Nations and States in Southeast Asia

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.

'Nicholas Tarling is arguably the best-known historian of Southeast Asia at work today … Now, Tarling takes Southeast Asia's historical milestones (many of which he has made visible) as starting points for reflections on time, space, theme and perception the evolution of nations into states. His mordant comparisons with Europe and American history tell us as much about our own conventional way of seeing and telling (often parochial, imperial, and Eurocentric) as they do about the Southeast Asian peoples … [it] will alternately puzzle, awe and inspire.' New Zealand Books, 'This slim and thoughtful book will come as a surprise to those who know Nicholas Tarling as a prolific empirical historian of the British presence in Southeast Asia … Since editing the Cambridge History of Southeast Asia in 1992, he has been taking a more reflective look at the region as a whole. This book consists of a series of short essays on the political and international status of Southeast Asia's modern states within the world system.' Anthony Reid, The Australian National University, 'The study of nations, states, and nationalisms has taken on a particular urgency today … In spite of its importance, however, the emergence of modern nation-states in Asia has not been studied systematically in a historical and comparative way in the past … Nicholas Tarling's stimulating and cogent study therefore is a much welcome contribution to the literature on the nation-state, especially in the Southeast Asian context … Tarling's book : is a major comparative historical study of nations, states, and nationalism in the Southeast Asian context.' New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies