Considering that, except for the initial period of the Emergency, Malaysia as a country attracted far less attention internationally than most of the other countries in Southeast Asia, it is somewhat surprising to find that many foreign historians did not hesitate to make Malaysian history the subject of their scholarly works. L.A. Mills wrote in 1924, 1942, and again in 1958; Rupert Emerson in 1937. In 1935, a Ph.D. thesis was completed by M.I. Knowles in the University of Wisconsin. In 1943, Virginia Thomson wrote Postmortem on Malaya. The post-1950 situation was even more exciting. Numerous theses on Malaysia were written in various universities in the world — among them SOAS, ANU, Hong Kong, California, Columbia, and Duke. Of course, by far the greatest volume of work was done in the University of Malaya (Singapore) itself where, between 1951 and 1961, more than a hundred theses were completed at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. Understandably, in the mid-sixties, there was a growing feeling that the field was being exhausted.

More than a decade ago, when Singapore was still part of Malaysia, the author wrote, at the invitation of the Journal of Economic History, a bibliographic essay on the economic history of that country. It turned out to be an exploration into the possibility of writing a general economic history of Malaysia. It concluded that the nineteenth century was better studied than the twentieth, and that certain states, periods, and sectors of the economy received greater attention than others. The conclusion then was that a general economic history of Malaysia was not feasible.

Malayan economic development in modern times can be split into three broad phases:

(1) establishment and vigorous growth of the staple industries (tin and rubber) — roughly from the middle of the nineteenth century to 1914;

(2) fluctuations of staple fortunes — the period between the two world wars;

(3) consolidation and rationalization of the staple industries together with diversification of the economy — post 1945.

Tan Cheng Lock was born in Malacca in 1883. His father Tan Keong Ann, his illustrious grandfather Tan Choon Bock, and his great grandfather were also born there, while his great great grandfather Tan Hay Kwan, who had migrated from Fukien as a youth to Malacca in the latter part of the eighteenth century (circa 1765), had died there in 1801. The Tans by now have been part of Malacca for over two hundred years.

There is little that is not known already in Prof. P.J. Drake's article. He himself admits this. He gets his materials from various published sources. Most surprisingly, he does not make any direct reference to such easily readable and indispensable sources of materials such as Frank Swettenham's British Malaya and Lewis Fermor's Report Upon the Mining Industry of Malaya. Given his subject matter and for the period of his study, to omit these two sources is like discussing Christianity without quoting from the Bible or Islam without reading from the Koran.

In the decade following the Second World War, two aspects of Malaya's political life were predominant. First, there was an increased political awareness among Malayans which led to the formation of political organizations, the political mobilization of a significant proportion of the population, and eventually, in 1955, to the holding of Malaya's first federal elections. Second, there was the “Emergency”, the name commonly given to the guerrilla war waged by the Malayan Communist Party (M.C.P.) and its supporters from June 1948 to August 1960. Both of these aspects have been chronicled and examined in some detail by students of Malayan history. And yet, interestingly enough, rarely have the effects of one upon the other been fully considered. Indeed, the usual pattern of analysis in the, often otherwise excellent, general studies that examine this period is for each aspect to be treated in a separate section or chapter. Moreover, accounts which focus solely on the Emergency are even less encouraging in this respect. Mr. Anthony Short's impressive history of the Colonial Government's activities in countering the Communist guerrillas is typical in the scant attention which is given to the political parties' role in undermining the Communists' cause. The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to explore some of the links between the development of the political parties, especially the United Malays National Organization (UMNO) and the Malayan Chinese Association (M.C.A.), prior to 1955, and the course of the Emergency.

No Harvest but a Thorn opens with a sentence whose emphatic brevity outlines the macrocosm governing the interlocking spiritual, emotional, and physical environment inhabited by Lahuma and his family. That

Life and death, dearth and plenty, are in the hands of God. In the hands of Allah the Almighty. (p. 1)

is simultaneously religious doctrine and empirical attitude, declaration of faith and supplication. Moreover, the quartet of primeval forces, announced with stark simplicity of tone, creates a powerful, complementing sense of time as a cycle felt through significant events. Thus marshalled, the four key words emphasize further both their antithetical and complementing relationships (life-plenty, death-dearth) and the degree to which events, and the processes they embody, control the rhythms of life in Banggul Derdap. Allah presides over cause and effect. As the pair of sentences occurs four times in the first eight, relatively short paragraphs of Chapter 1, the realities of these basic equations are installed as constants in the readers' awareness. A vital point regarding what constitutes an essential part of Lahuma's existence is being urged vigorously for their benefit. Their world view, limited though it proves, derives from and remains utterly dependent on these dominant elements in the macrocosm. Village life, which takes hard, unremitting labour for granted, is prone to sudden, tragic turns — a fact that alters the scale we are inclined to adopt when assessing the tenor and the general quality of life.

