Description: This work traces the early rise and subsequent decline of politically effective student activism in Malaysia, shedding new light on the dynamics of mobilization and on the key role of students and universities in postcolonial political development.
Review Quotes:
"Because cohorts of university students come and go, their experiences and memories are readily lost to history. This loss is especially acute when the state seeks to constrain student political life, as it has in Malaysia. Meredith Weiss's book works against such generational amnesia and intellectual containment by analyzing the issues and struggles that have concerned Malaysia's student activists over the last fifty years. She examines the myriad forces that have made Malaysian campuses places of both political ferment and apathy. This work not only reclaims the history of student activism in Malaysia, it illuminates how university students perform a peculiar and vital social function internationally."--Thomas Williamson, Department of Anthropology, St. Olaf College