Southeast Asia

Vietnamese national identity has been forged in opposition to foreign invaders. But while a united Vietnam is a recent development, the country has long been coloniser as well as colonised.

South-East Asia’s ‘Golden Triangle’ dominated the world’s opium production during the 1980s. David Hutt reveals how a young soldier from north Burma took on the United States government to become the region’s most notorious drug lord.

Possibly the most destructive volcanic eruption of all time occurred on 10 April 1815.

When Siam emerged from isolation, writes W.S. Bristowe, a fiery Scottish sea captain settled for twenty years in Bangkok.

Elka Schrijver tells the story of the artists who followed the Dutch East India Company to modern day Indonesia.

The easternmost and largest of the Lesser Sunda Islands has been the scene of Portuguese influence in Asia for more than 450 years.

For nearly a hundred years, travellers and archaeologists have been investigating the mysterious ruins of Angkor. Today, writes Michael Sullivan, much of the mystery has been dispelled; but these relics of a vanished civilization still preserve their beauty and dignity.

Geoffrey Evans describes how British and Indian forces recovered Burma from the Japanese during the Second World War.

British Malaya since 1786 has become the home of many different races, whose harmonious union, writes C. Northcote Parkinson, would offer an example from which the rest of the world might profit.

The country was renamed on 23 June 1939.