During the long nineteenth century, emerging bureaucratic states sought to align boundaries of space, political authority, and social identity. According to the normative ideal, ramified systems of delegated control should be consolidated into a single government, state power evenly applied throughout the entire area, and patchworks of local identities replaced with uniform citizenship. However, as Bayly has observed, states remained composite, negotiating with subordinates who retained their own spheres of influence. Integration was contested, uneven, and by no means linear. These tensions were evident in cities, with their traditions of trade and migration, and in colonial societies, characterized by the symbiosis between communal leaders and imported officials. However, even here informal controls were supplemented by state-sponsored social discipline as military power, managerial capacity, and populations expanded. Social categorizations were more rigidly enforced. Settlements and regulations became more closely packed, shrinking unclaimed space, both physical and social.

On March 12 this year I gave an informal talk to the ‘overseas history group’ in which I tried to sketch in the development and atmosphere of major Southeast Asia programs in the USA and Australia, with particular reference to the influence of the social sciences on approaches to Indonesian history. My opinions were based on personal impressions and were utterly non-expert; it was therefore with some reluctance that I agreed to try and summarize my talk for Itinerario. No historian should publish without doing some research, but since I was assured that the very informality and casualness of my approach was a recommendation, I will do my best.

In recent years there has been a growing stream of criticism concerning too easy acceptance of conventional wisdom in scholarly approaches to Third World countries, and a number of studies have examined the intellectual lineages of attitudes and concepts. Edward Said's work on Orientalism, evaluations of the colonial function of much anthropology, new looks at Marxist approaches to Asia and Western perceptions of Islam together form a powerful warning against assumptions that we actually know what we are talking about. The problem is, of course, that false images are not arbitrary creations, but grow out of certain traditions and their purposes in certain politico-economic contexts. While the concept of “region” is relatively innocuous, and lacks the ideological centrality of notions such as “oriental despotism,” “caste and tribe,” “the village” or even “adat”, it is nonetheless worth remembering that regional studies also developed within a certain intellectual and political climate.

Iranun and Balangingi. Globalization, maritime raiding and the birth of ethnicity By JAMES FRANCIS WARREN Singapore: Singapore University Press, 2002. Pp. xxii, 585. Maps, Figures, Tables, Notes, Bibliography, Index.

James Warren's rewarding Iranun and Balangingi (2002) expands on his classic The Sulu Zone (1981) but retains the explanatory model: Southern Philippine slave-raiding (1768–1898) was caused by the capitalist world economy's demand for commodities. This essay suggests that Warren's depiction of servility is too undifferentiated, that he may have overestimated labour needs and elite control while underestimating free trade.

Historians of Southeast Asia have been inspired by Fernand Braudel's classic The Mediterranean because of its focus on the sea and multidisciplinary approach, and because it seems to solve two recalcitrant historiographical problems: the definition of time and space, and the reconciliation of local identities and external influence. But while Braudel's prose and intellectual ambition are justly seen as inspiring, conceptual confusion and analytic evasion limit his contribution.

Extensive trade networks and Islam shaped Malay identity. The Dutch conquest of Makassar (1666-69) compelled the Malays there to redefine themselves, mastering new trade routes, political arenas and social alliances. During the eighteenth century they both evaded and exploited ethnic classification, as their enforced focus on regional commerce and integration into port society encouraged localisation.

This article explores the implications of alternative policy regimes for gender wage inequality. Against the background of a description of recent changes in pay ratios of men and women in Britain, the focus is primarily on calculating the likely effects on gender wage ratios of introducing the statutory minimum wage in the UK. The effects of alternative options are also assessed in part; giving women men's average hourly earnings, leaving occupations unchanged, and redistributing women through occupations in the same proportions as men, leaving their occupational average pay unchanged. The largest effects on pay ratios come from giving women the same pay as men in their existing occupations. However, a statutory minimum wage of £3.60 per hour does improve the gender pay ratio and helps women at the lower end of the pay spectrum. It is also considerably easier to implement than other options.

Western historiography assumes a chronological linear unfolding of progress, and early Western commentators on Asian societies tended to see them as stagnant variants of earlier phases in European history, as feudal despotisms and passive, unchanging village communities. In assessing levels of “development” or “progress” such observers looked for recognizable specialist institutions in politics and the economy; finding few such institutions, they saw only “backwardness”. To most Europeans, trying to make sense of unknown societies and cultures, the alien could only be made comprehensible by identifying it with the familiar. It was then all too easy to proceed as if the unknown was simply a mutant or primitive version of the known. Ideas, social relationships and values which were literally beyond their ken, were often simply not seen at all. In their observations of both political and economic systems, they saw decline, corruption and confusion because they failed to recognize the patterns which structured society. So it seemed natural that the West should dominate such societies and guide them on the correct path.

The relationship between law and politics is both close and ambiguous. Ideally, the law provides impartial justice, but at the same time it expresses—both actually and symbolically—the will of the state. Consequently, a legal system usually embodies the establishment idea of proper social order, and should provide a legitimate means of enforcing compliance to that idea. It follows then that different societies have different kinds of law: underlying principles, procedure, and the institutional framework vary considerably from place to place.