The colonisation of Southeast Asia was a long and often violent process where numerous military campaigns were waged by the colonial powers across the region. The notion of racial difference was crucial in many of these wars, as native Southeast Asian societies were often framed in negative terms as 'savage' and 'backward' communities that needed to be subdued and 'civilised'. This collection of critical essays focuses on the colonial construction of race and looks at how the colonial wars in 19th-century Southeast Asia were rationalised via recourse to theories of racial difference, making race a significant factor in the wars of Empire. Looking at the colonial wars in Java, Borneo, Siam, the Philippines, the Malay Peninsula and other parts of Southeast Asia, the essays examine the manner in which the idea of racial difference was weaponised by the colonising powers and how forms of local resistance often worked through such colonial structures of identity politics.

Dr. Farish A. Noor is Associate Professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.Dr. Peter Carey is Fellow Emeritus of Trinity College, Oxford, and Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Indonesia, Jakarta.

"[...] Noor, Carey, and the volume’s contributors make an excellent case for how constructions of racial difference in nineteenth-century Southeast Asia were central to militarized violence and colonial expansion. [...] It is a bold and refreshing reminder to readers of how racial hierarchies have deep roots in the histories of warfare and colonialism and continue to influence governance and conflict in the present."
- Kate Imy, Pacific Affairs, Vol. 95, No. 3

Introduction: Why Race Mattered: Racial Difference, Racialized Colonial Capitalism and the Racialized Wars of 19th Century Colonial Southeast Asia - Farish A. Noor and Peter Carey

Towards the Great Divide: Race, Sexuality, Violence and Colonialism in the Dutch East Indies, from Daendels (1808-11) to the Java War (1825-30) - Peter Carey

Hostis Humanis Generis: The Invention of the 'Warlike Dayak Race' during the 'War on Piracy' in Borneo, 1830-1848 - Farish A. Noor

Piratical Headhunters yang semacam Melayu dan Cina: Creating the Abject Native Other in the Mat Salleh Rebellion (1894-1905) - Yvonne Tan

The Franco-Siamese War and Russo-Japanese War: Two Colonial Wars and the Political Appropriation of the Idea of Race in Absolutist Siam - David M. Malitz

'Sly Civility' and the Myth of the 'Lazy Malay': The Discursive Economy of British Colonial Power during the Pahang Civil War, 1891-1895 - Netusha Naidu

'Smoked Yankees', 'Wild' Catholics, and the Newspaper 'Lions' of Manila: The Multiplicity of Race in the Philippine-American War - Brian Shott

Warriors and Colonial Wars in Muslim Philippines Since 1800 - Mesrob Vartavarian

Chronology of major events and conflicts in Southeast Asia 1800-1900

Index