A Decade in Borneo

A Decade in Borneo
Author: Ada Pryer
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 200
Release: 2001-01-01
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9780718501976

"In 1878 a German named Overbeck and an Englishman named Dent travelled to North Borneo (now Sabah), announced to the locals that their ruler, the Sultan of Brunei, had sold all trade rights in the region, and left a young man named William Pryer to 'establish' the British North Borneo Company there. In 1894 Ada Pryer, who had married William in 1883, published her account of his early years as an administrator, along with some sketches of their life together. The result is a lively, vivid and compelling narrative." "The only book aimed at presenting North Borneo appealingly to British audiences, and thus capturing their political support for the British commercial presence there, Ada's little book functioned as a kind of immigration manual about a land where snakes were scarce and moonlight was plentiful. The memoir has value both as a travel narrative in its own right and for understanding the international politics of the British takeover of North Borneo." "This new edition reproduces the text of the original 1894 edition, and includes an introductory essay as well as annotations to explain and contextualize references of historical and biographical significance."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

The Last Wild Men of Borneo

The Last Wild Men of Borneo
Author: Carl Hoffman
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 367
Release: 2018-03-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 0062439049

A 2019 EDGAR AWARDS NOMINEE (BEST FACT CRIME) • A BANFF MOUNTAIN BOOK AWARDS FINALIST Two modern adventurers sought a treasure possessed by the legendary “Wild Men of Borneo.” One found riches. The other vanished forever into an endless jungle. Had he shed civilization—or lost his mind? Global headlines suspected murder. Lured by these mysteries, New York Times bestselling author Carl Hoffman journeyed to find the truth, discovering that nothing is as it seems in the world’s last Eden, where the lines between sinner and saint blur into one. In 1984, Swiss traveler Bruno Manser joined an expedition to the Mulu caves on Borneo, the planet’s third largest island. There he slipped into the forest interior to make contact with the Penan, an indigenous tribe of peace-loving nomads living among the Dayak people, the fabled “Headhunters of Borneo.” Bruno lived for years with the Penan, gaining acceptance as a member of the tribe. However, when commercial logging began devouring the Penan’s homeland, Bruno led the tribe against these outside forces, earning him status as an enemy of the state, but also worldwide fame as an environmental hero. He escaped captivity under gunfire twice, but the strain took a psychological toll. Then, in 2000, Bruno disappeared without a trace. Had he become a madman, a hermit, or a martyr? American Michael Palmieri is, in many ways, Bruno’s opposite. Evading the Vietnam War, the Californian wandered the world, finally settling in Bali in the 1970s. From there, he staged expeditions into the Bornean jungle to acquire astonishing art and artifacts from the Dayaks. He would become one of the world’s most successful tribal-art field collectors, supplying sacred works to prestigious museums and wealthy private collectors. And yet suspicion shadowed this self-styled buccaneer who made his living extracting the treasure of the Dayak: Was he preserving or exploiting native culture? As Carl Hoffman unravels the deepening riddle of Bruno’s disappearance and seeks answers to the questions surrounding both men, it becomes clear saint and sinner are not so easily defined and Michael and Bruno are, in a sense, two parts of one whole: each spent his life in pursuit of the sacred fire of indigenous people. The Last Wild Men of Borneo is the product of Hoffman’s extensive travels to the region, guided by Penan through jungle paths traveled by Bruno and by Palmieri himself up rivers to remote villages. Hoffman also draws on exclusive interviews with Manser’s family and colleagues, and rare access to his letters and journals. Here is a peerless adventure propelled by the entwined lives of two singular, enigmatic men whose stories reveal both the grandeur and the precarious fate of the wildest place on earth.

Borneo

Borneo
Author: Oscar Cook
Publisher:
Total Pages: 330
Release: 1927
Genre: Borneo
ISBN:

50 Years of Malaysia: Federalism Revisited

50 Years of Malaysia: Federalism Revisited
Author: Dr. Andrew J. Harding
Publisher: Marshall Cavendish International Asia Pte Ltd
Total Pages: 301
Release: 2014-08-15
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9814561967

On 16 September 1963 Malaysia came into being with the accession of Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore to the existing Federation of Malaya. This book marks the 50th anniversary of this notable event in South East Asia’s history. The focus of the book will be mainly on the experience of Sabah and Sarawak as subjects of the federation. It looks at the experience of federalism from a number of different perspectives, keeping in mind not just the effects of federalism on Sabah and Sarawak but also the effects on the federation as a whole. Has the bargain of 1963 been adhered to? Has Malaysian federalism been a successful example of this form of government in Asia, or has the bargain been undermined in ways contrary to the original deal in the Malaysia Agreement of 1963? What have been the practical effects on East Malaysia during 50 years?

Trans-Status Subjects

Trans-Status Subjects
Author: Sonita Sarker
Publisher: Duke University Press
Total Pages: 361
Release: 2002-11-29
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 082238423X

A Thai foodseller on the streets of Bangkok, a cyclo driver in a Vietnamese village, a Pahari migrant laborer in the Himalayas, a Parsi-Christian professional social worker shuttling back and forth between London and Calcutta—Trans-Status Subjects examines how these and other South and Southeast Asians affect and are affected by globalization. While much work has focused on the changes wrought by globalization—describing how people maintain foundations or are permanently destabilized—this collection theorizes the complex ways individuals negotiate their identities and create alliances in the midst of both stability and instability, as what the editors call trans-status subjects. Using gender paradigms, historical time, and geographic space as driving analytic concerns, the essays gathered here consider the various ways South and Southeast Asians both perpetuate and resist various hierarchies despite unequal mobilities within economic, social, cultural, and political contexts. The contributors—including literary and film theorists, geographers, historians, sociologists, and anthropologists—show how the dominant colonial powers prefigured the ideologies of gender and sexuality that neocolonial nation-states have later refigured; investigate economic and artistic production; and explore labor, capital, and social change. The essays cover a range of locales—including Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, Borneo, Indonesia, and the United States. In investigating issues of power, mobility, memory, and solidarity in recent eras of globalization, the contributors—scholars and activists from South Asia, Southeast Asia, England, Australia, Canada, and the United States—illuminate various facets of the new concept of trans-status subjects. Trans-Status Subjects carves out a new area of inquiry at the intersection of feminisim and critical geography, as well as globalization, postcolonial, and cultural studies. Contributors. Anannya Bhattacharjee, Esha Niyogi De, Karen Gaul, Ketu Katrak, Karen Leonard, Philippa Levine, Kathryn McMahon, Andrew McRae, Susan Morgan, Nihal Perera, Sonita Sarker, Jael Silliman, Sylvia Tiwon, Gisele Yasmeen