BOOK: Kalyani RAMNATH, Boats in a Storm: Law, Migration, and Decolonization in South and Southeast Asia, 1942–1962 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2023), 308 pp, ISBN 9781503632981, $90

 

(image courtesy: Stanford University Press) 

Book description: 

For more than century before World War II, traders, merchants, financiers, and laborers steadily moved between places on the Indian Ocean, trading goods, supplying credit, and seeking work. This all changed with the war and as India, Burma, Ceylon, and Malaya wrested independence from the British empire. Set against the tumult of the postwar period, Boats in a Storm centers on the legal struggles of migrants to retain their traditional rhythms and patterns of life, illustrating how they experienced citizenship and decolonization. Even as nascent citizenship regimes and divergent political trajectories of decolonization papered over migrations between South and Southeast Asia, migrants continued to recount cross-border histories in encounters with the law. These accounts, often obscured by national and international political developments, unsettle the notion that static national identities and loyalties had emerged, fully formed and unblemished by migrant pasts, in the aftermath of empires.

Drawing on archival materials from India, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, London, and Singapore, Kalyani Ramnath narrates how former migrants battled legal requirements to revive prewar circulations of credit, capital, and labor, in a postwar context of rising ethno-nationalisms that accused migrants of stealing jobs and hoarding land. Ultimately, Ramnath shows how decolonization was marked not only by shipwrecked empires and nation-states assembled and ordered from the debris of imperial collapse, but also by these forgotten stories of wartime displacements, their unintended consequences, and long afterlives.

Table of contents: 

Introduction: Boats in a Storm

1 1942

2 Banana Money

3 Partnership Deeds

4 Application Forms

5 Women Who Wait

6 Red Flags

7 1962

Conclusion: An Uneasy Calm

About the author: 

Kalyani Ramnath is Assistant Professor of History at University of Georgia.

More information can be found here. 

BOOK: Stefan EKLÖF AMIRELL, Pirates of Empire. Colonisation and Maritime Violence in Southeast Asia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019). ISBN: 9781108594516, £ 75.00

 

(Source: CUP)

ABOUT THE BOOK

The suppression of piracy and other forms of maritime violence was a keystone in the colonisation of Southeast Asia. Focusing on what was seen in the nineteenth century as the three most pirate-infested areas in the region - the Sulu Sea, the Strait of Malacca and Indochina - this comparative study in colonial history explores how piracy was defined, contested and used to resist or justify colonial expansion, particularly during the most intense phase of imperial expansion in Southeast Asia from c.1850 to c.1920. In doing so, it demonstrates that piratical activity continued to occur in many parts of Southeast Asia well beyond the mid-nineteenth century, when most existing studies of piracy in the region end their period of investigation. It also points to the changes over time in how piracy was conceptualised and dealt with by each of the major colonial powers in the region - Britain, France, the Netherlands, Spain and the United States. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Stefan Eklöf Amirell is Associate Professor in History at Linnaeus University, Sweden. He is also the President of the Swedish Historical Association and Sweden's delegate to the International Committee of Historical Sciences (ICHS/CISH). Among his previous works are Pirates in Paradise: A Modern History of Southeast Asia's Maritime Marauders (2006) and several articles on piracy in Southeast Asia.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Maps page vi

Preface vii

Acknowledgements ix

Introduction 1

1 Piracy in Global and Southeast Asian History 21

2 The Sulu Sea 42

3 The Strait of Malacca 96

4 Indochina 161

Conclusion 209

Epilogue: Piracy and the End of Empire 232

Bibliography 236

Index 257

More information with the publisher.

BOOK: Vincent K.L. CHANG, Forgotten Diplomacy, The Modern Remaking of Dutch-Chinese Relations, 1927–1950. Series: Studies on Modern East Asian History, Vol. 2 (Leiden/Boston: Nijhoff/Brill, 2019). ISBN: 9789004410701, € 149.00

(Source Brill)

ABOUT THE BOOK

In this meticulously researched volume, Vincent Chang resurrects a near forgotten yet pivotal chapter of Dutch-Chinese ties to narrate how World War II, the civil war in China, and Indonesia’s decolonization redefined and remade this age-old bilateral relationship. 

Drawing on a unique range of hitherto unexplored archives, the book explains how China’s nascent rise on the global scene and the Netherlands’ simultaneous decline as a colonial power shaped events in Dutch-controlled Indonesia (and vice versa) and prompted a re-calibration of their mutual ties, culminating in the Netherlands’ recognition of the People’s Republic and laying the foundations for Dutch and Chinese policies through to the present. 

