Oral History is a means of recording the past, through interviews. There has been much oral history activity in Southeast Asia since the 1960s at both the institutional and individual levels. This volume contains a range of papers dealing with the theoretical, methodological and practical issues in oral history and the unique problems of their application in the Southeast Asian context. The authors include both academics and practitioners who bring with them a wealth of expertise and experience in anthropology, history, sociology, publishing and archives administration.

Using the presence of the past as a point of departure, this books explores three critical themes in Southeast Asian oral history: the relationship between oral history and official histories produced by nation-states; the nature of memories of violence; and intersections between oral history, oral tradition, and heritage discourses.

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The book focuses on the historical trajectories of Savu, an island in the Nusa Tenggara Timur province, eastern Indonesia. While Savu is a relatively small island, aspects of its society, as well as this study's blend of anthropology and historical method, makes this book of fundamental relevance to the ongoing comparative examination of Austronesian-speaking populations from Madagascar to Hawaii and from Taiwan to Timor. This book brings together Duggan's detailed understanding of Savunese society and genealogies with Hägerdal's deep knowledge of the Dutch and Portuguese archives to understand the overlap between these perspectives on Savu's past. The text discusses the precolonial period up to the sixteenth century, and then examines how early-colonial encounters with the Portuguese and Dutch (VOC) changed the system of governance. In the nineteenth century, the Savunese embarked on minor colonial enterprises in Timor and Sumba, and were still largely autonomous vis-à-vis the colonial state. Protestant missionaries gained foothold after 1870, though Christianization was a slow process. Colonial rule via a Dutch-appointed raja was introduced in the early twentieth century. The text follows the fate of Savu during the struggle for independence and the postcolonial era, discussing the dilemmas of modernization and the resilience of the unique local culture.

Straddling the equator, Southeast Asia comprises Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Singapore, and the Philippines, as well as Laos, Cambodia, Brunei, and East Timor. Despite its extraordinary diversity of ethnicities, religions, and political systems, Southeast Asia plays a keyrole in global economies and geopolitics, especially in light of its strategic position bordering China and India. This Very Short Introduction explores the contemporary character of Southeast Asia's national societies through the lens of their historical evolution, from the eras of indigenouskingdoms and colonies under Western rule to the present's independent nation states. Deftly combining historical analysis and geopolitical insights, the book paints a bird's eye view of contemporary Southeast Asia as a community of diverse societies and traditions as well as a politicaltheater-of-action nested between India and China and tangled in global economic traffic patterns, balance of powers, and environmental forces.As James R. Rush explains, archaic structures, such as religious and ethnic rivalries, tenacious feudal hierarchies, and age-old trade and migration patterns, remain rooted in today's Southeast Asia beneath the surface of modern national governments. The book draws on a wide range of examples fromthe major nations, including the ethno-religious violence in Myanmar, the Muslim-led rebellion in the southern Philippines, the Thai-Cambodian territorial rivalries, the Confucian-inspired governance in Singapore, the military rule and democratization in Indonesia, the environmental consequences ofagribusiness, mining, and unchecked urbanization, and the big-power alignments and tensions involving the United States, China, and Japan. By delving into the cultural, political, and geographical background of Southeast Asia, Rush shows that Southeast Asia is unquestionably modern, but it is modernin distinctively Southeast Asian ways.