...of their accounts constitute an indispensable source for the writing of premodern Southeast Asia. The volume under review represents an important step towards an understanding of the knowledge about the Malay world by the Chinese from the mainland and the region itself. Most of the authors are senior scholars who have done substantial research in the relevant fields, and the book consists of a compilation of papers presented at an international colloquium held at the National University of Malaysia's Institute of the Malay World and Civilization (ATMA) in September 2002. As the editors point out, although ATMA by tradition has been concerned with Malay nationalism, it has recently organized a series of conferences examining Dutch, French, Nordic, and German scholarship on the Malay world. The latest colloquium on the Chinese aims at answering the question "[w]hat are the distinctive features of Chinese scholarship on the Malay world?" (p. 2). Believing that "the Malay world is the Promised Land for the scholar of inter-cultural relations" (p. 11), the editors suggest that while the long history of Chinese studies about the region has created an "apolitical tradition", scholarship about the Malay world by Southeast Asian Chinese grew slowly but steadily after the nineteenth century (some of the latter are well represented by contributors to this volume, such as Wang Gungwu, Leo Suryadinata, Tan Chee-Beng, and Ho Khai Leong).

The book's title, Chinese Studies of the Malay World, should be understood in a broader sense; it is not mainly about (pure)...

NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.



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