aldozirsov's review against another edition
4.0
saya menyukai hal-hal ringan, santai dan remeh temeh, tapi serius yang diceritakan "sardjana ngawur" yang beruntung ini.
ovidusnaso's review against another edition
4.0
De som følger med vil se at dette er femte gang jeg har lest denne boka på de to åra jeg har hatt den. Jeg fant den endelig i fysisk form, så det hadde jo vært synd og skam om jeg ikke hadde kjøpt den og lest den på nytt! Selv om jeg kjenner boka ganske godt nå la jeg inn minst tredve bokmerker til ting jeg ville notere meg. Det er ikke mange bøker jeg kan si dét om!
theayeaye's review against another edition
informative
lighthearted
medium-paced
3.0
I love Anderson's conversational writing style – it makes academic writing very tolerable. In this book he lends it to often meandering passages that often seem to lack a clear purpose. Reading this book reminded me of old professors and mentors who know a lot and want to impart their knowledge to you in a long winded lecture but they lose the thread of why you might be interested halfway through.
huskerbee's review against another edition
3.0
3.5. I picked this up as a bit of a joke, because in almost everything I read one of the following appears: Foucault, Anderson, or Said. So I figured I can't be ambushed and personally attacked by Anderson if I read something he wrote!
It turned out to be a lot more interesting than I thought (I've never actually read an entire Anderson book, only made snarky references to Imagined Communities, so I didn't know what to expect). It's a recounting of his growing up and experiences in academia, and while he was definitely lucky in all his breaks, it's also a fascinating exploration of academics interested in Southeast Asian history in the midst of the Vietnam War and Cold War. Hardly enough has been done on the history of the Cold War in SEA (Vietnam excluded) and this was a nice reminder about that.
That being said, he's also obviously had a very privileged upbringing - I don't necessarily mean money - and even admits as much (the last of that particular generation who had things handed to them so long as they fit a certain profile). So certain things that he says are from that angle of privilege and rub me the wrong way. Kind of what you'd expect from a millennial reading a book written by a boomer. What to do! Occupational hazard.
All that said, a decent read which gave me a lot of food for thought wrt books and authors to pursue.
It turned out to be a lot more interesting than I thought (I've never actually read an entire Anderson book, only made snarky references to Imagined Communities, so I didn't know what to expect). It's a recounting of his growing up and experiences in academia, and while he was definitely lucky in all his breaks, it's also a fascinating exploration of academics interested in Southeast Asian history in the midst of the Vietnam War and Cold War. Hardly enough has been done on the history of the Cold War in SEA (Vietnam excluded) and this was a nice reminder about that.
That being said, he's also obviously had a very privileged upbringing - I don't necessarily mean money - and even admits as much (the last of that particular generation who had things handed to them so long as they fit a certain profile). So certain things that he says are from that angle of privilege and rub me the wrong way. Kind of what you'd expect from a millennial reading a book written by a boomer. What to do! Occupational hazard.
All that said, a decent read which gave me a lot of food for thought wrt books and authors to pursue.
ashesmuses's review against another edition
5.0
There is a lot more skepticism these days to having a white person voice out about issues not of their own race and nation. That said, the late Benedict Anderson has imo, lent a nuanced voice to nationalism in Southeast Asia (though that’s not all the book is about). Throughout the book, he draws up both similarities and differences between Europe, Asia and America in terms of political history, literature and the academia, while recounting the different experiences and encounters he has lived across these continents. As someone who is new to the history of political studies, I particularly enjoyed his accounts of the rise of Southeast Asian studies in Cornell and the rest of the states. Other appreciated sections: his reasoning behind learning languages while studying different cultures, views on the root of the multidisciplinary approach, his acknowledgement of the various influences on his world view and work. He also uses a very apt saying ‘katak di bawah tempurung’ (hence the clever book cover) to highlight the need for internationalism, which I cant help but to just agree.
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