Anthony Reid was a New Zealand-born historian of Southeast Asia. His doctoral work at Cambridge University examined the contest for power in northern Sumatra, Indonesia in the late 19th century, and he extended this study into a book The Blood of the People on the national and social revolutions in that region 1945–49. He is most well known for his two volume book "Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce", developed during his time at the Research School of Pacific (and Asian) Studies, Australian National University in Canberra. His later work includes a return to Sumatra where he explored the historical basis for the separate identity of Aceh; interests in nationalism, Chinese diaspora and economic history, and latterly the relation between geology and deep history. Professor Reid taught Southeast Asian history at University of Malaya (1965–1970) and Australian National University (1970–1999). He became the founding director of the Southeast Asia Center, University of California, Los Angeles, 1999–2002, and then the founding director of Asia Research Institute (ARI) at the National University of Singapore (NUS), 2002–2007. He retired from NUS in 2009. Thereafter he was based in Canberra as Professor (Emeritus) at the Australian National University. As a writer of fiction he styled himself Tony Reid. He was the son of John S. Reid, a New Zealand diplomat who held postings in Indonesia, Japan and Canada in the 1950s and 1960s.
After reading some novels set in Southeast Asia, I became really curious about the region - I know basically nothing of the history. This book is a great summary of the region's history, grouped together by topic rather than a strictly linear narrative.
The history is pretty gripping - this is a region where you really did have big simultaneous interactions between people from Europe, India, China, and Southeast Asia. And, if you include the trade via Mexico, peoples from America too! The 1500s - early 1700s were pretty much the peak time here.
The book emphasizes the uniqueness of Vietnam as distinct from the rest of the region, mainly due to the very direct influence of China. China's influence was seen elsewhere as well, but the land border made a big difference. Still, even Vietnam is much more pluralistic than I had realized.
The exchange of rice technologies was a major influence in the region, causing huge population gains and movement of population from the highlands to the lowlands. This triggered increase in trade and, interestingly, importing of Chinese settlers as skilled laborers. India is a fascinating comparison. They didn't settle so much as visited as traders who primarily returned home. But even in this case there was a tradition of taking local "wives" who were culturally the ones who handled all the money.
I only skimmed the 1800s - to present because it isn't really the era of history I'm curious about.
I am a resident of Southeast Asia and I love that the approach is thematic rather than strictly chronological. Southeast Asia has so many diverse developments over the region's history that traditional chronologies do not help in understanding an area that we just currently lump together. Yes, the writing can be a bit slow in places, but there are very few books on this topic in English to begin with.
Amazing topic, but it was really hard to read. Just information, 0 storytelling though. Not sure what I should do with all these numbers and places. Could be much more interesting.