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title (CHOICE, 2011)