Offering insightful analyses of power dynamics and international law at the close of empire, this book is a critical resource for historians and China specialists as well as scholars of international relations.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Vincent K.L. Chang, PhD (2016), a Dutch lawyer and historian, is Associate Professor of History at Southwest University (China) specializing in modern Chinese history and diplomacy. He also teaches at Leiden University and serves as a fellow of the LeidenAsiaCentre.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents
Acknowledgments
List of Tables
List of Plates
Note
Introduction
 1 Dutch Diplomatic History
 2 Chinese Diplomatic History
 3 Merging Histories
 4 Traits of Modern Dutch-Chinese Relations
 5 Aims, Arguments, and Organization of the Book

Part 1: Readjustment
1 Diplomatic Relations During the Prewar Years: 1927–1936
 1 International Context
 2 Development of Bilateral Ties
 3 Dutch Official Representation in China
 4 Chinese Official Representation in the Netherlands
 5 Conclusion
2 Remission of the Dutch Share in China’s Boxer Indemnity
 1 A Watershed Moment
 2 The Central Hydraulic Research Institute at Nanjing
 3 Life, Loss, and Lasting Friendship
 4 Effects and Significance
Plates 1–24

Part 2: Realignment
3 Diplomatic Relations during the War Years: 1937–1945
 1 International Context
 2 Development of Bilateral Ties
 3 Dutch Official Representation in China
 4 Chinese Official Representation in the Netherlands
 5 Conclusion
4 Abrogation of Dutch Extraterritorial Rights in China
 1 The System of Extraterritoriality in China
 2 Extraterritoriality and Dutch-Chinese Treaty Relations
 3 The Dutch-Chinese Treaty of
 4 Effects and Significance
Plates 25–45

Part 3: Reset
5 Diplomatic Relations during the Postwar Years: 1946–1950
 1 International Context
 2 Development of Bilateral Ties
 3 Dutch Official Representation in China
 4 Chinese Official Representation in the Netherlands
 5 Conclusion
6 Recognition of the People’s Republic of China
 1 Early Encounters
 2 The Path to Recognition
 3 Rationales, Response, Result
 4 Effects and Significance

Conclusion
 1 Change and Continuity
 2 Policies and People
 3 Power Dynamics
 4 Past and Present
 5 The Future Past
Appendix 1: Chronology of Major Events
Appendix 2: Overview of Senior Envoys, 1927–1950
Appendix 3: Exchange of Notes Dated 4 April 1933
Appendix 4: Joint Announcement Dated 15 February 1943
Appendix 5: Dutch-Chinese Treaty of 29 May 1945
Appendix 6: Notes on Recognition, March/April 1950
Bibliography
Index

More information here

BOOK: Kevin TAN and Bui NGOC SON (Eds.), Constitutional Foundings in Southeast Asia (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2019). ISBN 9781509918928, £70.00

(Source: Bloomsbury)

Bloomsbury is publishing a new book on the first constitutions at the founding of modern nation-states in Southeast Asia.

ABOUT THE BOOK

This volume focuses on the making, nature, and role of the first modern constitutions at the founding of the modern nation-states in Southeast Asia. These historical essays add richly to our understanding and appreciation of the founding moments and to the theory and practice of constitutionalism in these states. This volume makes three significant contributions. First, it helps plug the wide knowledge gap in comparative constitutional history in Southeast Asia. Second, it furthers our understanding of contemporary constitutional practice and also anticipates possible developmental trajectories in light of the foundational values embedded in and manifested through these constitutions. Third, through the comparative historical study of these early constitutions, plausible theoretical insights may be gained to further our understanding of Southeast Asia's constitutional history. The book is essential reading for those wishing to obtain a deeper understanding of the constitutional foundings of Southeast Asia.

ABOUT THE EDITORS

Kevin YL Tan is a leading scholar of Singapore's constitution and has written and edited over 30 books on the law, politics and history of Singapore. He is currently Adjunct Professor at both the Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore and the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University. He is also Executive Editor of the Asian Journal of Comparative Law and Editor-in-Chief of the Asian Yearbook of International Law.

Bui Ngoc Son is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Law at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Kevin YL Tan & Bui Ngoc Son, 'Southeast Asian Constitutional Foundings: A Constitutional-History Perspective'

2. Leia Castañeda Anastacio, 'Keeping Close to Shore: Preserving Colonial Legacies in the 1935 Philippine Constitution'

3. Koichi Kawamura, 'The Origins of the 1945 Indonesian Constitution'

4. Leigh-Ashley Lipscomb, 'Timor-Leste's Post-Revolutionary Constitution: From Foundations to Practice

5. Maitrii Aung-Thwin, 'The Making of Myanmar's 1947 Constitution: Geography, Ethnicity, and Law'

6. H. Kumarasingham, 'A Foreign Commission for Domestic Needs: The Constitutional Founding of Malaysia'

7. Kevin YL Tan, 'Foundational Moments: The 'Singapore Constitution'

8. BA Hussainmiya, 'The Making of the Brunei's 1959 Constitution'

9. Stein Tønnesson, 'Not Meant to Last: Vietnam's First Constitution'

10. Martin Stuart-Fox, 'The Lao Constitution of 1947/1949: Creating a Nation-State

11. Teilee Kuong, 'The First Constitution-Making in Cambodia: Colonialism, Modernism, Nationalism and the Implications'

12. Eugenie Mérieau, 'The 1932 Compromise Constitution: Matrix of Thailand's Permanent Constitutional Instability'

More information here