ABSTRACT
Southeast Asia has frequently been submerged in analysis of ‘withdrawal East of Suez’. Yet this book has shown that Britain treated Southeast Asia as a distinct area during 1943 to 1957. The previous chapter demonstrated how and why ‘East of Suez’ emerged as an overarching strategic concept only after 1957. The policies, failures and successes of 1957–68 – the East of Suez period and the subject of this epilogue – should not be projected backwards uncritically. 1
