This week in the seminar we looked at “big history,” that is, history that is large in scope, be that temporal (i.e., looking at a society over the longue durée) or spatial (looking comparatively at a topic across a large geographic area).
The most famous work on Southeast Asian history that falls into this category is undoubtedly Victor Lieberman’s, Strange Parallels: Southeast Asia in Global Context, c. 800–1830, a work that examines the trend toward state centralization in Southeast Asia over a long period of time, and then places that history in a global context.
Strange Parallels, is thus “big” in its examination of the past at both the temporal and spatial levels.
I’ve assigned Strange Parallels in seminars before, but this time we decided to look at a series of articles that take a “big” approach to the past in various ways by another scholar, historian Eric Tagliacozzo of Cornell University. My intent here was to try to give students a sense of not only what different forms of “big” history can look like, but to also give a sense of what “big” scholarly output looks like as well, as Tagliacozzo has been extremely productive, and in the academic world that is important.
Victor Lieberman, Strange Parallels: Southeast Asia in Global Context, c. 800–1830, Volume 1, Integration on the Mainland (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007) and Strange Parallels: Southeast Asia in Global Context, c. 800–1830, Volume 2, Mainland Mirrors: Europe, Japan, China, South Asia, and the Islands (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009).
Eric Tagliacozzo, “Jagged Landscapes: Conceptualizing Borders and Boundaries in the History of Human Societies,” Journal of Borderlands Studies Vol. 11 (2015): 1-20.
_____, “Southeast Asia’s Middle East: Shifting Geographies of Islam and Trade Across the Indian Ocean,” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East Vol. 34, No. 3 (2014): 565-573.
“Introduction: Burmese Lives,” in Burmese Lives: Ordinary Life Under the Burmese Regime, edited by Wen-Chin Chang and Eric Tagliacozzo (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 1-22.
_____, “Burmese and Muslim: Islam in the Sangha State,” in Burmese Lives: Ordinary Life Under the Burmese Regime, edited by Wen-Chin Chang and Eric Tagliacozzo (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 83-108.
_____, “Borneo in Motion: Geology, Biota, and Contraband in Transnational Circuits,” TRaNS: Trans -Regional and -National Studies of Southeast Asia Vol. 1, No. 1 (2013): 52-77.
_____, “Strange Parallels and the Big Picture: ‘Asia’ Writ Large Over a Turbulent Millennium,” Journal of Asian Studies Vol. 70, No. 4 (2011): 939-963.
_____, “A Sino-Southeast Asian Circuit: Ethnohistories of the Marine Goods Trade,” in Chinese Circulations: Capital, Commodities, and Networks in Southeast Asia, edited by Eric Tagliacozzo and Wen-Chin Chang (Durham: Duke University Press, 2011), 432-454.
_____, “Trans-Regional Indonesia Over One Thousand Years: The Art of the Long View,” Indonesia Vol. 90 (2010): 1-15.
_____, “Navigating Communities: Distance, Place, and Race in Maritime Southeast Asia,” Asian Ethnicity Vol. 10, No. 2 (2009): 97-120.
_____, “Contraband and Violence: Lessons from the Southeast Asian Case,” Crime, Law, and Social Change Vol. 52, No. 3 (2009): 243-252.
_____, “Morphological Shifts in Southeast Asian Prostitution: The Long Twentieth Century,” Journal of Global History Vol. 3 (2008): 251-273.
_____, “Thinking Marginally: Ethno-Historical Notes on the Nature of Smuggling in Human Societies,” Journal of the Canadian Historical Association Vol. 18, No. 2 (2008): 144-164.
_____, “An Urban Ocean: Notes on the Historical Evolution of Coastal Cities in Greater SE Asia,” Journal of Urban History Vol. 33, No. 6 (2007): 911-932.
_____, “Onto the Coast and Into the Forest: Ramifications of the China Trade on the History of Northwest Borneo, 900-1900,” in Histories of the Borneo Environment, edited by Reed Wadley (Leiden: KITLV Press, 2005), 25-60.
_____, “The Lit Archipelago: Coastlighting and the Imperial Optic in Insular Southeast Asia, 1860-1910,” Technology and Culture Vol. 46, No. 2 (2005): 306-328.
_____, “Ambiguous Commodities, Unstable Frontiers: The Case of Burma, Siam, and Imperial Britain, 1800-1900,” Comparative Studies in Society and History Vol. 46, No. 2, (2004): 354-377.
_____, “Tropical Spaces, Frozen Frontiers: The Evolution of Border Enforcement in Nineteenth Century Insular Southeast Asia,” in Locating Southeast Asia, edited by Remco Raben, et al. (Ohio/Singapore University Presses, 2004), 149-174.
_____, “A Necklace of Fins: Marine Goods Trading in Maritime Southeast Asia, 1780-1860,” International Journal of Asian Studies Vol. 1, No. 1 (2004): 23-48.
_____, “Border-Line Legal: Chinese Communities and ‘Illicit’ Activity in Insular Southeast Asia,” in Maritime China and the Overseas Chinese in Transition, 1750-1850, edited by Ng Chin Keong (Wiesbaden: HV, 2004): 61-76.
_____, “Finding Captivity Among the Peasantry: The Malay/Indonesian World, 1850-1925,” South East Asia Research Vol. 11, No. 2 (2003): 171-200.
