THE LAND AND PEOPLE OF MALAYSIA

Another very competent title in a generally reliable series. Like Caldwell's recent Visit (p. 693, J-267), this points out religious and ethnic divisions in both Eastern and Western populations. Miss Clifford is more precise--and respectfully amusing--about details: the inflation of rainwear prices during a rainfall, jar worship, the significance of those ""wild men of Borneo"" (headhunting, a sign of virility, increased considerably with the arrival of threatening Europeans). She also organizes agreeably, and covers essential questions of geography flora and fauna, climate and terrain, popular settlements--as well as what belongs in a beginner history separate for East and West until the Federation, with characterizations of individual tribes and states, through the break with Singapore and the confrontation with Indonesia. Further, this considers economic puzzles (the declining world rubber market, tin mines, the uncertain relationship with unallied Singapore) and also includes a few incisive extras: the Dewan Behusa, the agency creating Malay language words for modern technological terms; the special regard for anything yellow (a sign of royalty); the pervasive dampness anyplace that isn't air conditioned; the large population under thirty--and a growing generation gap. Altogether authoritative and involving.