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In 1985, I signed up for the American Field Service high school student exchange program and was placed with a mixed Minangkabau-Mandailing family in Jakarta. I have been returning to Indonesia and living as part of this extended family ever since. I did a stretch of long-term fieldwork in West Sumatra in 1994–1996 and in Jakarta in 1998–2001. I spent a stray month or two in the Netherlands, Sumatra, or Java in 1996, 2005, 2006, and 2007. I am indebted to many people in all these places as well as in the United States. Among them are, in Berkeley: Beth Berry, Ben Brinner, Lawrence Cohen, Vasudha Dalmia, Penny Edwards, Robert and Sally Goldman, George and Kausalya Hart, Susan Kepner, Tom Laqueur, Ninik Lunde, Cam Nguyen, Aihwa Ong, Nancy Peluso, T. J. Pempel, José Rabasa, Raka Ray, Alexander von Rospatt, Virginia Shih, Clare Talwalker, Sylvia Tiwon, Bonnie Wade, and Joanna Williams . Berkeley’s Southeast Asianist graduate students have been a real source of camaraderie and conversation. Two in particular, Ian Lowman and Scott Schlossberg , helped me with texts and ideas that were incorporated into this book. In Indonesia: Taufik Abdullah, Adriel Adli, Gusti Asnan, Azyumardi Azra, Langgeng Sulistiyo Budi, Yusmarni Djalius, Erwiza Erman, Yasrul Huda, Nelly Paliama, Rusydi Ramli, Suribidari Samad, Noni Sukmawati, Edy Utama, M. Yusuf, and Mestika Zed. Pak Taufik not only sponsored the original research , he inspired it. I have spent years hanging around the campuses of Andalas University in Padang and the State Islamic University in Jakarta talking with teachers and students. Without question those conversations—in the Andalas Department of History and U.I.N.’s Center for the Study of Islam and Society (P.P.I.M.)—have shaped my thinking in fundamental ways. And Bung Edy, Iman, and Uli are the real reasons I keep heading back to West Sumatra. (Along with Om Liong’s kopi-o and lontong sayur at Nan Yo Baru.) Acknowledgments I thank friends and colleagues scattered around the world: Ben Abel, Barbara and Leonard Andaya, Joshua Barker, Tim Barnard, Franz von Benda-Beckmann, Renske Biezeveld, Evelyn Blackwood, Martin van Bruinessen, Freek Colombijn , Don Emmerson, Mike Feener, Michael Gilsenan, Mina Hattori, Anthony Johns, Sidney Jones, Audrey Kahin, Joel Kahn, Doug Kammen, Niko Kaptein, Tsuyoshi Kato, Pamela Kelley, Paul Kratoska, Ulrich Kratz, Michael Laffan, Tamara Loos, Abdur-Razzaq Lubis, Ted Lyng, Barbara Metcalf, Rudolf Mrázek, Jim Peacock, Ian Proudfoot, Tony Reid, Jim Rush, John Sidel, Kerry Sieh, Suryadi, Eric Tagliacozzo, Peter Vail, Marcel Vellinga, Nobuto Yamamoto , and Heinzpeter Znoj. The Indonesianist world is convivial, everyone has a spare bed and drink to share, and I have been looked after more times than can be counted. Four mentors passed away without really knowing how much they have shaped my scholarship and especially my sense of scholarly responsibility : Khaidir Anwar, Herb Feith, George Kahin, and Onghokham. I have benefited from great teachers, and their influence is felt throughout this book. The lessons of James Scott, Hal Conklin, Joe Errington, Rufus Hendon, Ben Anderson, Takashi Shiraishi, and David Wyatt unfolded as I did research and wrote. At its best, I hope that this book represents a blending of the Yale, Cornell, and Berkeley schools of Southeast Asian studies—an intellectual history that is attentive to literary traditions at the level of the village. Sarah Maxim, Nobertus Nuranto, and Sunny Vergara have been part of my life for twenty years, more or less, and we seem to follow one another around. They have kept me sane. Peter Zinoman, Henk Maier, and Munis Faruqui must be singled out for their detailed advice about this book and academic life in general. Michael Peletz gave the manuscript a thorough going-over and helped to firm up my anthropological footing. Chee-Kien Lai created illustrations of longhouses, and Cecilia Ng gave us permission to adapt two of her illustrations to create a single image of the “lifecycle within the longhouse.” Robert Cribb, whose monumental Historical Atlas of Indonesia is soon to appear in electronic format, drew new maps. Danielle Fumagalli checked for holes in my bibliography. Julie Underhill and Chi Ha hunted typos in a late draft. Roger Haydon has been a kind and patient editor from the beginning, nudging me and this book back onto the path more than once. Two anonymous reviewers for Cornell University Press were exemplary in their critical reading of the manuscript . Teresa Jesionowski pulled it all together with great humor, and Julie Nemer’s...

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