in the previous chapter we examined the ‘age of colonialism’ and noted that historians are divided about the impact of the West on the histories of East and Southeast Asian societies. Some historians have argued that it is incorrect to interpret the history of East and Southeast Asia, from 1498 to the mid-1950s, as nothing more than the history of European colonialism, with the history of East and Southeast Asia limited to a response to this external influence. This view, they argue, ignores the internal historical forces and social structures that existed in East and Southeast Asia prior to European intervention and which persisted largely untouched throughout the ‘age of colonialism’. Other historians have pointed to the dramatic and long-term consequences of European colonialism in East and Southeast Asia, and argue that it is appropriate both to talk of an ‘age of colonialism’ and to read the history of East and Southeast Asia from this perspective.

Although some historians speak of the ‘age of colonialism’ as though it is an historical period whose dominant characteristic is European colonialism, control of East and Southeast Asia by European colonial powers was in fact sporadic and quite limited during most of this period. European colonial power did not peak until the latter half of the nineteenth century and, even then, some societies in the region managed to avoid direct colonisation.