Surviving through the Era of Global Crisis with Southeast Asian Studies：After Victor Lieberman

Abstract

This essay discusses Southeast Asia as the strategic area of historical science and area studies in the midst of the growing crisis today. The author focuses her inquiry on theoretical frameworks in famous researches.

In the first section the accounts of Southeast Asia in Wallerstein’s Modern World-System I-IV, ReORIENT by A.G. Frank, and Navigating World History by P. Maninng are examined very briefly. The author concludes that the accounts are few with little quality, and that students who read those books would think Southeast Asia is a less important area to study.

In the second section V. Lieberman’s frameworks, concepts and analytical tools in the first chapter of Strange Parallels are examined. The author highly appreciates his brilliant ideas that compare mainland Southeast Asia with Europe as a promontory of Eurasia protected from Inner Asian nomad, and that “For the first time mainland Southeast Asia enters the big leagues.” Also she believes that almost all Southeast Asia specialists would admire his strategy which makes the scholars who are interested in global history read the history of mainland Southeast Asia firstly. However, his work has a tendency to exclude Maritime worlds, Africa, international systems, as well as the minor countries and areas than mainland Southeast Asia. Although his work doesn’t favor big countries but middle size countries, it seems to stand on the same theoretical basis influenced by social evolutionism as the previous studies do.

In the third section the author introduces important previous studies on Southeast Asia in her own purpose to establish a theoretical framework, with which we can describe the natural and human environments around societies and make as many historical actors （from a central government of a big country to a small society, even street prostitutes and cats） as possible appear on the global stage. The author anticipates that this research strategy combined with case study/method in business school will contribute to solving problems today and overcoming the vestige of social evolutionism.