Imperial Policy And Southeast Asian Nationalism

Traditionally, the tumultuous period 1930-50 in South East Asia has been viewed as a dichotomy, of European vs Asian or imperialist vs nationalist. This highly acclaimed volume presents another (triangular) perspective and challenges established wisdom about the period.

This volume is a festschrift for Damodar Ramaji SarDesai (b. 1931), Professor Emeritus of History at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) where all of the contributors received their Ph.D as did SarDesai himself. His work for over fifty years at UCLA has been an inspiration to generations of students, and he has made major contributions to the world of learning, and in his chosen areas of specialization of India, especially its foreign policy with regard to Southeast Asia, imperialism and the history of the modern European empires; and Southeast Asia. He has served as Chair of the History Department at UCLA as well as Bombay University and President of the Asiatic Society of Bombay. The volume includes a biographical introduction and a bibliographic essay on SarDesai’s major writings and contains new and cutting-edge essays on the design of imperial Vijayanagara; famine policy in colonial India and how European imperialist policies created, or exacerbated the impact of, famines; the relatively unknown chapter of ‘Chinese Gordon’s’ brief Indian career; reflections on the Tamil humanist A. Madhaviah, a man ahead of his time; nationalism and the career of industrialist G.D. Birla, Gandhi’s friend; the ‘Chindia Problematic’—India and China relations; the state of Philippine historiography and its nationalist impulses; the role of Vietnamese highlanders in the Vietnamese nationalist struggle and their recent plight; early Malayan nationalism; and the efforts of American administrators to protect Philippine highland natives from being forced to participate in international exhibitions as curiosities from the American colony.

Imperialism in Southeast Asia examines its subject against a backdrop of those countries that could at a given time be called imperialist: Britain, France, Spain, the Netherlands and the US. Examining the imperialist phenomenon from this wide-ranging perspective reveals imperialism as driven by rivalry; it also facilitates comparison: imperialism has elements in common, yet differs according to the territory in which it operates. This is one of the few studies of imperialism to concentrate on Southeast Asia. Nicholas Tarling’s definition of imperialism focuses on the establishment of political control from 1870 to 1914. Moving forward in time, the author analyses attempts to re-establish control after the overthrow of imperial regimes in the Second World War. Most recently, Southeast Asia has become a region of independent states, and Tarling discusses imperial ventures as forms of state-building. At the same time, his discussion reflects another contemporary concern-globalisation and the relationship of the state to that process. Nicolas Tarling is an eminent writer in Asian history. His latest book will be of great interest to all those studying or involved in Asian studies, history and politics.

This reflective and provocative 1998 book outlines the emergence of the nation-states of modern Southeast Asia. It considers various ways of looking at Southeast Asian history, combining narrative, analysis, and discussion. The book focuses mainly on the period from the eighteenth century to the present. It is divided into three sections: the first gives a broad historical overview of Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, the Philippines, Burma/Myanmar, Vietnam, and Siam/Thailand; the second reflects, in a comparative context, on significant problems in understanding Southeast Asia's past and present; the third explores the current state of writing Southeast Asian history. Underlying the discussion is an awareness of how ongoing tensions between East and West shape history and frame the present. This book reflects a lifetime's scholarship and will become a major interpretive synthesis of modern Southeast Asia.

"In this book Anthony Reid, one of the premier scholars of Southeast Asia, explores the mysterious alchemy by which new political identities have been formed. Taking Southeast Asia as his example, Reid tests contemporary theory about the relation between modernity, nationalism and ethnic identity"--Provided by publisher.

Nationalism in Southeast Asia seeks a definition of nationalism through examining its role in the history of southeast Asia, a region rarely included in general books on the topic. By developing such a definition and testing it out, Tarling hopes at the same time to make a contribution to southeast Asian historiography and to limit its 'ghettoization'. Tarling considers the role of nationalism in the 'nation-building' of the post-colonial phase, and its relationship both with the democratic aspirations associated with the winning of independence and with the authoritarianism of the closing decades of the 20th century.

Harrison analyzes the rise of Asian nationalism, the reasons America has consistently overlooked its enormous force, the interplay between nationalism and communism, and how Asians feel about U.S. foreign policy.