You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
“Cycling to Malacca High School for my secondary education, I had to pass by the last remnant of the A Famosa fortress and St Paul’s Hill. Quite often in the afternoons, my classmate and I would go up St Paul’s Hill, to sit under the shade of the trees that were around the ruined church and do some quiet reading and studying … Some weekends, we would go to Pulau Besar, an island off Melaka, steeped in myth and legend, visited by preachers and pilgrims for centuries.” In this short account of the history of Melaka, Devinder Raj weaves in letters, myths and oft-forgotten historical facts to craft an image of his home state during the Melakan sultanate and under the rule of the Portuguese, the Dutch and the British. Filling in the gaps in history textbooks, and piecing together accounts such as letters from Melaka’s Tamil merchants to the King of Portugal and the proposed British effort to demolish Melaka entirely, Where Eighty-four Languages Were Once Spoken revisits the storied history of a historic city.
This is not an ordinary guide to Melaka. This book weaves together history, cultures, architecture and cuisine to tell a more multifaceted story of Melaka, once a great trading port fought over by various colonial powers, resulting in a rich heritage that is still salient today, resulting in a multicultural city reflecting its cosmopolitan journey over the centuries. Journey along the old streets of Melaka and past its ruins, where its rich history, reflecting hundreds of years of Asian and European influence, remains alive and evolving to this day.
This book provides an overview of the Indianised kingdoms in premodern Southeast Asia. Pulling together multiple secondary sources, it studies the kingdoms in the Malay Archipelago, such as Langkasuka, one of the oldest kingdoms located on the cross-roads between India and China. It also examines kingdoms in greater Southeast Asia, including Chola, Srivijaya, Funan, Champa, Sailendra, Majapahit, Angkor and Ayutthaya, detailing how they all had connections with the kingdoms of the Malay Archipelago aforementioned. Sparked by a traveller’s curiosity, the book captures some of the ongoing efforts in uncovering the history of this period, and addresses a dearth in Malaysia’s often Malacca-centric historiography.
This volume forms a part of the Critical Discourses in South Asia series which deals with schools, movements and discursive practices in major South Asian languages. It offers crucial insights into the making of the Punjabi language and literature, and its critical tradition across a century. The book brings together English translation of major writings of influential figures dealing with literary criticism and theory, aesthetic and performative traditions and re-interpretations of primary concepts and categories in Punjabi. It presents 30 key texts in literary and cultural studies from Punjab from the beginning of development of Punjabi language to its present form, with most of them trans...
The ancient port town of Malacca is an old town rich in history. Since the beginning of Malacca, its community was made up of a colourful potpourri of cultures and beliefs. The different communities have their own understanding of the powers of the supernatural. As far back as the year 1421, there was a written account from Chinese records of the strange and paranormal witnessed in Malacca. These stories continued in Portuguese, Dutch and British eras, up to modern times. There were accounts about hauntings, poltergeists, cryptozoology, giants, spirits, sorcery, witchcraft, shapeshifting creatures, simulacra, magical cures, strange phenomena, unusual human powers and other bizarre tales. Many of these stories have now become obscured and forgotten to us. This book contains a collection of 60 strange and paranormal stories reported from past reports, news, accounts, statements and descriptions that were officially recorded in books, journals, articles and newspapers.