Becoming Arab

'Mandal makes an important and original contribution to our understanding of Arabs and Arabness in the Malay world, as well as to the history of colonial and postcolonial Indonesia. His lucid and accessible style makes Becoming Arab a pleasure to read. This ground breaking work will provoke various conversations that will further enrich our knowledge of the topic.' Ronit Ricci, Hebrew University, Israel
'Becoming Arab presents rich, engaging and original material on Arabs in the Malay world and makes a powerful case for deeper exploration of creole and transnational histories; it makes an important contribution to Southeast Asian history and colonial history, to the study of contemporary identity, ethnicity, and race, to understandings of the salience of race and ethnicity in the making and maintenance of modern nation states.' Iza Hussin, University of Cambridge
'It is always a delight when a path-breaking doctoral dissertation is finally published, and Sumit Mandal's thesis, completed in 1994 at Columbia University, falls squarely into this category. Many scholars working on the Hadhrami diaspora, which spread from southern Arabia all around the Indian Ocean, have referred to this legendary text, and it is a real pleasure to see it in print at last. The book is replete with fascinating biographical sketches, and there are valuable tables detailing the economic activities of Hadhrami Arabs on Java ... Cambridge University Press is to be congratulated for at last making this painstaking scholarly research available to a wider public.' William Gervase Clarence-Smith, South East Asia Research