New Perspectives on the History and Historiography of Southeast Asia


Book Description

Using a unique "old–new" treatment, this book presents new perspectives on several important topics in Southeast Asian history and historiography. Based on original, primary research, it reinterprets and revises several long-held conventional views in the field, covering the period from the "classical" age to the twentieth century. Chapters share the approach to Southeast Asian history and historiography: namely, giving "agency" to Southeast Asia in all research, analysis, writing, and interpretation. The book honours John K. Whitmore, a senior historian in the field of Southeast Asian history today, by demonstrating the scope and breadth of the scholar’s influence on two generations of historians trained in the West. In addition to providing new information and insights on the field of Southeast Asia, this book stimulates new debate on conventional ideas, evidence, and approaches to its teaching, research, and understanding. It addresses, and in many cases, revises specific, critically important topics in Southeast Asian history on which much conventional knowledge of Southeast Asia has long been based. It is of interest to scholars of Southeast Asian Studies, as well as Asian History.







New Terrains in Southeast Asian History


Book Description

Annotation Southeast Asian scholars may have special insights into their respective countries, but they are just as easily infected by political and didactic functions of their national histories as any historian. The editors (a professor and former professor with the School of Humanities, U. Sains Malaysia) present 15 papers in which Southeast Asian scholars turn a critical eye on their national historiographies. Five of the papers explore broad methodological issues, while others examine particular historiographic traditions from Burma (Myanmar), Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand. The final group consists of case studies of the application of new methodologies and understandings to particular historical events or periods. Annotation (c)2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).




Historians and Their Discipline


Book Description

Intended both for students and scholars, this book of personal essays is the first by a group of historians as researchers, writers and teachers speacializing in Southeast Asia.







Southeast Asian Historiography Unravelling the Myths


Book Description

This book sets about debunking the myths and commonly held perceptions of Southeast Asia's vibrant and at times volatile history.







A Companion to Global Historical Thought


Book Description

A COMPANION TO GLOBAL HISTORICAL THOUGHT A Companion to Global Historical Thought provides an overview of the development of historical thinking from the earliest times to the present, directly addressing issues of historiography in a globalized context. Questions concerning the global dissemination of historical writing and the relationship between historiography and other ways of representing the past have become important not only in the academic study of history, but also in public arenas in many countries. With contributions from leading international scholars, the book considers the problem of “the global” – in the multiplicity of traditions of narrating the past; in the global dissemination of modern historical writing; and of “the global” as a concept animating historical imaginations. It explores the different intellectual approaches that have shaped the discipline of history, and the challenges posed by modernity and globalization, while illustrating the shifts in thinking about time and the emergence of historical thought. Complementing A Companion to Western Historical Thought, this book places non-Western perspectives on historiography at the center of discussion, helping scholars and students alike make sense of the discipline at the start of the twenty-first century.




Nation Building


Book Description

The book addresses questions such as: how should historians treat the earlier pasts of each country and the nationalism that guided the nation-building tasks? Where did political culture come in, especially when dealing with modern challenges of class, secularism and ethnicity? What part do external or regional pressures play when the nations are still being built? The authors have thought deeply about the issues of writing nation-building histories and have tried to put them not only in the perspective of Southeast Asian developments of the past five decades, but also the larger areas of historiography today.