I've just finished Development as Freedom and much as I enjoyed it I felt a little let down at the end. I would have liked a stronger ending, some finger pointing and j'accusseing but Sen does not come down off his perch to throw mud and ends instead with a good quote from the poet Cowper:
Freedom has a thousand charms to show,
That slaves howe'er contented never know.
This oblique reference to Time on the Cross - which he has briefly mentioned earlier in the book - is apt and reminds us of the great problem that comes with a certain type of development, the relinquishment of freedom and the contented slave. Though, of course, a very different kind of bondage, but nevertheless a life bounded and proscribed by powers beyond individual control.
That's enough of Sen and now on to the classic work every one knows, and I should have read years ago, Clifford Geertz's The Religion of Java. Up there with Coming of Age in Samoa and Tristes Tropiques among anthropology books that have become part of common culture and need no reference.
I had, of course, heard of it before I went to SOAS but had never read or owned my own copy before then, and I'm embarrassed to say I have never sat down and read it from cover to cover.
Now I'm going to put that right, and I think that will complete the trio of books on SEA that I never admitted to not having read.
There are plenty of others in other fields, an almost never ending list, but these three, Development as Freedom, Imagined Communities and The Religion of Java, were ones I felt had to be read as soon as I could find the time.
Freedom has a thousand charms to show,
That slaves howe'er contented never know.
This oblique reference to Time on the Cross - which he has briefly mentioned earlier in the book - is apt and reminds us of the great problem that comes with a certain type of development, the relinquishment of freedom and the contented slave. Though, of course, a very different kind of bondage, but nevertheless a life bounded and proscribed by powers beyond individual control.
That's enough of Sen and now on to the classic work every one knows, and I should have read years ago, Clifford Geertz's The Religion of Java. Up there with Coming of Age in Samoa and Tristes Tropiques among anthropology books that have become part of common culture and need no reference.
I had, of course, heard of it before I went to SOAS but had never read or owned my own copy before then, and I'm embarrassed to say I have never sat down and read it from cover to cover.
Now I'm going to put that right, and I think that will complete the trio of books on SEA that I never admitted to not having read.
There are plenty of others in other fields, an almost never ending list, but these three, Development as Freedom, Imagined Communities and The Religion of Java, were ones I felt had to be read as soon as I could find the time.
Last night I was reading about computer generated architectural design and came across this. I think you'll like it.
http://www.michael-hansmeyer.com/
Now I have to think about tidying the house. Just think about it. That should be enough.
http://www.michael-hansmeyer.com/
Now I have to think about tidying the house. Just think about it. That should be enough.