1) Why would the authors have used the subtitle “A New History”? Does it have to do with the “crisis” of area studies? Are they proposing or offering a new perspective on the history of Southeast Asia? What was the “old history”?
2) How did modernization and globalization in forms such as industrialization, institutions of taxation and law and new technologies enable the colonialists to control much of Southeast Asia and what was the impact on local communities and populations of Southeast Asia?
3) How did the colonialists penetrate, dominate and change Southeast Asian culture and what were the implications?
4) What were the implications and effects (long-term and short-term) of the contradictions of the colonizers who both expressed progress and universal ideals to Southeast Asians as well as racial discrimination and political exclusion?