The Fall of Imperial Britain in South-East Asia

by Nicholas Tarling

This book brings two lines of investigation together. One investigation is into what might be called the decline and fall of the British empire. The book seeks to analyze the nature of Britain's influence in the world at the height of its power in the nineteenth century and the reasons for its decline. It is particularly concerned with the attitudes that Britain developed, which affected its approach to the interests of other powers and to the emergence of nationalism. The other investigation the book undertakes is into the policies the British adopted in South-East Asia from the late eighteenth century onwards. Most historians of the British empire have concentrated on India, Africa, or the settler dominions. The author aims to bring South-East Asia into that discourse, and he believes that doing so will also make for a fuller understanding of the emergence of new South-East Asian states in the twentieth century.

238 pages, Hardcover

First published March 25, 1993

About the author

Nicholas Tarling was Professor of History at the University of Auckland from 1968 until 1997 and a Fellow of its New Zealand Asia Institute. He was the editor of The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia and wrote nearly 50 books and a large number of articles on the region.