The origins of political consciousness and nationalism among the hua-ch'iao or overseas Chinese in Malaya occurred during the period 1895–1911, between the Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Revolution. The major defeat suffered by China at the hands of Japan and the subsequent Reform Movement which arose in China awakened the overseas Chinese to the political situation in their homeland. The presence of reformist leader K'ang Yu-wei and revolutionary advocate Sun Yatsen and their colleagues in Malaya served to enhance hua-ch'iao concern for China. By the Revolution of 1911, nationalism among the Malayan Chinese had emerged.

The promulgation of the Constitutional Amendment Act in the Malaysian Parliament in 1971 would seem to suggest an end to intercommunal squabbles over certain major issues which had threatened to bring about an irrevocable split in the tenuously held together multi-communal structure of the country. The Act proclaimed that “in the interest of security and public order” matters pertaining to citizenship (Pt. III of the Constitution), the National Language (Article 152), the special position of the Malays (Article 153), and the Sovereignty of the Rulers (Article 181.) were not to be questioned in public, in state legislatures, and in Parliament. Proscription on these issues had come about as a direct result of the cataclysmic events of 13 May 1969. The promulgation of the Act was the first item of business in the reconvened Malaysian Parliament following the dissolution of the National Operations Council (NOC) which had temporarily ruled the country.

Colonial Malaya is one of the classic examples of a plural society. In Furnivall's memorable words, it was a society in which “each group holds its own religion, its own culture and language, its own ideas and ways”, a society made up of different groups “living side by side, but separately, within the same political unit”. It is perhaps because of this all-important characteristic that social historians have tended to focus on one or another of the groups in Malayan society. There have been excellent studies of the Malays, the Chinese, and the Indians, and more recently historians have begun to look at smaller groups such as the Europeans. These studies have tended to emphasize the political history of the various groups, the effects of British policies, the history of immigration, and (for the Chinese) the workings of secret societies, but some attention has also been paid to important social changes such as the emergence of new organizations and elites. A very rewarding field has been the history of Malay education, which has revealed the ways in which the different forms of education were responsible both for reinforcing traditional Malay social structure and for introducing change. Clearly, the study of particular ethnic groups has been extremely fruitful. And a great deal more remains to be done.

The aim of this study is to examine indigenous Malay writings in an attempt to discover how Malays expressed their identity as a people. In what context was the term Melayu used; in what types of documents did it appear; and did the concept of “Malayness” vary with time and place?

The Canning mission of 1809/10 lacks a clearly defined central theme. John Canning was sent to Burma by the British Indian Government to secure Burmese acquiescence in the British blockade of the French Isles of Mauritius and Bourbon, the centres of French privateer activity in the Indian Ocean. While in Burma, however, Canning entered, without authority from his government, into an understanding with the Ein-gyi Paya, or Heir Apparent to the throne of Burma, by which the latter could appeal to the British upon the death of the King for military help against rivals who were expected to contend for the throne themselves. Two further issues arose: King Bodawpaya, Canning discovered, claimed the eastern portion of Bengal on the ground that in the past the area had been subject to Arakan, which still had a right over it that the Burmese had inherited after their conquest of that state in 1785. He also wanted direct relations with the King of England, on the ground that the Governor-General, having only delegated and not sovereign authority, was his inferior in rank. The King was also by this time very capricious and impulsive at times; he was capable of issuing rash, imperious orders, which would have serious consequences if as sometimes happened they were actually carried out. Traces of rashness and imperiousness seem to be present in his behaviour in 1810 even though his viewpoint on eastern Bengal and on sovereignty had nothing to do with peculiarities of temperament.

On hillside slash and burn fields, Lisu of Northern Thailand produce rice, opium poppies, and corn. In this paper I shall develop models to show the relationships among various factors that determine how much rice each household produces, and the relative importance of opium and rice.

The downfall of the Burmese Kingdom of Ava, late in 1885 (seen in the dramatic deportation of the last Konbaung monarch King Thebaw and the later dissolution of the Hluttaw by the British), was historically significant in several respects. First of all, the end of the Konbaung Dynasty and Burmese independence, which were heralded on 1 January 1886 in a British proclamation incorporating Upper Burma in Queen Victoria's dominions, signalled the start of a period of internal disorder and indigenous resistance to colonial rule. The deposition of the King meant the dissolution of traditional institutions and sanctions, including the demoralization of the Buddhist sangha of which the King had been patron. Thus was begun the Burmese struggle for independence and search for national identity — a struggle which culminated in Burma's attainment of independence outside the British Commonwealth on 4 January 1948, and a search which continued beyond that date.

