Amidst the innumerable articles and books on plastic and reconstructive surgery, a thorough and extensive study of the history of free skin grafting was still missing. This omission has now been rectified by Dr. Klasen. This book is an expansion of a M.D. thesis, written at the State Universi- ty of Groningen, The Netherlands, and was guided by Professor A. J. C. Huffstadt, plastic surgeon, and Professor D. de Moulin, medical historian. Professor T. Gibson kindly revised the manuscript and wrote the epilogue. But, as Goethe put it: "nur ein Teil der Kunst kann gelehrt werden, der Kunstler...

This is a literary and anthropological analysis of historical narratives that illuminate regional notions of cosmological kingship, cosmopolitan notions of Islamic law and mysticism, and global notions of the modern bureaucratic state. These notions have coexisted in Southeast Asia since the Sixteenth century and influence politics to this day.