Theories and Approaches to British Decolonization in Southeast Asia

This chapter surveys approaches to British decolonization, in the context of Southeast Asia, in order to see how far new paradigms and ways of linking old models might be profitably explored. This is no easy task, as even the terminology reveals. “The End of Empire,” withdrawal, decolonization, disimperialism, the rise of nationalism, imperial decline, the transfer of power—there are almost as many names for the end of British imperium, as there are for the region itself: the Nanyang or Nanyo, the Malay Maritime World, or East Indies, or, somewhat late in the day, Southeast Asia.