Southeast Asia

‘What historical topic have I changed my mind on? Orality. Historians search for ‘lost’ manuscripts which might never have existed.’

On 1 October 1868 King Mongkut – who reigned as Rama IV – passed away having trod a delicate course to keep Thailand free of European empires.

Shipwrecks are an easily overlooked material legacy of the Second World War, but they are rising to the surface as diplomatic issues.

In Massacre in the Clouds: An American Atrocity and the Erasure of History, Kim A. Wagner offers a blow-by-blow account of Bud Dajo. But is the devil truly in the detail?

In Spice: The 16th-Century Contest that Shaped the Modern World, Roger Crowley explains how Spain and Portugal turned up the heat in the age of imperialism.

Revolusi: Indonesia and the Birth of the Modern World by David Van Reybrouck brings Southeast Asia’s ‘invisible revolution’ into the light.

ASEAN was founded to promote peace between the nations of Southeast Asia. Incapable of moving with the times, what is the point of it?

What historical topic have I changed my mind on? Colonialism. I now know that it had no redeeming features.

One man more than any other is associated with Singapore’s remarkable success. On his centenary: who was Lee Kuan Yew and how did he do it?

Hong Kong in the 1950s had a nomadic floating population that needed to be counted in the census – but how?