Violence against women is a violation of women's human rights and a priority public health issue. It is endemic worldwide. While much has been written about it in industrialized societies, there has been relatively little attention given to such violence in Asian societies. This book addresses the structural and interpersonal violences to which women are subject, both under conditions of conflict and disruption, and where civil society is relatively ordered. It explores sexual violence and coercion, domestic violence, and violence within the broader community and the state, avoiding sensationalised accounts of so-called cultural' practices in favour of nuanced explorations of violences as experienced in Cambodia, Thailand, Burma, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Bangladesh, and India.

The popular image of alcoholism is one of families devastated by violence and torn by dramatic conflict. The authors of this book paint a very different picture, offering powerful evidence that most chronic alcoholics live out their lives in intact, relatively quiet family environments. However, they show that living in an alcoholic family - one in which alcoholism is the central theme around which family life is organized - has profound effects on family members, both drinkers and nondrinkers, and that these effects can be carried from generation to generation in complex ways.