Southeast Asia: A Very Short Introduction

James R. Rush traces the history of Southeast Asia from the earliest mandala kingdoms to the colonial era and the present day. Synthesizing the ideas of leading scholars, he provides an analysis of contemporary Southeast Asia that accommodates its bewildering ethnic, religious, and political complexities while exposing the underlying patterns that make it a unified world region.

James R. Rush is Professor of History at Arizona State University, where he has taught for twenty-six years. He has served as Director of Arizona State University's Program for Southeast Asian Studies and as a consultant to the Asia Society, El Colegio de Mexico, and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. He is the author or editor of numerous books, including Opium to Java: Revenue Farms and Chinese Enterprise in Colonial Indonesia, 1860-1910; Hamka's Great Story: A Master Writer's Vision of Islam for Modern Indonesia; and The Last Tree: Reclaiming the Environment in Tropical Asia.