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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Overwhelming Terror: Love, Fear, Peace, and Violence among Semai of Malaysia

Overwhelming Terror: Love, Fear, Peace, and Violence among Semai of Malaysia

Dentan, Robert Knox

Hardcover

Series: War and Peace Library

AnthropologySoutheast Asian History

ISBN10: 0742553299
ISBN13: 9780742553293
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: Dec 16 2008
Pages: 292
Weight: 1.20
Height: 0.90 Width: 6.10 Depth: 9.10
Language: English

This powerful ethnography of a people believed to be the least violent in the world explores how they maintain peaceful relations even under the most dire circumstances. Robert Knox Dentan, the world's foremost scholar of Semai, brings its members vividly to life. His book includes translations of their poetry, dramatized accounts of particular events, and extensive quotations from a wide range of individuals. In a clear, gripping, sometimes novelistic style, Dentan introduces the reader to tortured Nakhoda; beautiful, stubborn Kliy; witty, ironic Grcaangsmother; doomed Rmpent; brutal, alienated Juni; and other memorable Semai.

The book opens with the horrific circumstances that the author argues gave rise to Semai peaceability, continues by illuminating their adaptation to those circumstances, and closes by sketching the eventual decline of that adaptation under the pressures of globalization. Unlike many behavioral scientists, Dentan argues that the Semai approach to conflict is a successful Darwinian adaptation. A recurring theme is the importance of psychological surrender to maintaining this adaptation. Throughout, the author highlights the mechanisms and costs of peace, underscoring their relevance to everyday life in all societies. Students and scholars of peace studies, conflict resolution, ethnography, and Southeast Asia will find this unique work an invaluable and compelling study.

Coda to Chapter 6: 'Surrender, ' Peacekeeping, and Internal Colonialism: A Neglected Episode in Malaysian History, by Juli Edo, Anthony Williams-Hunt, and Robert Knox Dentan (PDF)

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