Traditionally, the tumultuous period 1930-50 in South East Asia has been viewed as a dichotomy, of European vs Asian or imperialist vs nationalist. This highly acclaimed volume presents another (triangular) perspective and challenges established wisdom about the period.

Traditionally, the tumultuous period 1930-50 in South East Asia has been viewed as a dichotomy, of European vs Asian or imperialist vs nationalist. This highly acclaimed volume presents another (triangular) perspective and challenges established wisdom about the period.

Nationalism in Southeast Asia seeks a definition of nationalism through examining its role in the history of southeast Asia, a region rarely included in general books on the topic. By developing such a definition and testing it out, Tarling hopes at the same time to make a contribution to southeast Asian historiography and to limit its 'ghettoization'. Tarling considers the role of nationalism in the 'nation-building' of the post-colonial phase, and its relationship both with the democratic aspirations associated with the winning of independence and with the authoritarianism of the closing decades of the 20th century.

This volume is a festschrift for Damodar Ramaji SarDesai (b. 1931), Professor Emeritus of History at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) where all of the contributors received their Ph.D as did SarDesai himself. His work for over fifty years at UCLA has been an inspiration to generations of students, and he has made major contributions to the world of learning, and in his chosen areas of specialization of India, especially its foreign policy with regard to Southeast Asia, imperialism and the history of the modern European empires; and Southeast Asia. He has served as Chair of the History Department at UCLA as well as Bombay University and President of the Asiatic Society of Bombay. The volume includes a biographical introduction and a bibliographic essay on SarDesai’s major writings and contains new and cutting-edge essays on the design of imperial Vijayanagara; famine policy in colonial India and how European imperialist policies created, or exacerbated the impact of, famines; the relatively unknown chapter of ‘Chinese Gordon’s’ brief Indian career; reflections on the Tamil humanist A. Madhaviah, a man ahead of his time; nationalism and the career of industrialist G.D. Birla, Gandhi’s friend; the ‘Chindia Problematic’—India and China relations; the state of Philippine historiography and its nationalist impulses; the role of Vietnamese highlanders in the Vietnamese nationalist struggle and their recent plight; early Malayan nationalism; and the efforts of American administrators to protect Philippine highland natives from being forced to participate in international exhibitions as curiosities from the American colony.

The general tendency among theorists in nationalism and national identity has been to assume that the modernization process in Asia and Africa is a kind of distorted reflection of a Western precedent; Asian forms of the nation have rarely been seen as independent, alternative models. Among today's leading theoreticians, there is a growing tendency to take Asia seriously, and to include Asian examples in the general discussion. The aim of the present collection is to build on and reinforce this tendency. It does not postulate any specifically Asian form of the nation, as opposed to a Western one. Rather, it seeks to demonstrate that in Asia, as well as in Europe, each nation forms a unique amalgam which can be compared fruitfully with others. History, culture and geography have posed various kinds of limits to what can be imagined (as Benedict Anderson puts it). The relationship between geographical space and national construction is explored in depth here.

British foreign policy towards Vietnam illustrates the evolution of Britain's position within world geopolitics, 1943-1950. It reflects the change of the Anglo-US relationship from equality to dependence, and demonstrates Britain's changing association with its colonies and with the other European imperial spheres within Southeast Asia.

This book examines women's activism in the early years of independent Indonesia when new attitudes to gender, nationalism, citizenship and democratization were forming. It questions the meaning of democratization for women and their relationship to national sovereignty within the new Indonesian state, and discusses women's organizations and their activities; women's social and economic roles; and the different cultural, regional and ethnic attitudes towards women, while showing the failure of political change to fully address women's gender interests and needs. The author argues that both the role of nationalism in defining gender identity and the role of gender in defining national identity need equal recognition.