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The Search for the History of Southeast Asia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 August 2009

Hugh Tinker
Hugh Tinker
Affiliation:
The University of Lancaster
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Type
Review Article
Information
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , September 1980 , pp. 368 - 382
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 1980

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References

1 A rather charming historical guide-book to Southeast Asia appeared as Further India, by Clifford, Hugh (London, 1905)Google Scholar. This label prevailed. G.H. Luce commenced his article on “The Ancient Pyu” (1936) as follows: “At the beginning of the Christian era, the peoples dominating Further India were probably Indonesian. They certainly were in North Annam, where recent excavations have … shown what one part of Further India was like before the coming of the Indians — when, in fact, it was Further China rather than Further India.” Journal of the Burma Research Society 27, no. 3: 239. G. Coedès, in his lecture on “The Empire of the South Seas”, given in Bangkok in 1943, identified an “inland sea” comprising the China Sea, the Gulf of Thailand, and the Java Sea. He identified the littoral as Indo-China and Insul-Inde Journal of the Siam Society 25, no. 1:1–15.

2 There is at least one earlier usage of the term “Southeast Asia”: in 1939, van Leur, J.C. wrote an essay entitled “The World of South-East Asia” [later reproduced in Indonesian Trade and Society (The Hague, 1955)]Google Scholar. However, it seems probable that van Leur's survey of maritime trade was intended to cover south and east Asia: i.e., the Indian Ocean and the China Sea.

3 A typical work was SirFoster, William's England's Quest of Eastern Trade (London, 1933)Google Scholar which is plentifully sprinkled with Southeast Asian place-names — Achin, Amboina, Ayuthia, Banda, Bantam, Bassein — and so on, through the alphabet — but which is altogether concerned with English sea-captains and merchants.

4 E.g., see Crisswell, Colin N., Rajah Charles Brooke: Monarch of All He Surveyed (Kuala Lumpur, 1978)Google Scholar.

5 See, e.g., Colonial Policy and Practice (Cambridge, 1948), p. 464Google Scholar. Furnivall was aware of the new usage, for he cites (p. 513) Panikkar, K.M., The Future of South-east Asia (London, 1943)Google Scholar.

6 Furnivall, pp. 62–63, 80–82, 123, etc. Hence: Harrison (1954), pp. 197–98, Hall (1955), pp. 493, 650, Cady (1964), pp. 386, 436, Williams (1976), p. 165, Osborne (1979), p. 86. In reality, bulk international trade continued to be carried in sailing ships round the Cape for at least twenty years after the opening of the canal. Its main immediate impact was not upon trade but upon communications (i.e., bringing Europe and Asia into closer contact socially, culturally, and politically). The point is understood by Tarling (1966) and by Tate (1971). For the full titles of the abovenamed publications, see the text or the following footnotes.

7 Harrison, Brian, South-East Asia: A Short History (London, 1954, 2nd ed., 1963)Google Scholar.

8 Hall, D.G.E., A History of South-East Asia (London, 1955, 2nd ed., 1964, 3rd ed. 1968)Google Scholar.

9 These passages were written in December 1979 before I was aware that Professor Hall had died (in October 1979). I have left them unchanged: George Hall was intellectually robust, and critical comments (if that is what these are) left him unworried. I owe him many kindnesses, but I never regarded him as my guru and I feel that I am able to write of his work with detachment.

10 Purcell, V., The Chinese in South East Asia (London, 1951), p. 14Google Scholar.

11 Far East Quarterly (May 1956), pp. 435–36.

12 Aung, Maung Htin, A History of Burma (New York, 1967), p. 342Google ScholarPubMed.

13 Sarkisyanz, Manuel launched the principal indictment of Hall as an imperialist in his monograph, Peacocks, Pagodas and Professor Hall (Athens, Ohio, 1972)Google Scholar. Concentrating mainly upon the British annexation of Burma in 1886, Professor Sarkisyanz has subjected Hall's writings to meticulous textual criticism. He shows Hall as both apologist for British imperialism and the assailant of French imperialism. It would be pointless to argue against Professor Sarkisyanz: D.G.E. Hall was a conventional man of his own time — liberal, in some respects, but conservative and indeed intolerant in others. Racist? Maybe; but then, aren't we all? When Sarkisyanz states that for Hall it was “an axiomatic certainty, that Burma's independent policy [under Thibaw] called for annexation” by Britain (p. 32), he is almost fully justified in his assertion. Also, in contesting what he regards as Hall's insinuation that the British “gave” Burma its independence he is on firm ground. Volumes of documents on The Transfer of Power in Burma will be appearing, under my editorship, and these will help to resolve the controversy. George Hall did mellow in his latter years, achieving a greater understanding of the strength of Asian nationalism. His Europe and Burma: A Study of European Relations with Burma (London, 1945)Google Scholar, against which Sarkisyanz delivers his hardest blows, was written in wartime, when Britain was under fire, and when many of his former Burmese students seemed to him to have turned traitor by collaborating with the Japanese. This was his most chauvinist work. Where I think Professor Sarkisyanz goes wrong is in accusing Hall of stifling criticism by British academics who disagreed with his attitude by exercising his “patronage-wielding status … within the British university establishment” (p. 57). This may well be true of certain leading British academics in the Asian history field, but not of Hall.

