Bridging the perceived gap between Southeast Asia's historical and contemporary situations, Donald McCloud focuses on continuities in the region's internal dynamics as well as its relationship to the greater global environment. The author challenges widely held views that diversity and fragmentation are the hallmarks of the region, identifying instead the commonalities that have bound the countries of Southeast Asia together through at least two millennia and have provided the basis for a unique regional dynamic.It has only been since World War II that Southeast Asians, long influenced by the...