Making Blood White
Subtitle: Historical Transformations in Early Modern Makassar
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Published: April 2002
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 257
ISBN-13: 9780824825133
Subjects: Asian / Middle Eastern history: c 1500 to c 1900; Cultural studies; Historiography; Literacy; c 1500 to c 1600; c 1600 to c 1700; History - General History; History: World; Indonesia; Asia - Southeast Asia; History; Asia - General; Makassar (Indonesia)
Description: "In this study of early modern Makassar in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, William Cummings traces the social, cultural, and political significance of the transition from oral to literate culture in one region of Indonesia. He examines "history-making" - the ways in which the past is perceived, interpreted, and used - at a crucial moment in early modern Makassar when conceptions of history are being transformed by the advent of literacy.

Central to his argument is the notion that histories are not just records or representations of the past but are themselves forces or agents capable of transforming the worlds in which humans live. Not simply structured by the prevailing social, cultural, and ideological contexts in which they are made, they also shape these contexts."--BOOK JACKET.