A discussion of the development of secret societies within China and among Chinese communities in colonial Southeast Asia in the late 18th and 19th centuries.

David Ownby, Mary F. Somers Heidhues

Chapter 1 Secret Societies Reconsidered, David Ownby; Chapter 2 Chinese Hui and the Early Modern Social Order: Evidence from Eighteenth-Century Southeast China, David Ownby; Chapter 3 Chinese Organizations in West Borneo and Bangka: Kongsis and Hui, Mary Somers Heidhues; Chapter 4 The Rise and Fall of the Ngee Heng Kongsi in Singapore, Carl A. Trocki; Chapter 5 Chinese Culture and Polity in Nineteenth-Century Malaya: The Case of Yap Ah Loy, Sharon A. Carstens; Chapter 6 Messianism and the Heaven and Earth Society: Approaches to Heaven and Earth Society Texts, Barend J ter Haar; Chapter 7 Migration, Protection, and Racketeering: The Spread of the Tiandihui within China, Dian Murray; Chapter 8 Brotherhoods, Secret Societies, and the Law in Qing-Dynasty China, Robert J. Antony; Chapter 9 Epilogue: Ritual Process Reconsidered, Jean DeBernardi;