Negara: The Theatre State in Nineteenth-Century Bali

Bali, owing to its relative isolation and to a long tradition of observation and scholarship, has become a rich source of information about the traditional Indic state in Southeast Asia. Here Clifford Geertz applies his well-known cultural analysis to the social organization of nineteenth-century Bali. He offers a vivid portrait of the symbols, myths, rituals, and ceremonies -- in short, the drama -- that essentially constituted the precolonial negara, the Balinese state.