Southeast Asia History

Lee, the founding father of modern Singapore and its prime minister from 1959 to 1990, has honed his wisdom during more than fifty years on the world stage. Almost single-handedly responsible for transforming Singapore into a Western-style economic success, he offers a unique perspective on the geopolitics of East and West. American presidents from Richard Nixon to Barack Obama have welcomed him to the White House.

In February 1944, in one of the most astonishing battles of World War II, a ragtag collection of British clerks, drivers, doctors, muleteers, and other base troops, stiffened by a few dogged Yorkshiremen and a handful of tank crews, managed to defeat a much larger and sophisticated contingent of some of the finest infantry in the Japanese army on their march toward India.

A Brief History of Thailand offers an engaging look at the country's last 250 years - from coups and violent massacres to the invention of Pad Thai in the 1930s. Listeners will learn the vibrant story of Thailand's emergence as a prosperous Buddhist state, its transformation from traditional kingdom to democratic constitutional monarchy, and its subsequent rise to prominence in Southeast Asian affairs. Thailand's dramatic history spans centuries of conflict, and this book recounts many of these fascinating episodes

The legendary annihilation in 1883 of the volcano-island of Krakatoa - the name has since become a byword for a cataclysmic disaster - was followed by an immense tsunami that killed nearly 40,000 people. Beyond the purely physical horrors of an event that has only very recently been properly understood, the eruption changed the world in more ways than could possibly be imagined. Dust swirled round die planet for years, causing temperatures to plummet and sunsets to turn vivid with lurid and unsettling displays of light.

Thailand has seen its fair share of struggles. Today, the Thai government struggles to find its place in the world, oscillating between democracy and authoritarian regimes. Even though its name translates to “Land of the Free”, it seems the country has some trouble living up to that name. This captivating guide to the Thai people and their history details the interesting events that led the country to where it is today.

Chanrithy Him felt compelled to tell of surviving life under the Khmer Rouge in a way "worthy of the suffering which I endured as a child." In a mesmerizing story, Chanrithy Him vividly recounts her trek through the hell of the "killing fields." She gives us a child's-eye view of a Cambodia where rudimentary labor camps for both adults and children are the norm and modern technology no longer exists. Death becomes a companion in the camps, along with illness.

In Vietnam, Christopher Goscha tells the full history of Vietnam, from antiquity to the present day. Generations of emperors, rebels, priests, and colonizers left complicated legacies in this remarkable country. Periods of Chinese, French, and Japanese rule reshaped and modernized Vietnam, but so too did the colonial enterprises of the Vietnamese themselves as they extended their influence southward from the Red River Delta.

In 1941 and 1942, the British and Indian armies were brutally defeated and Japan reigned supreme in its newly conquered territories throughout Asia. But change was coming. New commanders were appointed, significant training together with restructuring took place and new tactics were developed. A War of Empires by acclaimed historian Robert Lyman expertly retells these coordinated efforts and describes how a new volunteer Indian Army, rising from the ashes of defeat, would ferociously fight to turn the tide of war.

Thought-provoking and eye-opening, Blood and Silk is an accessible, personal look at modern Southeast Asia, written by one of the region's most experienced outside observers. This is a first-hand account of what it's like to sit at the table with deadly Thai Muslim insurgents, mediate between warring clans in the Southern Philippines and console the victims of political violence in Indonesia - all in an effort to negotiate peace and understand the reasons behind endemic violence.

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, carrying 239 passengers, disappeared into the night, never to be seen or heard from again. The incident was inexplicable. In a world defined by advanced technology and interconnectedness, how could an entire aircraft become untraceable? Had the flight been subject to a perfect hijack? And if the plane did crash, where was the wreckage? Drawing together countless eyewitness testimonies, press releases, independent investigative reports and expert opinion, de Changy offers an eloquent and deeply unnerving narrative of what happened to the missing aircraft.

In this remarkable WWII story by New York Times best-selling author John R. Bruning, a renegade American pilot fights against all odds to rescue his family - imprisoned by the Japanese - and revolutionizes modern warfare along the way. From the knife fights and smuggling runs of his youth to his fiery days as a pioneering naval aviator, Paul Irving "Pappy" Gunn played by his own set of rules and always survived on his wits and fists. But when he fell for a conservative Southern belle, her love transformed him from a wild and reckless airman to a cunning entrepreneur.

Discover the fascinating Philippines in this captivating audiobook on its history, from the origins of the archipelago’s first peoples until modern times. The Philippines is possibly the most intriguing nation of maritime Southeast Asia. The archipelago has almost 8,000 islands that form the apex of the Coral Triangle of the Asian Pacific, as well as abundant marine life that constitutes almost half of this magnificent area’s oceanic megadiversity.

Like Gettysburg, Stalingrad, Midway, and Tet, the battle at Dien Bien Phu - a strategic attack launched by France against the Vietnamese in 1954 after eight long years of war - marked a historic turning point. By the end of the 56-day siege, a determined Viet Minh guerrilla force had destroyed a large tactical French colonial army in the heart of Southeast Asia.

In August 1945, a handful of people raised a homemade cotton flag and announced the birth of a new nation. With the fourth largest population in the world, inhabiting islands that span an eighth of the globe, Indonesia became the first country to rid itself of colonial rule after WWII.

In 2016, while working as a journalist in Yangon, Clare Hammond discovered an obscure map that showed a web of new railways spanning the length and breadth of the country - railways not shown on any other publicly available maps. She was determined to uncover the railways' origins, purpose, and most of all, the silence that surrounded them. She would spend three months travelling on these mysterious railways, and the next five years piecing their story together.

Dereliction of Duty is a stunning analysis of how and why the United States became involved in an all-out and disastrous war in Southeast Asia. Fully and convincingly researched, based on transcripts and personal accounts of crucial meetings, confrontations, and decisions, it is the only book that fully re-creates what happened and why. McMaster pinpoints the policies and decisions that got the United States into the morass and reveals who made these decisions and the motives behind them, disproving the published theories of other historians and excuses of the participants.

Discover the magic of the Indonesian island of Bali in this captivating book on its history, from the origins of Bali’s geological formation until modern times. Bali is known as “the Island of the Gods”, with its tens of thousands of temples and shrines dating back more than a millennium to the exotic Indianized empires of Java that influenced Bali greatly. Although it bore witness to the ancient Maritime Silk Road of Southeast Asia, Bali mysteriously avoided complete domination by ocean traders and European colonizers until as late as the 20th century.

The strategic potential of the three-day attack of two NVA regiments on Kham Duc—a remote and isolated Army Special Forces camp—on the eve of the first Paris peace talks in May 1968, was so significant that former President Lyndon Johnson included it in his memoirs. This gripping, original, eyewitness narrative and thoroughly researched analysis of a widely misinterpreted battle at the height of the Vietnam War radically contradicts all the other published accounts of it.

Theravada Buddhism, often understood as the school that most carefully preserved the practices taught by the Buddha, has undergone tremendous change over time. Prior to Western colonialism in Asia—which brought Western and modernist intellectual concerns, such as the separation of science and religion, to bear on Buddhism—there existed a tradition of embodied, esoteric, and culturally regional Theravada meditation practices.

Filipinos have very interesting creatures that lurk within their myths and legends. This great collection will dive into famous as well as lesser known tales. Enjoy!