Session 1: Geographic, Linguistic and Cultural Overview
Session 2: Animism & Indigneous Concepts of Religion & Authority
Session 3: Arrival of the Europeans and their impact on indigenous trade and statecraft
General and National Histories of Southeast Asia
General
Tarling, Nicholas (ed.). The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia. 2 vols. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
(Paperback edition in four volumes was published in 1999. Each of these volumes deals with a particular period in Southeast Asian history and can be purchased individually.The history is organized chronologically, but the various articles are often thematic looking across Southeast Asia.)
Tarling, Nicholas. Southeast Asia: A Modern History. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2001.
(An interpretative history of Southeast Asia following certain general themes for different periods.)
Osborne, Milton. Southeast Asia: An Introductory History. Sixth Edition. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1995.
(One of the best short histories on Southeast Asia.)
Hall, D.G.E. (with revisions by M.C. Ricklefs). A History of South-East Asia. Fourth Edition. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1981.
(A chronological account of the political history of the whole of Southeast Asia using mainly Western sources and indigenous sources in translation. Writings on Southeast Asia have since exploded, and new interests in social and intellectual history have made this type of history somewhat dated. Nevertheless, it is still one of the best reference books dealing with an overall political view of the region. Use as a reference book.)
Coedès, George. Indianized States of Southeast Asia Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1969.
(English translation of a classic French work by the doyen of Southeast Asian history. His work still stands as one of the best on the early history of Southeast Asia up to the thirteenth century. It covers the “Classical Period” of Southeast Asia.)
Wolters, O.W. History, Culture, and Region in Southeast Asian Perspectives. Revised Edition. Cornell: Southeast Asia Program, 1999.
(The first part of the book is a reprint of the first edition published in 1982. The latter section is entitled “Postscript” and incorporates his latest thinking based on his own and others’ works. Wolters has been one of the giants in Southeast Asian history, and this work is the culmination of his thinking on Southeast Asia as a region. It is in my view the most thought-provoking work yet written on the precolonial history of Southeast Asia.)
Reid, Anthony. Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce, 1450-1680. 2 vols. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988, 1993.
(The first volume is an attempt to demonstrate the unity of the region through a discussion of the material culture, the social organizations, and the leisure culture of Southeast Asians. The second volume focuses on the economic developments in the region.)
Owen, Norman G. (ed.). The Emergence of Modern Southeast Asia: A New History. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2005.
(This is a revised and much better version of an earlier work written jointly by specialists in each of the major countries in Southeast Asia. It follows a thematic approach on social, economic, and cultural change for the first three chapters, then with a more country approach from the period of independence to the present.)
National Histories
Philippines
Corpuz, O.D. The Roots of the Filipino Nation. 2 vols. Quezon City: Aklahi Foundation, 1998.
(This is a two volume work covering the whole of Philippine history.)
Agoncillo, T. and M. Guerrero. History of the Filipino People. Quezon City: R.P. Garcia Publishing Co., Fifth (get the latest edition) Edition, 1977.
(This is a classic work by T. Agoncillo. Its strongly nationalist stance may sometimes be offputting, but he was among the best early historians.)
Indonesia and East Timor
Ricklefs, M.C. A History of Modern Indonesia since c. 1200. Third Edition. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2001.
(A detailed history of Indonesia with heavy emphasis on Java. It is an excellent reference to historical events, but it is heavy-going.)
Taylor, Jean Gelman. Indonesia: Peoples and Histories. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003.
(This is a social history and a complement to Ricklefs’ more political approach. It examines history from the standpoint of material culture, religion, and mapping, and incorporates various actors, such as local rulers, Europeans, religious scholars, in depicting the complexity of Indonesia’s past.)
Schwarz, Adam. A Nation in Waiting: Indonesia’s Search for Stability. Boulder: Westview Press, 2000.
(A history of the Suharto period written by a well-known journalist. It is an excellent account of the rise and fall of Suharto (1966-1998). This was a period of important political and economic developments and provides one of the better commentaries on this regime.)
Malaysia and Brunei
Andaya, Barbara Watson and Leonard Y. Andaya. A History of Malaysia. Second Edition. Honolulu/London: University of Hawaii Press/Palgrave, 2000.
(A revised version of the 1981 edition. It has attempted to highlight the current concerns with the environment, indigenous peoples, women’s issues, and development. The last chapter was added to cover the long tenure of the current Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohamad, who had just come to power when the first edition was issued.)
Singapore
Turnbull, Mary. A History of Singapore, 1819-1988. Second Edition. Singapore/ New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.
(Turnbull was a British civil servant in Malaysia and then became an academic. This is a good political history of this island republic.)
Chew Ernest C.T. and Edwin Lee (eds.). A History of Singapore, 1819-1988. Second Edition. Singapore/ New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.
(This is a collection of articles of various aspects of Singapore’s history written by Singaporean historians.)
Thailand
Wyatt, D.K. A Short History of Thailand. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984.
(Although it is called a “short history”, it is a comprehensive history of Thailand from the first appearance of the Tai peoples in the region to 1982. It has not been updated, but it is a very good coverage of Thai history.)
Laos
Fox, Stuart. A History of Laos. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
(The best history of Laos in English.)
Simms, Peter and Sanda. The Kingdom of Laos: Six Hundred Years of History. Surrey: Curzon, 1999.
(Written by non-historians, the book is nevertheless a good compilation of Laotian annals and foreign accounts. It covers the period from prehistory till the formation of French Indo-China in 1905.)
Cambodia
Chandler, David. A History of Cambodia. Second Edition. Boulder: Westview Press, 1992.
(A useful and interesting history written by one of the foremost historians on Cambodia. It begins with the earliest period and brings the story up to about 1991.)
Chandler, David and Ian Mabbett. The Khmers. Oxford: Blackwell, 1995.
(This is part of the Peoples of South-East Asia & the Pacific series and focuses on the Khmer people of Cambodia. This focuses more on social and cultural history with the last chapter entitled, “ Cambodia since 1945”. Though there is some duplication, it is a good complement to Chandler’s A History of Cambodia.)
Vietnam
Hodgkin, Thomas. Vietnam: A Revolutionary Path. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1981.
(Hodgkin, a Marxist historian who specializes in African history, was asked by the Vietnamese government to write a history of Vietnam from their perspective. The result is an interesting history using many Vietnamese documents, including poems, to give a sense of the Vietnamese people and their history. If one ignores the blatant Marxist interpretations, one will discover a richly textured history of the country.)
Jameson, Neil. Understanding Vietnam. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.
(This is a more standard work on Vietnam and very readable.)
Burma/Myanmar
Aung-Thwin, Michael. Pagan: The Origins of Modern Burma. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1985.
(A good study of the most important early kingdom of Burma.)
Thant Myint U.The Making of Modern Burma. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
(One of the few histories of the whole of Burma written in the modern period.)
