1. This is an abbreviated version of the inaugural lecture of Professor J. Bastin of the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur, which was earlier published under a different title ‘The Study of Modern South East Asian Historv’. The modified title correctly reflects the main theme of the paper. This paper appears to be in part a rejoinder to a lunch hour talk, which was later published in the Straits Times, given to the Rotary Club, Johore Bahru by Professor K. G. Tregonning, of the University of Malaya in Singapore, in which he called for a study of all elements in Malayan history, Asian as well as European, and attacked those who wrote merely of the European in Asia. I shall confine my comments to the observations concerning the historical trends among Asian historians. The European exponents of the “Asian viewpoint”, I am sure, would like to comment separately, if at all, by themselves.