Book Reviews -Greg Bankoff, Alfred W. McCoy, Lives at the margin; Biography of Filipinos obscure, ordinary and heroic. Madison, Wisconsin: Center for Southeast Asian Studies, University of Wisconsin- Madion, v + 481 pp. -Greg Bankoff, Clive J. Christie, Ideology and revolution in Southeast Asia 1900-1980; Political ideas of the anti-colonial era. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, xi + 236 pp. -René van den Berg, Videa P. de Guzman ,Grammatical analysis; Morphology, syntax, and semantics; Studies in honor of Stanley Starosta. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, xv + 298 pp. [Oceanic Linguistics Special Publication 29.], Byron W. Bender (eds) -Wayne A. Bougas, Daniel Perret ,Batu Aceh; Warisan sejarah Johor. Kuala Lumpour: École francaise d'Extrême Orient, Johor Baru: Yayasan Warisan Johor, xxxviii + 510 pp., Kamarudin Ab. Razak (eds) -Freek Colombijn, Benedict R. O.G. Anderson, Violence and the state in Suharto's Indonesia. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University, Southeast Asia Program, 247 pp. [Studies on Southeast Asia 30.] -Harold Crouch, Stefan Eklöf, Indonesian politics in crisis; The long fall of Suharto, 1996-98. Copenhagen: Nodic Institute of Asian Studies, 1999, xi + 272 pp. [NIAS Studies in Contemporary Asia 1.] -John Gullick, Kumar Ramakrishna, Emergency propaganda; The winning of Malayan hearts and minds 1948-1958. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon, 2002, xii + 306 pp. -Han Bing Siong, Daniel S. Lev, Legal evolution and political authority in Indonesia; Selected essays. The Hague: Kluwer Law International, 2000, 349 pp., The Hague, London, Boston: Kluwer International. -David Henley, Laura Lee Junker, Raiding, trading, and feasting; The political economy of Philippine chiefdoms. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1999, ix + 477 pp. -R.D. Hill, Jonathan Rigg, Southeast Asia; The human landscape of modernization and development. London: Routledge, 1997, xxv + 326 pp. -Adrian Horridge, Gene Ammarell, Bugis navigation. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, xiv + 299 pp. [Yale Southeast Asia studies monograph 48.] 1999 -Bernice de Jong Boers, Peter Just, Dou Donggo justice; Conflict and morality in an Indonesian society. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, 2001, xi + 263 pp. -Nico J.G. Kaptein, Howard M. Federspiel, Islam and ideology in the emerging Indonesian state; The Persatuan Islam (PERSIS), 1923 to 1957. Leiden: Brill, 2001, xii + 365 pp. -Gerrit Knaap, Els M. Jacobs, Koopman in Azië; De handel van de Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie tijdens de 18de eeuw. Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 2000, 304 pp. -Toon van Meijl, Bruce M. Knauft, From primitive to postcolonial in Melanesia and anthropology. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999, x + 320 pp. -Jennifer Nourse, Juliette Koning ,Women and households in Indonesia; Cultural notions and social practices. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon, 2000, xiii + 354 pp., Marleen Nolten, Janet Rodenburg (eds) -Sandra Pannell, Clayton Fredericksen ,Altered states; Material culture transformations in the Arafura region. Darwin: Northern Territory University Press, 2001, xiv + 160 pp., Ian Walters (eds) -Anne Sofie Roald, Alijah Gordon, The propagation of Islam in the Indonesian-Malay archipelago. Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian sociological research institute, 2001, xxv + 472 pp. -M.J.C. Schouten, Mary Taylor Huber ,Gendered missions; Women and men in missionary discourse and practice. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1999, x + 252 pp., Nancy C. Lutkehaus (eds) -Karel Steenbrink, Nakamura Mitsuo ,Islam and civil society in Southeast Asia. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian studies, 2001, 211 pp., Sharon Siddique, Omar Farouk Bajunid (eds) -Heather Sutherland, Robert Cribb, Historical atlas of Indonesia, Richmond, Surrey: Curzon, 2000, x + 256 pp. -Sikko Visscher, Lee Kam Hing ,The Chinese in Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 2000, xxix + 418 pp., Tan Chee-Beng (eds) -Edwin Wieringa, Jane Drakard, A kingdom of words; Language and power in Sumatra. