Joel S Kahn Professor of Anthropology and Sociology,La Trobe University

'Kahn's new book has lucid prose and advocates scrutiny of the construction of Minangkabau culture in the colonial period. It is thus a welcome contribution to Minangkabau studies, and to the wider contemporary discussion of colonial political economics.'Anthropological Forum

• Contents: The Interpretation of Minangkabau Culture: Traditions of Modernity of Modernist Traditions? - Peasantization and Class Formation in Minangkabau Villages - The Constitution of Minangkabau in Colonial Discourse - Nationalism, Modernism, and Neotraditionalism: Discursive Transformation in Twentieth - Century Minangkabau Culture - Images of Tradition: the Selective Constitution of Minangkabau Culture - State Formation in Colonial Indonesia: Bureaucratization and Land Alienation and the Constitution of Minangkabau's Southern Frontier in the 1920s - The Hypertrophic Modern State, Culture and the Peasantry in Colonial Indonesia.1993 314pp.

Joel S Kahn Professor of Anthropology and Sociology,La Trobe University

'Kahn's new book has lucid prose and advocates scrutiny of the construction of Minangkabau culture in the colonial period. It is thus a welcome contribution to Minangkabau studies, and to the wider contemporary discussion of colonial political economics.'Anthropological Forum

• Contents: The Interpretation of Minangkabau Culture: Traditions of Modernity of Modernist Traditions? - Peasantization and Class Formation in Minangkabau Villages - The Constitution of Minangkabau in Colonial Discourse - Nationalism, Modernism, and Neotraditionalism: Discursive Transformation in Twentieth - Century Minangkabau Culture - Images of Tradition: the Selective Constitution of Minangkabau Culture - State Formation in Colonial Indonesia: Bureaucratization and Land Alienation and the Constitution of Minangkabau's Southern Frontier in the 1920s - The Hypertrophic Modern State, Culture and the Peasantry in Colonial Indonesia.1993 314pp.