This book is a daring exercise in historical anthropology. The author has accepted the challenge of confronting a series of daunting problems connected with the definition of ethnicity and specific ethnic groups and the construction of a framework for coping with changes in indigenous concepts of ethnicity over a period of almost 2,000 years. It is unlikely that all readers will agree with his solutions, but there is no obvious flaw in his reasoning if one accepts his postulations. If the main criterion for judging his typology is a functional one, then one must admire his enterprise, for it enables him to make a major contribution to his chosen topic—the history of the evolution of ethnic groups in the notoriously complicated mélange of cultural entities in the Straits of Melaka—and to identify the role of the general variable of exchange in shaping the course of this evolution. He sets a...

You do not currently have access to this content.