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1999, xxi + 322 pp. In: Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 158 (2002), no: 2, Leiden, 305-363 This PDF-file was downloaded from http://www.kitlv-journals.nl Book Reviews Alfred W. McCoy (ed.), 2000, Lives at the margin; Biography of Filipinos obscure, ordinary, and heroic. Madison, Wisconsin: Center for Southeast Asian Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, v + 481 pp. ISBN 1.881261.26.3, price USD 24.95 (paperback); 1.881261.27.1, USD 49.95 (hardback). GREG BANKOFF Biography has generally received a poor press in academie circles over recent decades. With a few notable exceptions in the realm of European Studies, its usefulness as a serious genre has been limited and its historiographical con- tribution tinged with conservatism and tainted by elitism. The situation is even direr in many non-Western nations where the state is often the prime actor' in sanctioning the life-stories of individuals it regards as prominent in the construction of an official history while relegating most others to the oblivion of an unrecorded past. All the more reason, then, to congratulate Al McCoy and the other authors of Lives at the margin; Biography of Filipinos obscure, ordinary, and heroic for 'stepping outside the dominant paradigm' and producing a book about the Philippines that is as much an important contri- bution to our understanding of that society as it is an innovative work of his- tory as it is simply a splendid read. In many respects, the present study forms a companion volume to another book recently edited by McCoy, An anarchy of families; Filipino elites and the Philippine state (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1994), in that both books approach the past from what can now only be seen as alternative units of analysis - the individual and the family - to the ones usually pursued by scholars in an age that has a predilection towards gender, ethnie or conviction. Not that these essays ignore such important criteria; on the contrary the lives selected constitute a skilful balance between men and women, Christian and Muslim, Luzon and the other islands, revolutionaries and the establish- ment. What links these figures together is not their prominence so much as their relative obscurity, certainly in relation to the present. The subjects of these biographies are people 'who have emerged from the social and geo- graphical margins of Philippine society to mobilize [...] a mass following' but 'with few exceptions, they failed in their challenges to the social order and ended their careers marginalized, impoverished, imprisoned, or dead' (p. 2). 306 Book Reviews Thus strongmen (John Sidel, Patricio Abinales, Al McCoy), rebels (Vina Lanzona, Brian Fegan, Rosanne Rutten) and visionaries (Michael Cullinane and Benedict Kerkvliet) fill these pages with the accounts of their failures as judged by the standards of posterity. Even where a life achievement seems cröwned by success, as in the case of the beatification of Pedro Calungsod (Resil Mojares), its realization has much less to do with personal accomplish- ments than with the global politics of a Roman Catholic Church bent on a programme of wider cultural representation. This panorama of lesser-known actors is held together by the editor's masterful review of the role of bio- graphy in Philippine scholarship as a form of heroic acclamation, popularist genre and subaltern study. While the biographies included here were selected on the basis of a panel presented at the Association of Asian Studies Conference in 1995 and offer a comprehensive and coherent alternative picture of Filipino society in the modern period, they are unfortunately remarkably silent about earlier times. It is, of course, much more difficult to attempt such detailed reconstructions of the lives of the not so well known in earlier centuries but just as important to attempt to do so. The past, especially the colonial past, is perhaps the greatest obscurer and marginalizer of. all time. As it is, there is only one pre- revolutionary figure in the entire collection, something that might have been remedied by soliciting specific contributions. Then there is the whole ques- tion of subaltern studies, the methodological paradigm that directly or indi- rectly informs the whole book. While it certainly wraps less prominent fig- ures in a mantle of historiographical respectability, the concept's usefulness is perhaps increasingly marred by its continuing implication of subordina- tion. This may simply be stating the obvious but it seems to me that what we, as historians, are trying to say is that these people are also important but not in the same way or according to the same standards. They are not so much subordinate as different and we should not pre-judge the impact of their lives in terms of national history. Otherwise all we are doing is simply elevating the nation to be the benchmark of historical significance. All this has little to do with the quality of the essays presented here, how- ever. With few exceptions, these biographies are some of the most thoroughly researched and well-crafted portrayals of the human condition I have seen. Lives at the margin is the best work of history I have read so far this year. Clive J. Christie, 2001, Ideology and revolution in Southeast Asia 1900- 1980; Political ideas of the anti-colonial era. