Gamelan is the first study of the music of Java and the development of the gamelan to take into account extensive historical sources and contemporary cultural theory and criticism. An ensemble dominated by bronze percussion instruments that dates back to the twelfth century in Java, the gamelan as a musical organization and a genre of performance reflects a cultural heritage that is the product of centuries of interaction between Hindu, Islamic, European, Chinese, and Malay cultural forces. Drawing on sources ranging from a twelfth-century royal poem to the writing of a twentieth-century nationalist, Sumarsam shows how the Indian-inspired contexts and ideology of the Javanese performing arts were first adjusted to the Sufi tradition and later shaped by European performance styles in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. He then turns to accounts of gamelan theory and practice from the colonial and postcolonial periods. Finally, he presents his own theory of gamelan, stressing the relationship between purely vocal melodies and classical gamelan composition.

The humble soybean is the world’s most widely grown and most traded oilseed. And though found in everything from veggie burgers to cosmetics, breakfast cereals to plastics, soy is also a poorly understood crop often viewed in extreme terms—either as a superfood or a deadly poison. In this illuminating book, Christine M. Du Bois reveals soy’s hugely significant role in human history as she traces the story of soy from its domestication in ancient Asia to the promise and peril ascribed to it in the twenty-first century. Traveling across the globe and through millennia, The Story of Soy includes a cast of fascinating characters as vast as the soy fields themselves—entities who’ve applauded, experimented with, or despised soy. From Neolithic villagers to Buddhist missionaries, European colonialists, Japanese soldiers, and Nazi strategists; from George Washington Carver to Henry Ford, Monsanto, and Greenpeace; from landless peasants to petroleum refiners, Du Bois explores soy subjects as diverse as its impact on international conflicts, its role in large-scale meat production and disaster relief, its troubling ecological impacts, and the nutritional controversies swirling around soy today. She also describes its genetic modification, the scandals and pirates involved in the international trade in soybeans, and the potential of soy as an intriguing renewable fuel. Featuring compelling historical and contemporary photographs, The Story of Soy is a potent reminder never to underestimate the importance of even the most unprepossesing sprout.

Farish A. Noor might just be Malaysia's hippest intellectual. His gifts are on full display in these expanded versions of public lectures that he delivered at The Annexe Gallery, Central Market Kuala Lumpur in 2008 and 2009. Find out how 'racial difference' became such a big deal in Malaysia, and contrast this against the way our distant ancestors lived. Discover the hidden stories of the keris, Hang Tuah and PAS. There's also quite a bit of sex. Erudite, impassioned and sometimes plain naughty, What Your Teacher Didn't Tell You is a stimulating plunge into aspects of our past that have been kept from us. There's even a bonus chapter! Illustrated with dozens of sepia-toned photographs, many from the author's collection of antiques.

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The world's most comprehensive, well documented and well illustrated book on this subject. With extensive subject and geographical index. 363 photographs and illustrations - many in color. Free of charge in digital PDF format.

Indonesian jamu—part of an integrated system of inner and outer health and beauty, encompassing powders, pills, ointments, lotions, massage and ancient folklore—is unknown to most Westerners. How, when, where and why were these treatments developed? And, what is so special about them? Through the pages of this book you’ll learn about the closed world of ancient Javanese palaces where Indonesian jamu was perfected. You meet the healers and jamu makers whose skills have been passed from generation to generation and learn about their cures. Advice is offered on where to find these age-old remedies, including formulae that can be made safely at home. The information here is for people who wish to find out more about Indonesian health and beauty, draw their own conclusions and even try jamu for themselves. An integrated system of inner and outer health and beauty, Indonesian jamu has a 1,200-year-old history, yet little is known about it outside this diverse island nation. The first book to comprehensively explore the background, materials and application of this holistic approach, Jamu: The Ancient Indonesian Art of Herbal Healing is the culmination of ten years of research and more than 100 interviews with practitioners and producers—from housewives in kitchen apothecaries to CEOs of multinational corporations. Its publication coincides with the increasing availability in the West of modern preparations of these time-honored herbal remedies. [Encompassing medicine, massage, cosmetics and folklore, jamu is as applicable to today’s lifestyles as it was in the rarefied world of the ancient Javanese palaces where it was perfected.] Complemented by explanatory photographs shot on location, Jamu is the first definitive reference to this exotic yet practical healthcare system.

Covers Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar (formerly Burma), Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Vietnam.

Javanese literature is one of the world’s richest and most unusual literary traditions yet it is little known today outside of Java, Indonesia, and a handful of western universities. With its more than a millennium of documented history, its complex interactions over the centuries with literature written in Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian, Malay and Dutch, its often symbiotic relationship with the performing arts of puppetry and dance, and its own immense creativity and insight, this vastly understudied literature offers a lens to understanding Java’s fascinating world as well as human ingenuity more broadly. The essays in this volume, Storied Island: New Explorations in Javanese Literature, take a fresh look at questions and themes pertaining to Java’s literature, employing new theoretical and methodological lenses.