Using Southeast Asia as an example, this book tests theory about the relation between modernity, nationalism, and ethnic identity. The author develops his own typology to better fit the formation of political identities such as the Indonesian, Malay, Chinese, Acehnese, Batak and Kadazan.

History is forged through the travel of ideas across continents—as well as by bombs. The Age of Globalization is an account of the unlikely connections that made up late nineteenth-century politics and culture, and in particular between militant anarchists in Europe and the Americas, and anti-imperialist uprisings in Cuba, China and Japan. Told through the complex intellectual interactions of two great Filipino writers—the political novelist José Rizal and the pioneering folklorist Isabelo de los Reyes—The Age of Globalization is a brilliantly original work on how global exchanges shaped the nationalist movements of the time.