ABSTRACT
In 1965 the Department of Geography at the School of Oriental and African Studies, in the University of London, was founded by Professor C.A.Fisher, who had recently completed a monumental survey of the social, economic and political geography of SouthEast Asia, a study which was to become the benchmark for future work in the region (Fisher 1964). At the time he was writing, the prognosis for this distinctive tropical, maritime realm of newly independent states was far from certain:
it must be hoped that the newly independent states will succeed in stamping out the widespread lawlessness and corruption which still remain in some of them as legacies of the momentous upheavals of the 1940s. For only if this is done will it be possible effectively to raise the living standards of their peoples, to check the drift to further Balkanization, and to prevent the region from becoming, as at times has seemed only too probable, the powder keg of Asia.
