Books in the New Perspectives in Southeast Asian Studies series

Moving beyond past histories of Viet Nam that have focused on nationalist struggle, this volume brings together work by scholars who are re-examining centuries of Vietnamese history. This book explores topics such as the extraordinary diversity between north and south, lowland and highland, and Viet and minority.

Countering notions that Hmong history begins and ends with the "Secret War" in Laos of the 1960s and 1970s, this study reveals how the Hmong experience of modernity is grounded in their sense of their own ancient past, when this now-stateless people had their own king and kingdom, and illuminates their political choices over the course of a century in a highly contested region of Asia.

The first book to explore the critical problem of provisioning the "megacity." A historical study of Manila looks at the continuing challenges of getting food, water, and services to the millions of people who live in the world's megacities.

Presents Indonesia through the eyes of a popular thinker who believed that Indonesians and Muslims everywhere should embrace the thrilling promises of modern life, and navigate its dangers, with Islam as their compass. This sweeping biography also illustrates how public debates about religion are shaping national societies in the postcolonial world.

Examination of postwar trials is now a thriving area of research, but Sharon W. Chamberlain is the first to offer an authoritative assessment of the legal proceedings convened in the Philippines. These were trials conducted by Asians, not Western powers, and centred on the abuses suffered by local inhabitants rather than by prisoners of war.

Between 1938 and 1941, the Philippine Commonwealth provided safe asylum to more than 1,300 German Jews. In highlighting the efforts by Philippine president Manual Quezon and High Commissioner Paul V. McNutt, Bonnie Harris offers fuller implications for our understanding of the Roosevelt administration's response to the Holocaust.

Thanks to its active role in national politics, the market economy, and popular culture, the Thai crown remains both the country's dominant institution and one of the world's wealthiest monarchies. Puangchon Unchanam examines the reign of Bhumibol Adulyadej or Rama IX and how the crown thrived by transforming itself into a ""bourgeois"" monarchy.

In 2001, Thailand introduced universal health care reforms that have become some of the most celebrated in the world. Drawing on two years of fieldwork at a district hospital in northern Thailand, Bo Kyeong Seo examines how people in marginal and dependent social positions negotiate the process of obtaining care.