Southeast Asia: a Modern History.

• Author: Subritzky, John
• Position: Book Review

Author: Nicholas Tarling

Published by: Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 2001, 555pp, $75.

In Southeast Asia: A Modern History, Professor Nicholas Tarling draws out the major historical processes in the region, from local feudalism to imposed (European) empires to the rise of nationalism and the era of nation states. In approaching his subject, he eschews the traditional chronological narrative in favour of themes and concepts. The book is divided accordingly into five distinct categories: Peoples and States; Environment and Economics; Societies and Commitments; Protest and Politics; and Historiography.

There are both pros and cons for the reader in Tarling's approach. An advantage is that, not surprisingly, it highlights key themes--universal to the region, despite its diversity--very well. A good example of this is Part 4 on Protest and Politics, where the author focuses in detail on important historical forces that, for better or for worse, have shaped modern Southeast Asia (countries and peoples), namely nationalism, democracy, authoritarianism and separatism. A chronological, blow-by-blow account of events might not have brought out these themes as well.

All is not complete plain sailing for the reader, however. It sometimes seems that Tarling, editor of the Cambridge History of Southeast Asia, is struggling to disseminate his enormous knowledge of the region in a single book. The elucidation of principles or the supporting narrative, jammed into almost every sentence and paragraph, feels a bit compressed. This is a very good book for the scholar, the practitioner, or the serious student, but not necessarily the lay person.

The global village today is built around the nation state. South-east Asia, of course, is no exception. In the pivotal first part of the book, Tarling looks at the historical forces at work in the region and, more specifically, how the nation states that today comprise ASEAN came into being from their colonial and pre-colonial past.

Before the arrival of European empires, South-east Asia essentially divided itself between the Buddhist mainland and the Muslim archipelago. Later, during the imperial era, European influence penetrated much further in the archipelago, partly...