The Journal of the Siam Society Vol. LXXI, Part 1-2, 1983 - Khamkoo

Douglas R. Webster, ed., The Southeast Asian Environment (University of Ottawa
Press, Ottawa, 1983).
The book is comprised essentially of selections from the Proceedings of the
Annual Conference of the Canadian Council for Southeast Asian Studies, held at the
Faculty of Environmental Design, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada, November
·13 to 15; 1981. As such, what has been included and excluded are not likely to please
everyone.- For one thing, it is difficult to decide what should be discussed under the
heading "Southeast Asian Environment". One suspects that the choice of that
conference theme itself stemmed from the expediency of budget policies between the
Canadian Council for Southeast Asian Studies and the Faculty of Environmental Design
of the University of Calgary.
On the overall organization of the book, there are altogether six "chapters"
including (1) the Physical Environment in Southeast Asia (2) Evaluation of Development
Projects in Southeast Asia (3) the Macro Economy of Southeast Asia (4)
Leadership and Government in Southeast Asia (5) Southeast Asia and Canada and (6)
China and Southeast Asia. Each of these so-called "chapters"· are further divided
into papers. The reader is treated to a total of fifteen papers covering widely different
subjects which have been loosely grouped together under very general chapters. There
is a useful preface which gives a brief summary of the highlights of each chapter.
The first paper provides a very scholarly as well as interesting analysis of land
tenure arrangements in Java during 1867-1869. Although the non-specialist is not
likely to have heard of the Meitzen-Weber hypothesis, the former may still profit from
this stimulating and lucidly written paper.
.. . . . However, the papers are of uneven quality. . The Political Uses of Urban
Design :. The Jakarta Example by Trevor Boddy does not seem to be saying anything
new. A very similar theme has been treated by Benedict R.O.G. Anderson in a more
mast~rful manner in "Cartoons and Monuments : The Evolution of Political Communication
Under the New Order" in Political Power and Communications in Indonesia
edited by Karl D. Jackson (1978). The next paper is also not very impressive. Shlomo
Angel's paper gives a fairly brief and lucid introduction, for the general reader, to the
urban squatter phenomena. The discussion is pegged at a very high level of generality
and the author apparently feels under no constraint to confine. himself to Soutltea;'t
Asia.
I am not competent to c.omment on Helen Legendre's paper the Bas Reliefs of
the Temple of Angkor Wat and the Royal Project of a Temporal Renewal.
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