ANTHONY REID is Professor Emeritus at the College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University. He has taught and researched Southeast Asian history for 50 years, in Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Australia, and the United States. He was Founding Director of the Asia Research Institute in Singapore. He has authored or edited numerous books on aspects of Southeast Asian history from the fourteenth to the twenty-first centuries, including explorations on slavery, freedom, Islam, gender, the Chinese minority and its Jewish analogy, population, and economic history.

"Among the book’s many virtues is Reid’s ability to break down the two thousand years he had to cover in order to guide the reader through space and time. ...Written in a straightforward, no-nonsense style, the book will be accessible to many, with judiciously chosen quotations to enliven the story."   (Australian Institute of International Affairs, 1 November 2015)“Understanding the region is therefore not just a matter of intellectual curiosity but also of considerable topical importance. Despite its textbook-like appearance, History is eminently readable. It succeeds at both providing a broad-brush overview of this complex region, presenting it from within, identifying and tracing major themes, while at the same time delivering a wealth of fascinating and intriguing detail.”  (Asian Review of Books, 25 November 2015)“Reid’s comprehensive survey covers all of the major societies and many of the minor ones from Burma to the Philippines throughout the centuries. The thematic approach, interpretative insights, useful bibliography, and almost encyclopaedic wealth of information will make Reid’s History of Southeast Asia an exceptionally valuable, even indispensable, resource and reference book for other scholars… this book is a splendid contribution that can and should be read and discussed with interest by scholars and teachers of Southeast Asian studies as well as world and Eurasian history.” (Asian Studies Review)"A splendid contribution that can and should be read and discussed with interest by scholars and teachers of Southeast Asian studies as well as world and Eurasian history." - Craig A. Lockard, Asian History Review no. 41 (Nov. 2016, pp.167-8)

• List of Tables xiList of Maps xiiList of Illustrations xiiiSeries Editor’s Preface xivPreface xviiGlossary xxiiAbbreviations xxv1 People in the Humid Tropics 1Benign Climate, Dangerous Environment 1Forests, Water, and People 4Why a Low but Diverse Population? 6Agriculture and Modern Language Families 10The Rice Revolution and Population Concentration 13The Agricultural Basis of State and Society 16Food and Clothes 18Women and Men 21Not China, not India 262 Buddha and Shiva Below the Winds 30Debates about Indic States 30Bronze, Iron, and Earthenware in the Archaeological Record 32The Buddhist Ecumene and Sanskritization 34Shiva and Nagara in the “Charter Era,” 900–1300 39Austronesian Gateway Ports – the Negeri 45Dai Viet and the Border with China 47The Stateless Majority in the Charter Era 49Thirteenth/Fourteenth‐Century Crisis 533 Trade and Its Networks 57Land and Sea Routes 57Specialized Production 59Integration of the Asian Maritime Markets 62Austronesian and Indian Pioneers 63The East Asian Trading System of 1280–1500 65The Islamic Network 69The Europeans 714 Cities and Production for the World, 1490–1640 74Southeast Asia’s “Age of Commerce” 74Crops for the World Market 76Ships and Traders 80Cities as Centers of Innovation 81Trade, Guns, and New State Forms 85Asian Commercial Organization 915 Religious Revolution and Early Modernity, 1350–1630 96Southeast Asian Religion 97Theravada Cosmopolis and the Mainland States 98Islamic Beginnings: Traders and Mystics 101Polarizations of the First Global War, 1530–1610 106Rival Universalisms 111Pluralities, Religious Boundaries, and the “Highland Savage” 1146 Asian European Encounters, 1509–1688 120The Euro‐Chinese Cities 120Women as Cultural Mediators 125Cultural Hybridities 130Islam’s “Age of Discovery” 133Southeast Asian Enlightenments – Makassar and Ayutthaya 135Gunpowder Kings as an Early Modern Form 1397 The Crisis of the Seventeenth Century 142The Great Divergence Debate 142Southeast Asians Lose the Profits of Long‐Distance Trade 144Global Climate and Local Crises 149Political Consequences of the Crisis 1528 Vernacular Identities, 1660–1820 157Eighteenth‐Century Consolidation 157Religious Syncretism and Localization 158Performance in Palace, Pagoda, and Village 167History, Myth, and Identity 172Consolidation and its Limitations 1759 Expansion of the Sinicized World 177Fifteenth‐Century Revolution in Dai Viet 177Viet Expansion, Nam Tien 179Cochin‐China’s Plural Southern Frontier 183The Greater Viet Nam of the Nguyen 185The Commercial Expansion of a “Chinese Century,” 1740–1840 188Chinese on Southern Economic Frontiers 19110 Becoming a Tropical Plantation, 1780–1900 196Pepper and Coffee 197Commercialization of Staple Crops 198The New Monopolies: Opium and Tobacco 200Java’s Coerced Colonial Agriculture 204Plantations and Haciendas 207Mono‐crop Rice Economies of the Mainland Deltas 209Pre‐colonial and Colonial Growth Compared 21111 The Last Stand of Asian Autonomies, 1820–1910 213Siam as “Civilized” Survivor 214Konbaung Burma – a Doomed Modernization 219High Confucian Fundamentalism – Nguyen Viet Nam 224“Protected” Negeri 227Muslim Alternatives in Sumatra 230Bali Apocalypse 233Mobile “Big Men” in the Eastern Islands 235The Last State Evaders 23712 Making States, 1824–1940 240European Nationalisms and Demarcations 240From Many to Two Polities in Nusantara 241Maximal Burma, Viable Siam 246Westphalia and the Middle Kingdom 250Building State Infrastructures 251How Many States in Indochina? 255Ethnic Construction in the New Sovereign Spaces 256States, not Nations 26013 Population, Peasantization, and Poverty, 1830–1940 261More People 261Involution and Peasantization 263Dual Economy and the Absent Bourgeoisie 266Subordinating Women 268Shared Poverty and Health Crises 27214 Consuming Modernity, 1850–2000 276Housing for a Fragile Environment 276The Evolution of Foods 278Fish, Salt, and Meat 279Stimulants and Drinks 281Cloth and Clothing 284Modern Dress and Identity 286Performance, from Festival to Film 28915 Progress and Modernity, 1900–1940 295From Despair to Hope 296Education and a New Elite 302Victory of the National Idea in the 1930s 306Negotiating the Maleness of Modernity 31416 Mid‐Twentieth‐Century Crisis, 1930–1954 319Economic Crisis 319Japanese Occupation 3231945 – the Revolutionary Moment 331Independence – Revolutionary or Negotiated? 34117 The Military, Monarchy, and Marx: The Authoritarian Turn, 1950–1998 347Democracy’s Brief Springtime 347Guns Inherit the Revolutions 350Dictatorship Philippine Style 358Remaking “Protected” Monarchies 359Twilight of the Indochina Kings 364Reinventing a Thai Dhammaraja 367Communist Authoritarianism 37018 The Commercial Turnaround, 1965– 373Economic Growth at Last 373More Rice, Fewer Babies 376Opening the Command Economies 378Gains and Losses 380Darker Costs – Environmental Degradation and Corruption 38419 Making Nations, Making Minorities, 1945– 390The High Modernist Moment, 1945–1980 390Education and National Identity 394Puritan Globalism 400Joining an Integrated but Plural World 40520 The Southeast Asian Region in the World 413The Regional Idea 414Global Comparisons 419References 423Further Reading 431Index 436