Shadows of Empire

“A great virtue of the book is that Sears seeks to find no single ‘meaning’ to wayang. This enables her to make the very fruitful move of asking what goals various commentators—Dutchmen, Javanese, and a few other Westerners—have pursued in putting forth their interpretations. . . . Clearly, no reading of the genre is disinterested, and it makes for fascinating intellectual history to trace how the trope of wayang has bobbed up in so many places over the past couple of centuries. Sears has read a great array of historical materials very closely, and she complements this careful scholarship with considerable ethnographic experience. The combination makes for a rich mix of sources, and Sears provides many enthralling insights into the past and present of shadow plays.” - Ward Keeler, Journal of Asian Studies

“Sears has produced a work of great breadth, scope, and inclusiveness, extending from a reexamination of early Javanese history to analysis of performances and texts from the 1990s. . . . By stressing the political implications of wayang and charting the involvement of Dutch colonial administrators, Javanese nationalists, and Indonesian politicians in wayang, Sears does a great service. She not only adds to the understanding of wayang as a theatrical form but also gives us a strong sense of the shifting meanings and uses of this form through time and from place to place.” - Benjamin Brinner , American Ethnologist

“Shadows of Empire casts new light on the history of Java and analyzes historiographical method in the light of theoretical developments in the study of colonial history. Its emphasis on shadow theatre as text, as performance, and as oral tradition makes an important new contribution.” - Jean Gelman Taylor, University of New South Wales

“A challenging book. Laurie Sears provides a wide range of provocative insights into Javanese and colonial culture and a radical rethinking about the wayang as a major area for the negotiation of power relationships between the Javanese and the Dutch.” - Amin Sweeney, University of California, Berkeley