Our current issue reflects the Journal's commitment to promote focused explorations of a specific theme, issue, or topic in Southeast Asian Studies. As mentioned in an earlier editorial foreword, we welcome proposals for special issues that will address under-represented fields or disciplines that will expand or critically re-evaluate our understanding of the region conceptually, methodologically, or empirically. Future volumes will specifically feature research emanating from our field's most important conferences, professional associations, and regionally-based initiatives as a way of contributing to the continuing professional development of our junior colleagues and the dissemination of their scholarship. This special issue, edited by Koh Keng We and Liazzat J.K. Bonate, brings together historians of the region's early modern period (15th–18th centuries) to examine how the contours of what constitutes Southeast Asian history might be reconceptualised if situated within the broader context of global history and a more connected, trans-Asian past. The guest editors’ Introduction which follows elaborates on this theme.