A Traveller's History of Southeast Asia - J.M. Barwise & N.J. White
Read: May 2025
This was an interesting read. It was a nice introduction to the topic in question, but there was a lack of depth. Obviously, Barwise and White were covering a large geographic area and a long time frame so understandably there was a lack of depth. There was a large focus on the more modern and history - from the Colonial period up until the early 00's. Which is also understandable since this is a traveller's history. It's designed to contextualize the sights one will be seeing. And most relevant context in regards to the culture is more recent.
I personally learned a lot as I hadn't looked into SEA history in any kind of depth and only was picking things up from reading/studying other histories. I'm thinking largely of primary & secondary social studies as we call it in Canada. But this was a good place to dip my toes into the waters so to speak. There was a lot more I wanted to know, but as I said there was a lot to cover so there was no time to pause. I know I'll have to find specific histories written about the specific place and/or time to go into the things I found more interesting (like pre-colonial times).
As you can see by the cover image, the covered countries include: Brunei, Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. I don't know why the Philippines was not included as I would solidly categorize it as SEA. But I guess in some places it's not? Which is weird to me. But oh no, I'll have to read a history book on the Philippines to find out....tragic.
Info: Interlink Books; 2002