14 van Leur, J.C., Indonesian Trade and Society: Essays in Asian Social and Economic History (The Hague, 1955)Google Scholar, displays a minute and subtle familiarity with contemporary Western sources and a somewhat less amazing acquaintance with Asian sources. For a “maximalist” assessment of van Leur's contribution to reinterpreting regional history in its own terms, see Smail, John R.W., “On the Possibility of an Autonomous History of Modern Southeast Asia”, Journal of Southeast Asian History [JSEAH] (1961), pp. 72–102CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 See, e.g., United States Foreign Policy: Asia. Studies Prepared at the Request of the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, No. 5 (November 1, 1959). “U.S. Foreign Policy in Southeast Asia”, report prepared by Guy J. Pauker, “The Role of the Military”, pp. 59–62. “In the process of getting wise to democracy, the officer corps has come to play an important role in several countries of Southeast Asia…. The new countries of Southeast Asia have in their officer corps men who are the product of an unusual process of natural selection…. Their natural propensities are progressive…. It should be the policy of the United States to help whenever possible the officer corps of Southeast Asian countries to acquire the administrative and managerial skills necessary in the new tasks they are assuming as the guarantors of their countries' stability.” This advice led the United States to support Lon Nol, Thieu, Suharto, etc.

16 By historical accident, the British territories in Southeast Asia actually experienced four variants of metropolitan administrative control. Burma was under the India Office, Singapore and Malaya under the Colonial Office, North Borneo under a chartered company in the City of London, and Sarawak under the paternal rule of the Brooke dynasty.

17 Cady, John F., Southeast Asia: Its Historical Development (New York, 1964), pp. 454, 573, 587Google Scholar.

18 To prove such an assertion, one would need to make an exhaustive count of the reading lists put out by colleges in English-speaking Southeast Asia, in America, Australia, and Britain. Nothing like that has been attempted, but a perusal of later textbooks does reveal a greater respect for Hall. Thus, Williams, Lea (Southeast Asia: A History, New York, 1976)Google Scholar hails the historical “breakthrough” achieved by Hall's “monumental work” and makes no mention at all of Cady's Southeast Asia. Osborne, Milton (Southeast Asia: An Introductory History, Sydney, 1979)Google Scholar says of Hall: “This massive study remains the most important single history of the region.” He does not mention Cady's work.

19 Wolters, O.W., Early Indonesian Commerce (Ithaca, N.Y., 1967), p. 7Google Scholar.

20 Purcell, Victor, South and South East Asia since 1800 (Cambridge, 1965), pp. 206–7Google Scholar.

21 Coedès, G., Les Peuples de la Péninsule Indochinoise (Paris, 1962)Google Scholar.

22 Bastin, John and Benda, Harry J., A History of Modern Southeast Asia, (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1968)Google Scholar. The previous year, a collection of readings had been edited by Benda, H.J. and Larkin, J.A., The World of Southeast Asia (New York, 1967)Google Scholar.

23 Benda, H.J., “The Structure of Southeast Asian History: Some Preliminary Observations”, JSEAH (1962), pp. 106–38Google Scholar.

24 Tate, D.J.M., The Making of Modern South-East Asia, vol. 1: The European Conquest (Kuala Lumpur, 1971)Google Scholar. Mr. Tate explains in his Preface to the above that vol. 2 considers the economic and social aspects of the Western ascendancy, and vol. 3 “Outlines the administrative and political superstructure which was built up and traces … the rise and development of nationalism throughout the region”. Since the publication of this review article, vol. 2 has appeared. It will be reviewed in a later issue of this journal.

25 Osborne, Milton, Southeast Asia: An Introductory History (North Sydney, 1979)Google Scholar.

26 I commend the advice of Marc Bloch: “Misunderstanding of the present is the inevitable consequence of ignorance of the past. But a man may wear himself out just as fruitlessly in seeking to understand the past if he is totally ignorant of the present.” The Historian's Craft.

27 It might be interesting to compare an assessment by J.S. Furnivall, regarded as a radical by his contemporaries. Writing just as the utmost blight of the Depression hit Burma he concluded [An Introduction to the Political Economy of Burma (Rangoon, 1931), p. 196Google Scholar] “During the British occupation there has been a remarkable development of the natural resources of the country. The opening of new markets, the removal of all social and customary restrictions on free competition and the maintenance of law and order have brought millions of acres of waste land under cultivation and have rendered the mines and forests productive. There has been progress in Burma, but the Burman has been left behind.”

28 Compare the treatment of Coedès, op. cit., pp. 21–26.

29 The subject found a place in Wheatley, Paul, The Golden Khersonese (Kuala Lumpur, 1961)Google Scholar though his main interests lay elsewhere. The “interplay of cultures” is carefully analysed by Devahuti, D., India and Ancient Malaya (Singapore, 1965)Google Scholar.

30 I stressed the significance of this problem at the 1961 International Conference, as Benda, noted in his “Structure of Southeast Asian History”, JSEAH (1962), p. 132, n. 46Google Scholar.

31 Hall (1955 ed.), pp. 650–52, 654, 660, 663–67. Milton Osborne devotes a chapter to modern immigration, focusing heavily on the Chinese.

32 In so far as I have any claim at all to be a historian of Southeast Asia it lies in comparing the Indian migration of labour to Ceylon, Burma, and Malaya with their experiences elsewhere: Tinker, , A New System of Slavery: The Export of Indian Labour Overseas, 1830–1920 (London, 1974)Google Scholar.