“Southeast Asia: A History in Objects” by Alexandra Green

Cotton Kauer jacket, Lampung, Sumatra, Indonesia, 1870s (photo: The Trustees of the British Museum)

Half a year on from the publication of India: A History in Objects, the British Museum and Thames & Hudson have released a new volume of the same vibrant format on Southeast Asia, an endeavor at least as ambitious as that for the Subcontinent: “it is hardly possible to be comprehensive,” as Alexandra Green modestly admits in her introduction.

Southeast Asia: A History in Objects exhibits the benefits and drawbacks of its origins. One expects a surfeit of dazzling illustrations from any Thames & Hudson volume, and this one doesn’t disappoint. The amount of space left for text, however concise, is consequently limited: this is more “objects” than “history”. Green has, not unreasonably, continued the narrative up to and including present-day objects, a decision which however condenses earlier epochs into even fewer pages. That this is a British Museum publication means that in addition to giving the volume some undoubtedly useful focus, the objects are restricted to those in the Museum’s collection which, however fine the collection may be, includes only what it includes: no monumental sculpture from Angkor Wat here.

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Southeast Asia: A History in Objects, Alexandra Green (Thames & Hudson, British Museum, February 2023)
Southeast Asia: A History in Objects, Alexandra Green (Thames & Hudson, British Museum, February 2023)

The book is arranged both chronologically and thematically, with the first four chapters covering “Early cultures: c 26,000 years ago to c 500 CE”, “Kingdoms: c 300-1500 CE”, “Trade, diplomacy and empire: c 1400-1940” and “From the everyday to the sacred: c 1600-2020” and a final chapter on “The 20th and 21st centuries”, while two intermediate chapters cover “Narrative and performance” and “Textiles and basketry” respectively; each chapter is further segmented geographically. This format, while a bit choppy—a double-page spread on something very specific like Neolithic sites of Ulu Leang and Leang Burung in Sulawesi or gold rings and earrings from Java rubs shoulders with single spreads on subjects as wide as bronze-working and the arrival of Islam—does allow Green to make her case that despite the

 

substantial discussion about the usefulness of the term ‘Southeast Asia’, given the linguistic, religious, social and cultural diversity it encompasses, and also the existence of strong cultural connections with the indigenous groups of Taiwan, southwestern China and northeastern India, as well as links with Sri Lanka and Madagascar …

 

nevertheless, “within Southeast Asia there are clear lines of contact and strong similarities culturally, historically and materially”.

The chapters, nonetheless, cover huge periods of time: in the introduction to “Kingdoms”, Green writes that “Huge changes swept Southeast Asia between the early first millennium CE and the middle of the second.” Quite so: the equivalent period in Europe extended from the Roman Empire to the Renaissance. This is at best an overview, but one which manages to cover Buddhism, Islam and Hinduism, flints, bronze, ceramics, gold, lacquer, coinage, jewelry, books, textiles, puppets, tattoos and pop-culture.

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Some of the pieces are either truly fascinating or beautiful, if not both: a 9th- or 10th-century stucco Thai Dvaravati head of the Buddha, a 13th-century sandstone Khmer-style Buddha from central Thailand, “double-ikat” textiles (for which “the pattern is tie-dyed separately into the warp and weft yarns before weaving, and the weaving itself is painstaking to ensure the pattern aligns accurately”) and the abstracted Iban hornbill sculptures, which look like modern art despite dating from (at least) the 19th-century.

As for provenance, Green writes that

 

starting in the late 18th century, Europeans began to collect art from various Southeast Asian cultures, and over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries, these artworks were increasingly donated to museums.

 

One hopes that that was all there was to it, for museums have lately found they have more than a little to answer for.

Southeast Asia: A History in Objects covers a lot a ground and does so beautifully.


Peter Gordon is editor of the Asian Review of Books.