ICAS 5 has been succesfully concluded and soon we will update you on future developments regarding the ICAS Proceedings and on ICAS 6. We first would like to announce the ICAS Book Prize Winners 2007, which were awarded the prize on 2 August at the Crowne Plaza Hotel and handed out by deputy prime minister Dato'seri Najib Tun Razak.

Announcement ICAS Book Prize Winners 2007

The Secretariat of ICAS established the ICAS Book Prize (IBP) in 2005. Our aim is to create by way of a global competition both an international focus for publications on Asia while at the same time increasing their visibility worldwide. All scientific books published in 2005 and 2006 on topics pertaining to Asia were eligible. Four prizes were awarded: 1. best study in the field of the Humanities; 2. best study in the field of Social Sciences; 3. best PhD in the field of Asia studies; and, 4. Colleagues Choice Award.

Out of 80 books (46 Humanities and 34 Social Sciences) and 10 dissertations, the following books were awarded.

Humanities

Madeleine Zelin, The Merchants of Zigong (Columbia University Press 2006).

Social Sciences

Pei-Chia Lan, Global Cinderellas. Migrant Domestics and Newly Rich Employers in Taiwan (Duke University Press 2006)

Dissertation

Karen Thornber, Cultures and Texts in Motion: Negotiating and Reconfiguring Japan and Japanese Literature in Polyintertextual East Asian Contact Zones (Japan, Semicolonial China, Colonial Korea, Colonial Taiwan) (Harvard University Thesis 2006)

Colleagues Choice Award

Nordin Hussin, Trade and Society in the Straits of Melaka: Dutch Melaka and English Penang, 1780-1830 (NIAS Press in cooperation with NUS Press 2006)