This article shows that the descriptions of Southeast Asian geography contained in Ming and Qing Chinese sources that used observations collected from contemporary mariners reflect the structure of the maritime trading networks in the region. It examines several Chinese textual studies of Southeast Asia, navigational rutters, and maps, and uses geographic information system mapping to visualise and compare the extent of the authors’ and cartographers’ knowledge of the region. The article then takes the findings and situates them in the context of early modern Southeast Asian economic history to explain how the Chinese networks were transformed.

Studies about Philippine colonial class structure are singularly scant. With the exception of Scott's work on the sixteenth century, no effort has yet been made to shed light upon the problem of how Philippine society had been stratified during the long span of the Spanish and American regimes. This paper tries to describe and analyze the manner in which a segment of nineteenth-century Philippine society was structured, and offers a conceptualization of what constituted a provincial “social class” at the time by looking at the role of the inquilino (leaseholders of agricultural land) in Caviteño society. Specifically, it (a) rejects the idea that native Filipino society was composed of only two social strata: a tiny upper stratum and a mass of uniformly poor population; (b) and implies that the native class structure was far from having been static during the Spanish regime. Due to limitations in the sources, no attempt has been made to trace in an evolutionary manner the development of the inquilinos as a social class. The study deals mainly with the Dominican hacienda town of Naic, although less detailed information on other municipalities like Imus, Bacoor, Kawit, Santa Cruz de Malabon, and San Francisco de Malabon suggest the existence of similar conditions that could have fostered the development of an intermediate social class composed largely of inquilinos.

In the Philippines a qualified system of centralism prevails today whereby most formal and all real power resides at the national level of government, though local units possess. some attributes of autonomy. Some local officials are elected but others are appointed by, and responsible to, the central government. Moreover it directs most local services and tightly controls local finances. Any explanation of this system must he sought on more than constitutional grounds. It becomes essential to examine the theory and practice of previous periods as regards central-local relations – for the interaction of these beliefs and practices are the historical antecedents of, and helped shape, this system.

Each period has special characteristics, amongst which the pattern of employment is not the least interesting. In all except the first and last, the industry was completely Chinese in capital, management and labour; this is a major fact of Malayan history.

Digital tools offer new possibilities for visual research, and such tools can provide methods for revitalising our understanding of the field of culture. Despite the importance of the visual as an element of culture, it is only in the last decade that the visual as a phenomenon of seeing has been a major feature of theoretical and methodological approaches to Southeast Asia. The long traditions of art history, anthropology and related fields in Southeast Asian studies have hitherto been focused on empirical documentation. In studying one aspect of the visual archive created by the polymath Gregory Bateson during his partnership with Margaret Mead, I will draw on methodologies that have their origins in Bateson's writings. These methodologies find fresh conditions in digital environments, in ways that allow us to bring into play a variety of theories of the visible.

This article explores how the islands of Bali and Lombok were racialised through the work of Dutch racial scientist J.P. Kleiweg de Zwaan in the 1930s. An examination of both Kleiweg's published works and his local practices draws attention to the fact that racialisation occurred at different moments of anthropological work, producing different outcomes. The article concludes that anthropologists communicated different versions of racial ideas to international academics and to local communities. The Bali-Aga and Sasak, who were measured, described and photographed by anthropologists, appropriated racial categories which they found meaningful.

In this article an attempt is made to trace back as far as possible a history of Bang Chan, a rice-growing village in the central plains of Thailand. Documents existed which might have offered some clues, but help could not be expected from court records, land registration deeds or the census. All that existed lay in bundles in the District Office store rooms, a bit mouldy and perhaps chewed by silverfish. It would take a year at least to dig out the relevant papers, and then since family names do not appear until about 1915 and place names changed frequently, one would never know whether the case of Chan vs. Chya referred to incidents in Bang Chan or some other part of the district.

When invasion forces occupy a land, elements of the local population may regroup and organize into a resistance movement. In so doing, the resisters are challenging the legitimacy of the conqueror-imposed regime. Through tactics ranging from non-cooperation to armed combat, the resisters hope to sap the strength of the conqueror, attract outside military intervention, and eventually expel the alien.

On his mother's side, W. Cameron Forbes was the grandson of Ralph Waldo Emerson, and on his father's, the grandson of John Murray Forbes, who made his fortune in the China clipper trade. He carried in his heredity the shrewd business ability of the one and the liberalism of the other. In Hofstadter's turn of phrase, he was the patrician as liberal. His wealth, his education — the best available (Milton Academy, Hopkinson School, Harvard) — would have entitled him to admittance to the innermost recesses of post-Civil War Republicanism. Yet he remained at best only affiliated with that party, and at heart an outspoken Independent. In 1892, on graduation from Harvard, he joined Stone and Webster, later gained experience in business as officer and director of several Boston banks, and then, just before the turn of the century, joined the family firm of J. M. Forbes and Co., Merchants.

In a previous study published in 1934 I have given an account of the first Portuguese mission to Peking. Certain sources which were not available to me have since been examined, and consequently it has become possible to amplify my narrative and to revise some of my views tentatively given before.

Overseas Chinese played a special role in China's entry into the modern age. Volumes have appeared to discuss the competition between revolutionaries and reformers, and this author has written of the late Ch'ing regime's own efforts to enlist leading members of the Nanyang merchant class. But this essay intends to shy away from the historian's conventional concern for factional politics. Despite the long-standing conviction that 1911 constituted a watershed and the equally worn shibboleth which tells us that the contribution from abroad was largely a function of factional allegiance, the Southeast Asian Chinese who took part in changing China should also be remembered for the perspectives they shared. This is because all the groups are part of a movement greater than China. Not only should their legacy to China be viewed from a far broader perspective but, also, their place in Southeast Asian history.

There is little that is not known already in Prof. P.J. Drake's article. He himself admits this. He gets his materials from various published sources. Most surprisingly, he does not make any direct reference to such easily readable and indispensable sources of materials such as Frank Swettenham's British Malaya and Lewis Fermor's Report Upon the Mining Industry of Malaya. Given his subject matter and for the period of his study, to omit these two sources is like discussing Christianity without quoting from the Bible or Islam without reading from the Koran.

Since the very beginning, archaeological activity in Indonesia was centered on three main aspects, namely:

1. Collecting and inventory of archaeological data;

2. Research;

3. Preservation of artifacts.

The following two articles were originally contributions to a conference panel on “Malay local history: varieties of Malay experience”. The panel was concerned with the way Malay culture has been “localized” in different situations. The concept of “localization”, as discussed by Professor O. W. Wolters, refers to the process by which an imported culture tends to be “fractured and restated and therefore drained of original significance”.