Professor Anthony Reid FBA

Southeast Asian early modern history, as a coherent Braudellian whole; nationalism, revolution and political identity in Indonesia and Malaysia; patterns of religious, social and economic history in Asia
Fellow type
International Fellow
Year elected
2008
Year of death
2025

Summary

Anthony Reid is a Southeast Asian historian, once again based as emeritus Professor at the Australian National University, where he also served as Professor of Southeast Asian History for many years up to 1999. In between he was founding Director of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at UCLA (1999-2002) and of the Asia Research Institute at NUS, Singapore (2002-7). A corresponding member of the British Academy, he was awarded the Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize in 2002, and the Association of Asian Studies (US) Distinguished Contributions to Asian Studies Award in 2010. He is best-known for a 2-volume Braudellian histoire totale of Early Modern Southeast Asia entitled Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce (Yale UP, 1988-93). His most recent book is A History of Southeast Asia: Critical Crossroads (Wiley/Blackwell, 2015). His many authored and edited books cover such themes as slavery, freedom, gender, the Chinese diaspora and its Jewish analogy, Islam, economic history and contemporary Indonesia. His principal fieldwork sites have been Sumatra, Sulawesi and Sabah (Malaysia). Recent research interests have focussed on environmental history and the interaction of history with geophysics in understanding Indonesia's past.

Last post

Emeritus Professor, Australian National University

Publications

The Conest for North Sumatra: Atjeh, the Netherlands, and Britain 1969 (Oxford UP); Indonesian trans 2003, 2007

The Indonesian National Revolution, 1945-1950 1974. Longman

Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce, c.1450-1680 1988-93

The Blood of the People: Revolution and the End of Traditional Rule in Northern Sumatra. 1979 (Oxford UP); 2015 (NUS Press)

A History of Southeast Asia: Critical Crossroads 2015

Imperial Alchemy: Nationalism and Political Identity in Southeast Asia. 2009

Other Fellows of the British Academy

Professor Richard Widdess FBA

Musicology of South Asia, including history, theory, analysis and social context of music in North India and Nepal; music and religion in South Asia; analysis of world music; music cognition, performance and meaning in oral traditions

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Professor Andrew Gerstle FBA

The cultural and social history of 17th-19th century Japan, with particular reference to Bunraku and Kabuki theatres, popular literature, sexuality and the visual arts

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Professor Anne Gerritsen FBA

Late imperial China, the early modern history of exchange between Asia and Europe, and especially the material culture of global exchange, therapeutic commodities, and the cultures and practices of merchants

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