ABSTRACT
This chapter gives a context by exploring the history of the region, looking not only at the four countries or areas where the English language has been dominant, but also setting their experience within a wider perspective. It first considers geographical, cultural and political factors that influence such a history, as well as suggesting the inadequacy of terminology drawn from elsewhere to account for the region’s unique experience. Attention then moves to the networks of trade that characterized the early modern period, and then increasing, although uneven, colonial presence from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. In the twentieth century, after the rupture of the Second World War, former colonies gained independence as new nation-states, only to be caught up in the conflicts of the Cold War. In recent decades, Southeast Asia has faced the challenges of globalization, urbanization and uneven development. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion ofHong Kong’s unique historical experience, and the relationship between China’s special administrative region and Southeast Asia.
