Early inscriptions written in Indian languages and scripts abound in Southeast Asia. Literacy in the very early states of Southeast Asia — aside from the portion of north Vietnam annexed by China — began with the importing, by local rulers, of modified cults of Buddhism or Hinduism, and the attendant adoption of Sanskrit or Pali language for the writing of religious texts. Later, in the seventh century, a broader range of texts began to appear on permanent materials, written in indigenous languages. Given the importance of religion in spearheading the development of indigenous literacy in Southeast Asia, it is not surprising that the north Indian languages of Sanskrit and Pali have had considerable long-term impact upon the linguistic and intellectual cultures of Southeast Asia.

Ships sailing from Fujian to Southeast Asia could choose between two different sea routes. The first route followed the China coast to central Guangdong; it then led to Hainan, the Champa coast and Pulau Condore, an island near the southern tip of Vietnam. From there it continued in three directions: to Siam, to northwestern Borneo and to the Malayan east coast. Going south to the Malayan east coast was the most direct way to Trengganu, Pahang, Pulau Tioman, Johore and modern Singapore whence it was possible to sail into the Indian Ocean or to cross over to Sumatra, Bangka Island and Java.

The history of Srivijaya has been one of the most controversial subjects in premodern Southeast Asian history. Among the crucial issues in relation to this subject are the timing and cause of its decline and, in particular, to what extent changes in trade patterns contributed to such a development. Recent scholarship, largely derived from new interpretations of the epigraphical and archaeological findings in Southeast Asia, has contributed much to advance our understanding of this ancient empire. Yet, information available in those sources is still far from adequate to make a conclusive historical judgment. It is thus imperative to re-examine Chinese accounts of Srivijaya in the light of this new scholarship.

One might classify earthquakes and volcanic eruptions as “natural disasters”, whereas comets and eclipses might be described merely as “natural curiosities”. In earlier times, however, all were equally frightening, signs that the gods were angry.

A form of protection against eclipses was available, however, in the sense that prediction provided a means of countering the event. Consequently one main function of the astronomer/astrologer (henceforth “hora”) in his society was to warn his patron that the sky would darken and the birds stop singing at such and such a time on such and such a day.

With few exceptions, commentators agree that bandits were a major socio-economic phenomenon of the nineteenth-century Philippines. Historians and contemporary observers are united in lamenting the deplorable state to which the countryside was reduced by their depredations. Bandits infested the roads and rivers, ravaged fields and farms, sacked towns, pillaged churches and set light to houses in an orgy of murder, robbery and rapine in which there was “hardly an evil deed that their rash boldness [did] not perform”. Modern historiography has usually been content to interpret such crimes as either being indicative of social tensions within a society or as representing “a basic social activity with its own internal logic and historical development”. Only superficial attention has been paid to the environment within which these crimes were committed, historians merely noting that such and such an offence was committed in an urban or rural setting.

The United States gained authority over the Philippine Islands as a result of the Spanish-American War (1898) and the Treaty of Paris (1899), which recognized American wartime territorial gains. Prior to that time the Spanish had general authority over the northern region of the Islands down to the Visayas, which they had ruled from their capital at Manila on Luzon for nearly three hundred years. The population in that Spanish zone was Christianized as a product of deliberate Spanish policy during that time frame. The area to the south, encompassing much of the island of Mindanao and all of the Sulu Archipelago, was under Spanish military control at the time of the Spanish American War (1898), having been taken over in the previous fifteen years by a protracted military campaign. This southern territory was held by the presence of Spanish military units in a series of strong forts located throughout the settled areas, but clear control over the society was quite weak and, in fact, collapsed after the American naval victory at Manila Bay. The United States did not establish its own presence in much of the southern region until 1902. It based its claim over the region on the treaty with the Spanish, and other colonial powers recognized that claim as legitimate.

The Preamble to the 1945 Constitution of independent Indonesia contains an ideological tenet called Pancasila As the name implies — panca (five) and sila (principles or pillars) — it is composed of five principles: Belief in One God, Humanity that is just and civilized, Unity of Indonesia, Democracy guided by the wisdom of representative deliberation, Social justice for all Indonesians. Since its installation as a state ideology, Pancasila has been the most commonly used rhetoric in political discourse and the governing principle of social life.

In the spring of 1954, Vietnamese revolutionaries launched a decisive assault against French colonial troops in the mountain valley of Dien Bien Phu. The military defeat of France, crystalized in the surrender of French troops in May 1954, was the single most crucial event in the collapse of colonial power. In military terms, France had unambiguously yielded to the strategic brilliance and soldierly élan of the Vietnamese, but culturally and intellectually, the empire was not so easily dispatched. Though it was decisive, the military victory alone could not resolve the problems caused by colonial domination. Rather, it created the possibility for Vietnamese to recover from the experience of colonization. Thus, in June, only a month after the French surrender, revolutionary scholars began a new offensive — an intellectual assault — against the most basic assumptions and conclusions of the colonial presence by sending forth a cascade of histories, a rush of ethnographic works, and waves of folkloric studies. In unintended ways, however, the sheer energy of their response also underscored the great difficulty of their endeavor.