Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce

Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce, 1450-1680, Volume One: The Lands below the Winds

by Anthony Reid

The history of Southeast Asian societies, like those of East Asia, had developed greatly before European seafarers arrived. It was a region that ``was subject to many of the same climatic, physical, and commercial pressures and thus developed a very similar set of material cultures.'' Reid gives numerous contemporary foreign accounts of life in Southeast Asia on the eve of western imperialism and colonialism in a skillful, analytical, and critical way.

In The Lands Below the Winds--the first volume of a two-volume set chronicling the rise of Southeast Asian culture during the years from 1450 to 1680--Anthony Reid vividly explored everyday life in the different societies of the region, from diet, housing, commerce, and law to sexual and family relations, patterns of warfare, and popular entertainment. In doing so he enables us to perceive the underlying coherence and splendid variety in the complex mosaic of Southeast Asia.