Southeast Asia

The American soldiers who fought their way through the islands of the Pacific during the Second World War encountered fierce Japanese resistance but few local people. That all changed with the invasion of the Mariana Islands, says Matthew Hughes.

Vietnamese troops faced little resistance when they entered Cambodia's capital on January 7th, 1979.

Viv Sanders takes issue with some all too common assumptions.

Mark Bryant looks at the cartoons published in imperial Japan during the Second World War.

The independent Federation of Malaya came into being on August 31st, 1957.

Kendrick Oliver revisits the scene of a massacre that became a watershed in public perceptions of the Vietnam war.

Sami Abouzahr untangles US policy towards France at the time of the Marshall Plan and the war in Indochina.

Ben Kiernan points out the progress, and difficulties, in recovering history and justice after genocide.

Richard Cavendish describes the French defeat in Indochina, on May 7th, 1954.

Merle Ricklefs seeks clues for the future of the troubled archipelago nation in its distant past.

Revolutions and changes of dynasty seem to have happened with the regularity of clockwork on the island of Java. M.C. Ricklefs investigates.

Richard Cavendish explains how the proposal to change the name of Siam to Thailand was eventually accepted on May 11th, 1949.