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, xi + 236 pp. ISBN 0.7007.1308.5. Price: GBP 45 (hardback). GREG BANKOFF Book Reviews 307 The historiography of Southeast Asia suffers from a real lack of comparative studies that go beyond mere narration to examine the region from a more thematic perspective. Nowhere is this deficiency more evident than in the matter of ideology. So Clive Christie's historical survey of the various polit- ical ideas shaping the nationalist movements between 1900 and 1980 comes as a most welcome addition to the literature on the region for such an import- ant and formative period. Based on an analysis of contemporary texts and documents, he explores the ideological perspectives of the principal particip- ants engaged in the anti-colonial struggles and yet still manages to provide a broad account of the actual processes of decolonization. As such, then, this book constitutes a very useful text: one that informs the general reader as well as one that proves valuable to the specialist, particularly as a resource for those teaching in the field. But it is precisely here, too, where the root causes of the study's manifold strengths and conceptual weaknesses lie. The sheer scope of this work is truly impressive both in terms of dealing systematically with the varied political discourses that arose in each nation (including a final chapter on East Timor) and in tracing their sequential developments over the period of transition from colonial state to independ- ent nation. Given what Christie calls the 'anti-colonial world view' that came to dominate Southeast Asian political thinking in the twentieth century, he proposes a more accurate periodization that distinguishes between colonial (up to 1945) and anti-colonial- (post-1945) rather than the Standard colonial and post-colonial categorizations in gerieral use. Moreover, he concludes that the ideological debates of the region's intellectuals, writers and political leaders share a 'remarkable similarity' in their response to the successive existence, challenge and removal of Western dominance. Of course, the ambi- tiousness of the project confines discussion by necessity to only those ideas expressed by the principal contending nationalist figures who played active roles in laying the constitutional and ideological foundations of their new states. Still the sweep of the ideological focus is wide, encompassing, on the one hand, the to-be-expected impact of Western Europe, Russia and China and, on the other, the more surprising influence of Rabindranath Tagore in India and Amilcar Cabral in Guinea-Bissau. The book is particularly strong in the fluency with which it explains how the variants of Marxist-Leninist theory and the contributions of Mao Tse-tung were interpreted and adapted to conditions within Southeast Asia. It is also this very versatility, however, that lies at the heart of some of the study's unavoidable weaknesses. Confining the discussion of ideology to simply the core texts of the main political actors creates a somewhat mono- lithic and rather elitist feel to the whole book. There is no space given to alternate less hegemonie discourses such as those that may have prevailed among ethnic, religious or cultural minorities, nor sense of how any of these 308 Book Reviews ideas were received and understood at the grass-roots level. Moreover, there is little recognition of capitalism as a revolutionary ideology or as an ideo- logy at all. While Christie makes a clear distinction between the 'revolution- ary nationalism' of Vietnam, Burma and Indonesia and the 'anti-revolution- ary nationalism' of the Philippines, Malaysia, Laos and Cambodia where independence was achieved primarily through negotiation, capitalism seems to be reduced to a question of mere technological transfer. And how much political space was there for the ideologies of the right - or are these not con- sidered as revolutionary? How important was the impact of Fascism, espe- cially on Thai national philosophy after 1938, and militarism in the post-inde- pendence period? In particular, what