In 1946, arguably “Southeast Asia” did not exist. None of the 11 countries that now make up the region of 585 million people were independent, although two, Vietnam and Indonesia, were already embroiled in struggles against their colonial masters. There was no regional Southeast Asian identity to speak of; it would take the Cold War and labelling from outside to shape the region's identity and not until the creation of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 1967 that regional cooperation deepened and identity congealed. Yet, the region came out of the shadows of colonialism and Japanese occupation to emerge as one of the world's most vibrant and economically successful. Today, over half of international trade flows through the waters of Southeast Asia, much of it originating from the area, and many of the economies in the region are lauded as successful ‘tigers’, achieving high growth with equity. The region has bounced back after the 1997 Asian financial crisis which debilitated the countries. Ten years on, the region remains stable, with strong regional ties at the elite level in ASEAN and has experienced a broadening of civil society and greater prosperity, including the largest Muslim democracy in the world, Indonesia.

Despite the success of Southeast Asian countries and their achievements, the region as a region has remained under-analysed. Southeast Asia has often been studied through the lens of others. Initially, Southeast Asian history was largely told as an extension to that of India and China. It would take a generation of historians in the late 1970s to change this approach, and draw attention to the pivotal role that the region played as an economic thoroughfare and its selective and unique adoption of outside cultural and political currents. Their work emphasized the commonalities in the region, defined to include both maritime and mainland Southeast Asia. The contemporary period, from 1946 onwards, remains less studied, despite a generally broad appreciation of region-wide changes. There is a rich body of scholarship on individual countries, especially Vietnam and Indonesia, but studies of transformations in the region as a region over the last sixty years are rare. Focus has centred on the immediate “problems” of the moment; during the Cold War with attention concentrated on Vietnam War and a possible spread of communist “dominoes”.