Asia Bookroom Archives - Rare Book Insider

Asia Bookroom

  • Showing all 11 results

book (2)

Islamisation and Its Opponents in Java.

RICKLEFS, MERLE. Maps, black and white and colour photographic illustrations, xxi + 576 pages, index, bibliography, glossary, appendix, paperback, very good. Winner of the 2015 Kahin Prize awarded by the Asian Studies Association of America. The Javanese - one of the largest ethnic groups in the Islamic world - were once mostly 'nominal Muslims', with pious believers a minority and the majority seemingly resistant to Islam's call for greater piety. Over the tumultuous period analyzed here - from colonial ruler through Japanese occupation and Revolution to the chaotic democracy of the Sukarno period, the Soeharto regime's aspirant totalitarianism and the democratic period since - that society has changed profoundly to become an extraordinary example of the rising religiosity that marks the modern age. Islamisation and Its Opponents in Java draws on a formidable body of sources, including interviews, archival documents and a vast range of published material, to situate the Javanese religious experience from the 1930s to the present day in its local political, social, cultural and religious settings. The concluding part of the author's monumental three-volume series assessing more than six centuries of the on-going Islamisation of Javanese, the study has considerable relevance for much wider contexts. Beliefs, or disbeliefs, about the supernatural are important in all societies, and the final section of the book, which considers the significance of Java's religious history in global contexts, shows how it exemplifies a profound contest of values in the universal human search for a better life.
  • $23
book (2)

Shopping Around the world. NYK the Magic Key to Shops Around the World.

NYK [NIPPON YUSEN KAISHA]; SWEENEY, DAN C. [ILLUSTRATOR] Saddle-stitched booklet, 23 x 15 cm, [32 pages],15 full-page colour illustrations highlighted with gum arabic, illustrated wrappers, frontispiece of a globe showing the northern hemisphere, opening and closing vignettes of the San Francisco and New York skylines, the back wrapper with NYK's principal passenger routes and branch offices, very slight edgewear, toning to the text leaves, the staples a little rusted (but sound), in very good, remarkably bright, condition. Highly appealing advertising brochure for the Japanese NYK shipping line for 1938. The vivid, stylised signed illustrations are by the US born Dan C. Sweeney (1880-1958) who by the time of this production was a well-seasoned commercial artist producing travel posters, labels and advertising material for leading hotels and the leisure market. His work is highly collectible and this is a particularly attractive example in a generous format. The illustrations and travelogue exhorting travellers to buy and where to buy ("It is what one brings back from ones travels that makes them worth while.") open with Honolulu and show destinations in Asia (concluding in Europe) and vendors displaying wares often to stylish and well-dressed travellers: Yokohama, Kyoto, Tyosen (Korea), Peking, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangkok, Calcutta, Colombo, Cairo, Naples, Marseilles, London. This was niche advertising to a prestige market for the expanding NYK shipping line.
  • $380