In this book, Sing C. Chew has selected his emphasis on Southeast Asia as a way to recalibrate the perceived imbalance in global history studies, wherein this region is sandwiched between two of the world's major civilisations, that of China and India, and often regarded as a peripheral zone. Chew shares his long-term investigation of Southeast Asia's role in the context of world history, specifically from 500 BC through to AD 500, a key period during the region's intensive engagement in global maritime trade networks. This book places Southeast Asian civilisations on an equal footing with other known civilisations to be examined in terms of their collective historical characteristics and global significance.
As Southeast Asia has no internal written records of its own during the time period of this study, the major sources for this book involve documentary evidence from neighbouring areas and archaeological reports from Southeast Asia and beyond, applied toward reconstructing the emergence of the region's social and economic complexity and maritime connections. Additional lines of evidence are mentioned when relevant in particular cases and aspects.
The Introduction reviews studies of macro-historical structures and world-systems theory, and it proposes how a global historical narrative can refine and clarify the position of Southeast Asia in these terms. Following the Introduction, this book is divided into four numbered chapters, with themes of Southeast Asia's early context, connection with global trade networks, world economic systems, and political transformations.
Chapter 1 (Early Southeast Asia) summarises a rich amount of archaeological data and related historical literature, and it further investigates the region's economic and political trajectory. In this chapter, the discussion focuses on rice cultivation and metals fabrication, as they are the two major factors that stimulated cultural-social transitions in Southeast Asia's Neolithic Period and Bronze Age respectively. At the end of the Bronze Age (c.500 BC), cross-regional maritime networks had emerged and began to link Mainland Southeast Asia, numerous islands of Southeast Asia, China, and India.
Chapter 2 (Global Linkage: The First Eurasian World System) illustrates the land-crossing and ocean-crossing trade routes of the early Eurasian world, with a special focus on the maritime routes from west to east. These trading routes covered the geographical area from Europe and the Mediterranean to the Red Sea, from the Red Sea to East Africa and the Gulf, from the Gulf to the Indian Ocean, from the Indian Ocean to the South China Sea, and from the South China Sea to Korea and Japan. A detailed and intensive discussion of Southeast Asian maritime trading routes around 200 BC to AD 500 is presented clearly and informatively. Furthermore, the text touches on the uses of various types of ships and their construction traditions.
Chapter 3 (Southeast Asia in the Maritime Eurasian World Economy) describes the materials and goods that were traded among the trade networks discussed in chapter 2. This chapter first describes the physical items traded between Rome and India, and then it shifts attention to the items that originated from Southeast Asia and entered into the Eurasian world system. Southeast Asia's diverse trading partnerships included contacts in India and Roman areas to the west, as well as in China, Korea, Taiwan and Japan to the north and east. Among the many traded materials, spices, food crops, bronze, metals, timber, and precious stones are most representative. This chapter provides a laudable list of Southeast Asia's tradeable resources and enormous contribution to the Eurasian trading system.
Chapter 4 (Political Transformation in Southeast Asia) discusses Southeast Asia's polities and urbanisation development, along with the world trade system. Several examples are provided of the urbanisation process, such as in Vietnam, Thailand, Burma, and Cambodia in Mainland Southeast Asia. Among those examples, the case of the Oc Eo port city of Funan is described vividly as occupying a central position in the Eurasian maritime trading system, and its rise and fall clearly related to the shift of trading routes through time. Another section presents examples from Peninsular and Island Southeast Asia. This chapter delivers an intense discussion to correct the Indocentric mentality of interpreting Southeast Asia's socioeconomic and political transformation between 200 BC and AD 500. This volume concludes with a short Methodological Reprise. In this part, Chew considers how the content of the prior chapters can support new views and paths forward in studies of the position of Southeast Asia in world economic systems history.
This book refers to a large volume of literature from different disciplines, primarily on ancient history but also archaeology, anthropology, linguistics, and environmental sciences. As a historian, Chew has incorporated the varied forms of information and interpretations provided by other scholars. Chew presents all this information through different time-ranges, from the oldest through to the newest, and from different geographical regions, from west to east. The information in each chapter is connected logically, interpreted carefully, and discussed thoughtfully. The scope of this book is admirable, given the wealth of information and the diversity of Southeast Asia's peoples, histories, cultures, and languages. This valuable book successfully demonstrates the great potential of studies on Southeast Asia, and Chew's efforts should be appreciated by scholars in the region and worldwide.