In the final three decades of the nineteenth century, the world price of silver fell dramatically. On the London silver market, the price dropped almost without check, from an average of 60d. per ounce in 1870 to 28d. per ounce in 1900. For those countries on the silver standard (and at the beginning of the period this included all the states of Southeast Asia), the result was a substantial, continuous depreciation of their currencies against gold-based currencies, most notably sterling. In turn this threatened to disturb severely the foreign trade and capital inflows of those states at a time when they were becoming more closely integrated into the international economy. For example, frequent changes in the exchange rate introduced an element of speculation into trade with gold-standard countries, with the result that merchants' calculations of profit margins were frequently thrown into confusion by sudden fluctuations in the exchange. Moreover, with the exchange value of their currency falling, these states found themselves paying increasingly more in terms of the local currency to secure the same sterling value of imports. This was a particularly important consideration for those countries dependent upon imports of capital goods, for example, mining machinery or railway equipment, as these were obtained almost solely from the gold-standard states of western Europe.

The relationship between Marxism-Leninism and the national liberation movements of the Third World has always been an uneasy one. The essential issues have been: firstly, the nature of the relationship between movements for national liberation in the Third World and the proletarian movements of the industrially advanced countries; secondly, the question of whether, given the relative backwardness of the Third World countries, leadership of the national liberation movements should be provided by the “bourgeois-nationalist” parties or by Marxist-Leninist parties. The first issue was at least partially resolved by the Comintern in Lenin's time with agreement on the general principle that nationalliberation movements were a vital part of the worldwide struggle against capitalism; but the question of the relative importance of the national liberation movements as against the proletarian movements in the industrialized world was left in abeyance. The second problem of the leadership of the national liberation movements was not satisfactorily resolved in the era of Lenin; however, Stalin's relative neglect of the national liberation issue (particularly after the 1927 fiasco in China and the emergence of the fascist threat in Europe in the inter-war years) did give the Asian Marxists the opportunity to evolve their own policies. It was in the historical context of Comintern weakness and neglect of the Third World that an indigenously developed Marxist national liberation strategy was to emerge.

Thailand is primarily a peasant society. In 1974, about 65 per cent of the labour force earned their livelihood from agriculture, although 87 per cent of the population lived in rural areas. Because land has been relatively abundant until recent years, most farmers are landowners, with noted exceptions of tenant farming in areas contiguous to Bangkok. Their simple occupational skills have been transmitted from one generation to another within the village and family, supplemented only by up to four years of compulsory elementary education, acquired intermittently and sporadically between the ages of seven and fourteen. The basic necessities of life historically have been easily satisfied in a hospitable, tropical climate.

The question of a national identity for Vietnam has long plagued historians, both Vietnamese and foreign. Some see Vietnam throughout its pre-modern history as a minor appendage of the Chinese Empire, one whose culture and institutions are so thoroughly influenced by the Chinese tradition that they evade meaningful individual scrutiny. A few apply the tools of Sinology in such a way as to reach conclusions which, while cogent in themselves, cannot escape the confines of their methodology. Others, including a majority of scholars from Vietnam itself, reject the former view and are continuously searching for evidence to demonstrate the uniqueness of the Vietnamese experience. There is little merit in the a priori assumptions of either school, but this does not invalidate the question. It would be of particular interest to know not simply whether some significant differences existed between Vietnamese and Chinese institutions at various points throughout history but whether these institutional differences had a significant bearing on a sense of nationalism and whether such differences resulted at least partially from a selfconception on the part of Vietnamese thinkers, one consciously held and pursued. The Binh Ngo Dai Cao provides us with some intriguing clues. It is, as well, a narrative document of great literary worth and the subject of constant allusion, the background of which could bear illumination for purely historical interest.

The seventh session of the Third U.N. Conference on the Law of the Sea has just ended after three months (28 March to 19 May, and 22 August to 15 September 1978). There seems to be general agreement that territorial waters should be extended from the traditional 3-mile limit out to 12 miles (19 kilometres) offshore, and that every coastal state is entitled to an economic zone reaching 200 miles. More than 40 countries have established, or are in the process of establishing, 200 miles (320 kilometres) offshore as a fishery zone, economic zone, or territorial sea. To many states, the 200-mile economic zone is already a fact of international law. But there is still some disagreement over how much control coastal states should exercise over the adjacent 200 miles of water.

Recent scholarship has speculated that there were two forms of “classical” Southeast Asian states in pre-modern Southeast Asia, one associated with the inland wet rice states of the Southeast Asian mainland and Java, and the other represented by the thalassocracy of Srivijaya. It is suggested that while the wet-rice states derived their income from the land, the Srivijaya state depended more upon income from its external contacts — income generated from Srivijaya's participation in the East-West international maritime route which passed through the Malacca Straits region. It is held, however, that the classical states, whether landed or maritime in their focus, had a good deal in common. One dominant characteristic of Southeast Asia's classical states was their “centre” orientation; each state's capital acted as the centre of the king's domain, the centre of his administration and royal cult, and the focus of the king's power and authority. The centre drew in the resources of the realm — tribute, talent, men, and goods — which were then used to support the ruler's power. Via various redistributive mechanisms, classical rulers tapped their centre's treasury to share these resources with their supporters: this redistribution sometimes took the form of direct payments, or more generally-this sharing of prosperity was indirect, as for example in the endowment of temples.