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Transformasi Masyarakat Indonesia...

Asia”. From the 1920s onwards, Southeast Asia was most clas-
sified as part of the Far East or East Asia. This change after the
establishment of the South East Asia Command. Beside, an-
other term similar to “Southeast Asia” has been used occasion-
ally were “Southeastern Asia”, “Sudostasien”, (in the nineteenth
century) and the Japanese’ s “Tonan Ajia” ( in the 1950s) as well
as the Chinese’s nan yang (south sea). Since then the suitabil-
15
ity of the region as a whole as an object of study has been more
readily accepted. Several comparative works focused on the
region as whole begun, such as Charles Fisher’s social, economic,
and political geography (London, 1950); John F. Cady’s South-
east Asia: its Historical Development (New York, 1964) and his
Post War Southeast Asia (Athenes, Ohio, 1974) and Nicholas
Tarling’s Southeast Asia: Past and Present (Melbourne, 1966). While
the first major history of the region as whole was D.G.E. Hall’s
A History of South East Asia (1955), followed by the six authors
attempting an integrated and thematic history of the region
entitled their works In Search of Southeast Asia (1971). In 1992
16
the project for a Cambridge History of Southeast Asia was pub-
lished into two volumes, under Nicholas Tarling as editor. The
Cambridge regional approach has tested the outlines, but it has
also emphasized the deficiencies of the sources available.
The study of the region before World War 11 can be di-
vided into two categories. First those who concern with the
early history based on the archeological, epigraphical and lit-
erary sources. Second, those who concern on the European ex-
pansion in Southeast Asia with more colonel by the
Europeancentric perspective. The remarkable expansion of the
Southeast Asian studies was apparent in the post war years,

15 Hajime Shimizu, in Saya Shiraishi and Takashi Shiraishi, 1993; PP.
22 35.
16 Nicholas Tarling ed., The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia. 2 Vols
( Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 2 – 3.

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