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Civilizations in Embrace: The Spread of Ideas and the Transformation of Power; India and Southeast Asia in the Classical Age
Author(s): Amitav Acharya (Author)
- Publisher: ISEAS Publishing
- Publication Date: 15 Mar. 2013
- Language: English
- Print length: 128 pages
- ISBN-10: 9789814379731
- ISBN-13: 9814379735
Book Description
This study revisits one of the most extensive examples of the spread of ideas in the history of civilization: the diffusion of Indian religious and political ideas to Southeast Asia before the advent of Islam and European colonialism. Hindu and Buddhist concepts and symbols of kingship and statecraft helped to legitimize Southeast Asian rulers, and transform the political institutions and authority of Southeast Asia. But the process of this diffusion was not accompanied by imperialism, political hegemony, or “colonization” as conventionally understood. This book investigates different explanations of the spread of Indian ideas offered by scholars, including why and how it occurred and what were its key political and institutional outcomes. It challenges the view that strategic competition is a recurring phenomenon when civilizations encounter each other.
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Amitav Acharya is Professor of International Affairs at American University, Washington, DC, USA He was Professor of Global Governance at the University of Bristol, UK. He is the author of Whose Ideas Matter?: Agency and Power in Asian Regionalism, The Making of Southeast Asia: International Relations of a Region, and Constructing a Security Community in Southeast Asia and coeditor of Crafting Cooperation.
