Fetish, Recognition, Revolution

Siegel, James T.

ISBN 10: 0691026521 / ISBN 13: 9780691026527

Published by Princeton University Press, 1997

About this Item

Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used textbooks may not include companion materials such as access codes, etc. May have some wear or writing/highlighting. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!

Seller Inventory # S_387443316

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Fetish, Recognition, Revolution
• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Publication Date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0691026521
• ISBN 13: 9780691026527
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: Good

About this title

Synopsis

This book concerns the role of language in the Indonesian revolution. James Siegel, an anthropologist with long experience in various parts of that country, traces the beginnings of the Indonesian revolution, which occurred from 1945 through 1949 and which ended Dutch colonial rule, to the last part of the nineteenth century. At that time, the peoples of the Dutch East Indies began to translate literature from most places in the world. Siegel discovers in that moment a force within communication more important than the specific messages it conveyed. The subsequent containment of this linguistic force he calls the "fetish of modernity" which, like other fetishes, was thought to be able to compel events. Here, the event is the recognition of the bearer of the fetish as a person of the modern world. The taming of this force in Indonesian nationalism and the continuation of its wild form in the revolution are the major subjects of the book. Its material is literature from Indonesian and Dutch as well as first-person accounts of the revolution.

About the Author

James T. Siegel is Professor of Anthropology and Asian Studies at Cornell University. He is the author of The Rope of God; Shadow, and Sound: The Historical Thought of a Sumatran People; and Solo in the New Order: Language and Hierarchy in an Indonesian City (Princeton).