This study provides insight to the history and culture of the people of Bali, from prehistoric times to the present.

The state is frequently conceived as a universal, although one apparently extraordinarily difficult to define. It often appears in academic discourse and, especially, in the popular imagination as an abstraction, usually nebulous, grasped as pervasive - a spectre to be feared. In this book, distinguished scholars from around the world take issue with this purported universality, exploring alternative imaginings of the state, of power and of global processes at the margins. Taking an anthropological perspective based in diverse ethnographic contexts outside Europe and North America, if not...

The figure of the shaman has always been a prominent motif within the Islamic world, particularly in relation to the mystical domain of Sufism.