ideological model did Japan inspire in the region prior to the Pacific War given its associations with the earliest of revolutionary nationalist movements in the Philippines? Consideration of this last point also raises the question of a much less understandable omis- sion. Most of the previous criticisms can be excused, to a greater or lesser extent, as due to limitations of space. But the book's periodization, that com- mences in 1900 and so excludes consideration of the Philippine Revolution of 1896-1898, appears completely arbitrary. There is no apparent pedagogical reason for this oversight, especially as the author himself admits to the 'insightful' nature of José Rizal's writings (p. 7). Or perhaps the Filipino ex- perience does not fit neatly enough into the Marxist-Leninist structure that Christie mainly employs to frame his study, and falls instead into the cat- egory of an 'alternate' ideological tradition? Ideology and revolution in Southeast Asia 1900-1980 must have been an immensely difficult book to write and is certainly one that rewards careful reading. It is above all a very useful book to have in one's library. Christie is able to give shape and form to the ideological discourse of a very diverse region at a time of transition and change that will prove helpful to scholar and student alike. If there is just a lingering feeling that ultimately too much has been left unsaid, maybe that is simply an inevitable cost of such a wide- ranging enterprise. Videa P. De Guzman and Byron W. Bender (eds), 2000, Grammatical analysis; Morphology, syntax, and semantics; Studies in honor of Stanley Starosta. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, xv + 298 pp. [Oceanic Linguistics Special Publication 29.] ISBN 0.8248.2105.X. Price: USD 39 (paperback). RENÉ VAN DEN BERG Book Reviews 309 Stanley Starosta, until his recent death professor of linguistics at the Uni- versity of Hawai'i, is probably best known for his work on the Austronesian languages of Taiwan (Formosa) and for developing the theory of Lexicase, a formal grammatical model that is most fully expounded in his 1988 book The case for Lexicase. The book under review is a Festschrift for Starosta by colleagues and stu- dents, and I found it quite interesting that only a few of the contributions actually deal with the Lexicase framework. Like so many other grammatical models (for example: tagmemics, relational grammar, stratificational gram- mar) the model has certain key insights, but in the long run the complexity and diversity of living languages cannot be neatly fitted into a formalistic framework. I do not expect Lexicase to be around in the next decade. The editors' introduction and preface (which offers little information) is followed by a selected list of Starosta's major publicatioris, showing his wide range of scholarship. The 17 contributions in this book can be divided into four main groups: a. four on Formosan languages, b. five on Thai, c. four on various Asia-Pacific languages, and d. four miscellaneous. This grouping is different from the two parts suggested in the book, which I did not find help- ful. I will list the various articles in each group with a few comments. The following articles are about Formosan languages, the group which I found the most interesting: 'Some aspects of Pazeh syntax' (Paul Jen-kuei Li); 'Lexical prefixes and prefix harmony in Siraya' (Shigeru Tsuchida); 'Notes on a possessive construction in the Formosan languages' (Elizabeth Zeitoun), and 'The syntax and semantics of Saisiyat negators' (Marie Meili Yeh): Pazeh was considered extinct, but Li's article is based on recent fieldwork with a 83- year old speaker whose memory and knowledge of Pazeh 'was more satis- factory than expected'. This yields invaluable material and Li's article is rich in data and fortunately theory-neutral. Tsuchida deals with Siraya, an extinct language only surviving in manuscripts from the seventeenth cenrury pro- duced by the Dutch (for instance, a translation of the gospel of Matthew). Zeitoun presents a well-argued comparative study of types of possessive constructions, inspired by a theoretical study on the subject, while Yeh offers a descriptive account of negation. Guriously, one of the words for 'no' in Sai- siyat is lokay. All these articles are real contributions to the field of Austro- nesian linguistics. The second group deals with the Thai language. In 'Power and intimacy: a contradiction in a Thai personal pronoun', Pranee Kullavanijaya explains why it is that the pronoun /raw 1/ can mean 'we' (inclusive, exclusive and