John Sturgus Bastin

Nice drawings of natural history done at the beginning of the 19th century for William Farquhar. I used this book somewhat in conjunction with my reading of Wallace's Malay Archipelago, although the latter went way beyond the former. Twas still interesting to see period drawings as naturalists would have seen them....rather than the photographs we have today. I had hoped the introduction would have been more insightful. It did introduce me to both Farquhar and Raffles, but not in an overly meaningful way. Clearly the best part of the book are the drawings. Obviously.… (more)

This is an old book - published in 1967, and bought by me from a remainder bin in 1979 - which finally got to the top of the queue for reading.
A selection of readings about the colonial era in south east Asia, I found it much more interesting than expected. Some of the interest was in the fun of spotting the dated views presented, but there was enough here to provoke thought and think back on what happened, what was considered normal etc.
While there are some writers representing the colonised, the overall picture presented is one of the colonisers and their successors, and the overall opinion given is less critical than might be expected.
One comment at the end suggests that a benefit of the colonial era in the region, was to bring the countries affected into the twentieth century mainstream, which would not have otherwise been possible. I couldn't help thinking that Thailand provides a clear example to debunk that sort of nonsense.
Read July 2014… (more)