The ruler in the Indic States of Southeast Asia was seen not as the "head of state" but as the center or navel of the world. Like polities, persons and houses w

Southeast Asia has undergone innumerable far-reaching changes and dramatic transformations over the last half-century. This book explores the concept of power i

Fluid Iron is the first extended treatment of state formation in Southeast Asia from early to contemporary times and the first book-length analysis of Western h

Taking an inter-disciplinary approach, Spruyt explains the political organization of three non-European international societies from early modernity to the late