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Colonial Post-Mortem: A Survey of the Historical Controversy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 August 2009

G. I. T. Machin
G. I. T. Machin
Affiliation:
University of Singapore
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Abstract

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Type
Review Article
Information
Journal of Southeast Asian History , Volume 3 , Issue 2 , September 1962 , pp. 129 - 138
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 1962

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References

1. ‘The Western Element in Modern Southeast Asian History’; abbreviated version of an inaugural lecture, printed as No. 2 in the series Papers on Southeast Asian Subjects (Singapore, 1960).Google Scholar

2. Quoted by ProfessorBastin, , op. cit., p. 19.Google Scholar

3. Singhal, D. P., ‘Some Comments on “The Western Element in Modern Southeast Asian History”’, Journal of Southeast Asian History, vol. 1, no. 2 (09 1960), p. 121.Google Scholar The work to which DrSinghal, refers is Malabar and the Portuguese (Bombay, 1929).Google Scholar

4. Asia under Western Dominance (London, 1953).Google Scholar

5. This is in opposition to Dr. Singhal's view that because Panikkar expressed his opinions in 1929 he should be ‘absolved of complicity in the act of introducing political reaction in historical writings’ (‘Some Comments’, p. 121).Google Scholar A political reaction often commences long before it succeeds.

6. See Smail, John, ‘On the Possibility of an Autonomous History of Modern Southeast Asia’, Journal of Southeast Asian History, vol. 2, no. 2 (07, 1961), p 78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7. Asia in the European Age, 1498–1955. Thames, and Hudson, , London, 1962. Pp. 351.Google Scholar With maps and index. 35s.

8. In the following remarks I refer to the second edition of this work (London, 1959).

9. ‘The Western Element’, pp. 21–2.Google Scholar

10. ‘Some Comments’, p. 121.Google Scholar

11. ‘The Western Element’, p. 18.Google Scholar

12. Ibid., p. 21.

13. Ibid., p. 20.

14. By Smail, John, op. cit., p. 78.Google Scholar

15. Ibid.

16. ‘The Western Element’, p. 18.Google Scholar

17. ‘Some Comments’, p. 119.Google Scholar

18. Op. cit., p. 78.

19. ‘The Western Element’, pp. 16–17.Google Scholar

20. Ibid., pp. 15, 17.

21. ‘The Western Element’, p. 8.Google Scholar

22. It seems that Professor Bastin is not happy himself about the finality of his view. For though he says at one point that ‘no matter: how noble are the intentions of a Western historian to abandon a Europe-centric outlook, he will never quite escape from his own past, from his own cultural heritage’ (‘The Western Element’, p. 15)Google Scholar, he speaks immediately afterwards of ‘severe limitations’ to the possibility of western historians ever successfully interpreting Southeast Asian history from an Asian viewpoint (ibid.), and this is not quite so final. John Smail has already noticed this discrepancy (op. cit., p. 73).

23. ‘The Western Element’, p. 8.Google Scholar

24. See, e.g., three recent articles in the Journal of Southeast Asian History:John Smail, op. cit.; West, F. J., ‘The Study of Colonial History’ (vol. 2, no. 3, 10 1961, pp. 70–82)Google Scholar; and Benda, Harry, ‘The Structure of Southeast Asian History — Some Preliminary Observations’ (vol. 3, no. 1, 03 1962, pp. 106–38).Google Scholar

25. Indonesian Trade and Society (trans., The Hague, 1955), p. 261.Google Scholar