royal), T (used by female speakers to indicate intimacy) and even 'you' (both singular and plural). The remaining articles are 'What part of speech is mi 'this' in Thai?' (Amara Prasithrathsint); 'On nonverbal predicates in Thai' (Kitima Indrambarya); 'Doublé object constructions in Thai revisited' 310 Book Reviews (Supriya Wilawan) and 'Multiple lexical entries of koo in Thai' (Saranya Savetamalya). These are the most technical in the book, arguing for the superiority of a particular analysis of a grammatical point with Lexicase-style argumentation, including tree diagrams and labelled nodes (one verb has no fewer than 14 features attached to it). Not knowing Thai, I cannot comment on what is new in these contributions, .but it looks like approaching well- known material from just a slightly different angle. The last article even claims as 'one of the major discoveries' of the research 'that a new syntactic class of INTERJECTION needs to be established'. Major discovery? The next group deals with a number of languages in the Asia-Pacific region. Marybeth Clark in 'Deixis and anaphora and prelinguistic universals' mainly deals with deictic words in White Hmong and Vietnamese. She has interesting things to say, but not everyone will be conyinced that the pröx- imal-distal opposition in language (here-there, now-then) can be profitably linked to wolf and chimpanzee behaviour. Also, the reference to 'humans and other animals' reflects a philosophical bias that many people do not share. Other articles in this group are 'The emerging particle poko in Korean: a gram- maticalisation' (In-Seok Yang) and 'Some remarks on the grammatical func- tions of nonabsolutive agent in Tagalog', in which Videa P. De Guzman takes another look at the perennial problem of Tagalog syntax. It is almost amusing to see how linguists keep arguing about the same set of data, while crucial example sentences generate different grammaticality.judgements from native speakers. The debate will surely continue. The last article in this group deals with a Papuan language: 'Hunger acts on me: the grammar and semantics of bodily and mental process expressions in Kalam' by Andrew Pawley, Simon Peter Gi, Ian Saem Majnep and John Kias. After a brief but useful introduc- tion to Kalam grammar, the authors explain two different experiencer con- structions, beautifully illustrated by examples such as 'rumblings sound in my stomach', 'lethargy is affecting the body', 'I have labor pains' (literally: 'baby is pressing and eating me') and 'I am in a bad mood' (literally: 'nose has fallen in me'). The difference is related to the degree of control over initiation of these processes, although there are important exceptions. This is the longest article in the book, but rewarding reading as it offers a fascinating look at the interplay between language structure and world view. The last group is the miscellaneous section. In 'Subordinate clauses and ergative patterns in Shoshoni', Fr.ancis Lindsey, Jr. tries to account for certain verb forms in Shoshoni, a native American language of the USA. I found this article difficult to follow, partly because of the unusual glossing conventions used for the examples. In any case, the solution which is suggested 'has un- pleasant consequences for Lexicase theory'. Much more stimulating is Lawrence A. Reid's contribution 'Sources of Proto-Oceanic initial prenasal- ization: the view from outside Oceanic'. Reid argues that some initial pre- Book Reviews 311 nasalized segments in Proto-Oceanic are the result of grammaticalization of the final consonant of a determiner which signalled definiteness. This ana- lysis is backed by data from the Minahasan languages (non-Oceanic), where exactly the same process has occurred. The article is couched in Lexicase ter- minology and diagrams, but the argumentation is clear and the conclusion another step in understanding the history of Proto-Oceanic. The final two contributions in this group are purely theoretical. In 'Paradigms as rules', Byron W. Bender argues for the importance of para- digms in inflectional languages and proposes a way for giving paradigms theoretical status through 'reciprocal strategies' among its members. He uses Latin examples to illustrate his points, and although I found his plea quite intriguing, I am not sure what the full implications of his proposal are. Finally, in 'The architecture of syntactic representations: binarity and decon- struction', William O'Grady compares his own theoretical framework of cat- egorial grammar with Lexicase, but 'also incorporates insights that are