Southeast Asia In The New International Era

Rating:
Summary: Good Overview on Southeast Asia
Review: Clark Neher, professor of political science and director of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at Northern Illinois University, presents a comprehensive view of Southeast Asia. Having lived in Thailand and the Philippines for seven years, Neher shows clear understanding of the present situations in the region. Neher points out that there is great diversity in the region. Other than geographical proximity and a colonial past, there is little that link the nations in this region to be seen as a coherent whole. The primary focus of the book deals mostly with the process of modernization especially within the twentieth century up to the time of his writing, and how the Southeast Asian countries fit in the New International Era. Thus the whole outlook of the book deals almost exclusively with political and economic developments since the World War II. After a brief introduction to the region and its emergent importance in the international scene, Neher gives an overview of each of the ten Southeast nations, namely, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Burma, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. However, the report on each nation was not evenly dealt with. I feel that a disproportionate coverage was given to Thailand and the Philippine compared to the other nations. His overview of these two nations took up almost 80 pages, whereas only 140 pages were given to the remaining eight nations. This does not reflect good scholarship when the author did not provide a reason for it, especially when one realizes that the author had actually resided in these two countries for seven years. Furthermore, although the third edition was published in 1999, most of the latest updates were given up to early 1998. Most of these additions were single-paragraph add-ons of news without further analysis. A reader seeking understanding of the latest development of the financial crisis finds little helpful understanding of the situation. One would expect better analysis of the situation since it has far reaching consequences in the global scene. This lack of coverage betrays the intent of the author to present Southeast Asia in the New International Era and the fact that it was revised in 1999. One serious mistake was the addition of a paragraph detailing political change in 1998 in Indonesia by mistake in the section that deals with Malaysia. Neher's presentation gives a lucid account on how each of the Southeast Asian countries grappled with democratization in the postwar era as each was trying to gain economic and political stability. For example in Thailand, the traditional culture of venerating the monarch gives it unique stability even in the face of numerous coups and military rule. The King intervened successfully in each case, thus was able to avert bloodshed even when the country went through many changes of government. In recent years, Southeast Asia has enjoyed relative peace and stability that brought economic boom to the region. Such economic success did not occur evenly in all the Southeast Asian countries. Burma, Laos, and Cambodia remained isolated; while Indonesia has its fare share of political unrest. However, as the author points out, most of the Southeast Asian nations are moving fast, though each at different pace, toward modernization.

Rating:
Summary: Lacking
Review: Neher provides a decent overview of Southeast Asia, but anyone with even a scant background in the area will find it to be wholly incomplete. Although not innacurate, Neher's treatemnt of the region and its history is cursory, its numerous deficiencies really are inexcusable for such an author.