Items related to Negara: The Theatre State in 19th Century Bali
Synopsis
Combining great learning, interpretative originality, analytical sensitivity, and a charismatic prose style, Clifford Geertz has produced a lasting body of work with influence throughout the humanities and social sciences, and remains the foremost anthropologist in America.
His 1980 book Negara analyzed the social organization of Bali before it was colonized by the Dutch in 1906. Here Geertz applied his widely influential method of cultural interpretation to the myths, ceremonies, rituals, and symbols of a precolonial state. He found that the nineteenth-century Balinese state defied easy conceptualization by the familiar models of political theory and the standard Western approaches to understanding politics.
Negara means "country" or "seat of political authority" in Indonesian. In Bali Geertz found negara to be a "theatre state," governed by rituals and symbols rather than by force. The Balinese state did not specialize in tyranny, conquest, or effective administration. Instead, it emphasized spectacle. The elaborate ceremonies and productions the state created were "not means to political ends: they were the ends themselves, they were what the state was for.... Power served pomp, not pomp power." Geertz argued more forcefully in Negara than in any of his other books for the fundamental importance of the culture of politics to a society.
Much of Geertz's previous work--including his world-famous essay on the Balinese cockfight--can be seen as leading up to the full portrait of the "poetics of power" that Negara so vividly depicts.
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Review
"The main purpose of Geertz's study is to delineate the general structure of the Negara by focusing on one particularly well-documented case, that of Bali in the era preceding the Dutch invasion of 1906. The outcome is a fascinating and remarkable book." (The New York Review of Books)
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- PublisherPrinceton University Press
- Publication date1981
- ISBN 10 0691053162
- ISBN 13 9780691053165
- BindingHardcover
- Edition number1
- Number of pages312
- Rating
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Negara: The Theatre State in Ninteenth-Century Bali
Published by
Princeton University Press, 1980
ISBN 10: 0691053162
ISBN 13: 9780691053165
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Hardcover
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Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Good. The book has loose hinges, light rubbing and smudging to the front cover, very minor shelfwear including gently bumped bottom corners, smugding and a stray ink marking to the edges of the textblock, and a slightly shifted spine, otherwise the book is in very good condition with crisp, unmarked pages, a tight binding, and a strong cover. The dustjacket has shelfwear to the edges and corners of the jacket resulting in gentle creasing, rubbing and surface scratching to both covers, and scuffing that has resulted in light color loss to the front cover and smudging to the back cover, otherwise the dustjacket is in good condition, intact and attractive, and is in a previously applied protective mylar with rubbing and scuffing. Seller Inventory # 1019724
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Negara: The Theatre State in Nineteenth-Century Bali
Published by
Princeton Univ Press. 1980, 1981
ISBN 10: 0691053162
ISBN 13: 9780691053165
Used
Hardcover
Seller: Tsunami Books, Eugene, OR, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Hardcover. Condition: Near Fine. Dust Jacket Included. ISBN: 0691053162 Hardcover in cloth-covered boards; 295 pages. Clean, unmarked copy; binding square, solid. DJ protected in new archival wrap; mild rubbing and edgewear. Near Fine/Very Good. Seller Inventory # dsr386
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