accepted by neither'. Specifically he argues that we have to come to grips with the fact that sentences are produced and perceived from left-to-right. This leads to 'deconstruction' and a new way of representing sentence struc- ture. I remain sceptical of the importance and impact of such theoretical dis- cussions, which only deal with a tiny slice of one language (example sen- tences do not move beyond the complexity of 'Harvey met Mary' and 'John gave Mary advice'). In the meantime, hundreds of languages remain totally undescribed, many of them endangered as well. Surely there are more urgent matters to attend to. The book ends with a subject index, is well edited and virtually free from typos. One minor mistake I noted is that Starosta's Lexicase book is listed as a publication under 1987 instead of 1988 in his list of publications. All in all, in my view a somewhat uneven- collection of articles, with those on For- mosan languages, Kalam and Proto-Oceanic standing out positively. Daniel Perret and Kamarudin Ab. Razak, 1999, Batu Aceh; Warisan sejarah Johor. Kuala Lumpur: École francaise d'Extrême- Orient, Johor Bahru: Yayasan Warisan Johor, xxxviii + 510 pp. ISBN 983.993284.5. WAYNE A. BOUGAS Batu Aceh; Warisan sejarah Johor makes a significant contribution to the study of Batu Aceh tombstones and the early history of Johor. Batu Aceh are a type of ancient Islamio tombstone found in peninsular Malaysia and' the Indo- nesian Archipelago. They are thought to have originated in North Sumatra 312 Book Reviews sometime in the beginning of the thirteenth century. The Sultanate of Johor was founded by Sultan Mahmud Syah, the last Sultan of Melaka, after Melaka feil to the Portugese in 1511. The authors of this book, Daniel Perret and Kamarudin Ab. Razak, skilfully combine field and texrual research on Batu Aceh and Johor to shed additional light on the tombstones and on the early history of the sultanate. In their Introduction, the authors discuss the important role that Batu Aceh play as a resource for Islamic history and the study of Islamic art in the Malay and Indonesian Archipelago. They note, for example, that Batu Aceh are often the earliest tangible evidence of the introduction of Islam into an area. They also examine early Islamic funerary customs in Melaka and Johor: it was quite interesting to learn, for instance, that even after conversion to Islam in the mid-fifteenth century, the poor (and some of the rich) in Melaka continued to cremate their dead as late as 1537. The introduction of the Islamic concept of the grave seems initially to have been limited to the king, the royal family and the upper nobility. The introduction concludes with a discussion of early research on Batu Aceh in Johor and a description of the field survey of ceme- teries conducted in Johor by the authors between 1996 and 1999. Perret and Kamarudin Razak reveal that Johor has the largest concentra- tion of Batu Aceh in peninsular Malaysia. Of the 300 known Batu Aceh found there, approximately 211 have been discovered in Johor. To date, 36 cemeter- ies have been identified in Johor which contain complete or fragmentary Batu Aceh. In Chapter 1, these cemeteries are described and ranked based on the number of Batu Aceh they contain. The cemetery of Ulu Sungai Che Omar, which contains the largest number of Batu Aceh (a total of 24), is pre- sented and discussed first, while the cemetery at Sungai Seluang, containing only a single Batu Aceh, is listed last. The precise location of each cemetery is described and illustrated on excellent maps. In Chapter 2, the authors present a typology for Batu Aceh in Johor, roughly based on the work of Othman Yatim (see Othman bin Mohd. Yatim, Batu Aceh; Early Islamic gravestones in peninsular Malaysia, 1988). Sixteen types of Batu Aceh are identified: nine slab (flat) types and seven additional types that are circular or pillar in forrn. The text is supported by clear drawings and colour photographs illustrating each type. Inscriptions found on Batu Aceh in Johor are presented in Chapter 3. Readings of the inscriptions are largely based on the work done by Abdul- Hamid bin Engku Abdul-Majid (see R.O. Winstedt, 'A history of Johor 1365- 1895 A.D.', in JMBRAS 10, 1932). The authors note that inscriptions on Batu Aceh in Johor rarely contain biographical information. Most inscriptions con- sist of Koranic verses or lines from other religious texts. A notable exception is a single tombstone in the Sayong Pinang cemetery in Johor, which is dated 857 H. (1453 AD) and could be associated with the Melakan Sultanate. This