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East-Southeast Asia in World History: The Making of a World Region

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2014

Geoffrey C. Gunn
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Abstract

Global trends which have seen the dramatic rise of the East-Southeast Asian economies suggests a turning of the wheel. Students of world history will recall the central place of China and India in the pre-modern world as producers and exporters of, variously, silks, ceramics and textiles, just as their populations and economies vastly dwarfed those of medieval Europe. The sprawling tropical zone of Southeast Asia, known historically as a prime source of spices and natural commodities, also boasted impressive civilisations. Still we are perplexed as to how a region boasting internationally known trade emporium dropped off the centre stage of world history. Reading back, did colonialism and imperialism turn the tide against indigenous agency? Or was stagnation an inevitable feature of life in pre-modern Southeast Asia? In seeking to answer these and other questions, this article both replays and critiques the many constructions of the broader East-Southeast Asia region, including its historiography, with special attention to recent trends in the framing of world-regional and global history. This is important, I argue, as localism, powerful state narratives, and the legacies of colonial conceptions and categories all contrive to ignore the importance of a holistic framing of this part of the globe.

Keywords

East (Northeast)-Southeast Asiaregional world historyglobalisationcorrelated and connected history
Type
Articles
Information
TRaNS: Trans-Regional and -National Studies of Southeast Asia , Volume 2 , Special Issue 1: Heritage, History, and Historical Processes , January 2014 , pp. 5 - 30
Copyright
Copyright © Institute of East Asian Studies, Sogang University 2014 

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