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.
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;
David Ownby, Mary F. Somers Heidhues
