The Malayan emergency : a small, distant war / Souchou Yao.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Yao, Souchou, author.

Series:

Nordic Institute of Asian Studies monograph series ; no. 133.

Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, Monograph series ; no. 133

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Malayan Emergency (Malaya : 1948-1960).

History.

Counterinsurgency.

Malaya--History--Malayan Emergency, 1948-1960.

Malaya.

Counterinsurgency--Malaysia--History--20th century.

Malaysia--History--20th century.

Malaysia.

Local Subjects:

Malayan Emergency (Malaya : 1948-1960).

Physical Description:

ix, 178 pages : illustrations, maps, portraits ; 24 cm.

Other Title:

The Malayan emergency : essays on a small, distant war

Place of Publication:

Copenhagen : NIAS Press, 2016.

Summary:

One of the first conflicts of the Cold War, the Malayan Emergency was a guerrilla war fought between Commonwealth armed forces and communist insurgents in Malaya from 1948 to 1960. Souchou Yao tells its story in a series of penetrating and illuminating essays that range across a vast canvas - from the protection of rubber and tin for a bankrupt post-war Britain, to the British military violence as a heritage of the Victorian Imperial Policing; from collective punishment to population resettlement of more than half a million Malayans. Throughout the book runs a passionate concern for the lives and struggles of ordinary men and women in colonial Malaya. Here, the effect of counter-insurgency measures are captured by the anthropologist's art of ethnography and cultural analysis. Among the vignettes are an ethnographic encounter with a woman ex-guerrilla, and the author's remembrance of his insurgent-cousin killed in a police ambush. As such, this fascinating study examines the Emergency afresh, and in the process brings into focus issues not normally covered in other accounts: nostalgia and failed revolution, socialist fantasy and ethnic relations, and the moral costs of modern counter-insurgency. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 On Empire: A sleek and orderly retreat 1

2 On Communism: New Person in a New Era 20

3 On Violence: imperial policing and British counter-insurgency 40

4 On Revolutionary War: Making peasants into revolutionaries 60

5 On 'Hearts And Minds' - I: A warm and fuzzy war' 77

6 On 'Hearts and Minds' - II: New Villages and 'war by philanthropy' 97

7 On The Malayan Left: The MCP and the 'National Question' 116

8 On Junglecraft: Britishness and the 'Flaming East' 134

9 On Writing People's History: Home-grown revolution 154.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 167-172) and index.

ISBN:

9788776941901

8776941906

9788776941918

8776941914

OCLC:

950955842