Danilyn Rutherford is professor of anthropology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She is the author of Raiding the Land of the Foreigners: The Limits of the Nation on an Indonesian Frontier.

"At the core of Laughing at Leviathan is a heart-wrenching story: a subtle tracing of the historical disjunctions and disseminations of empire and nationalism that have not led to a new nation in Melanesia. It is a kind of prehistory to a sovereignty that never comes. In writing the prehistory of a form of sovereignty that has neither failed nor succeeded, Danilyn Rutherford also provides a searing metacommentary on sovereignty itself." (Elizabeth Povinelli, Columbia University)"

Danilyn Rutherford is professor of anthropology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She is the author of Raiding the Land of the Foreigners: The Limits of the Nation on an Indonesian Frontier.

"At the core of Laughing at Leviathan is a heart-wrenching story: a subtle tracing of the historical disjunctions and disseminations of empire and nationalism that have not led to a new nation in Melanesia. It is a kind of prehistory to a sovereignty that never comes. In writing the prehistory of a form of sovereignty that has neither failed nor succeeded, Danilyn Rutherford also provides a searing metacommentary on sovereignty itself." (Elizabeth Povinelli, Columbia University)"