In the final chapter of her most recent book, Planting Empire, Cultivating Subjects, Lynn Hollen Lees describes how memory shapes the current vogue of colonial nostalgia in Malaysia (then British Malaya). For European colonialists and their descendants, memories of the status and luxurious lifestyles of whites in the colonies offer a romanticized view of empire, similar to the nostalgia for the American Antebellum South conveyed by Gone with the Wind. More difficult to explain, however, is the nostalgia for the colonial period voiced by quite a few contemporary Malaysians. But historical memories, as Lees observes, are often statements about the present as well as the past. For example, many Malaysians who are troubled with contemporary political and ethnic divisions fondly recall the ease of mixing and making friendships across ethnic and religious lines during the colonial era.

These gems are among the many reported in this richly detailed empirical study that draws upon archival sources, historical newspapers, and periodicals in addition to most of the standard texts on Malayan history. The story begins in 1786, when the British established a permanent settlement in Penang, but the primary focus of the book is the period of British economic ascendency and political hegemony from the last quarter of the nineteenth century to December 1941, when the Japanese military invaded Malaya. After World War II, the British returned for twelve shaky years of colonial rule, but this period belongs to the era of nationalism and the struggle for independence.

In the introduction, Lees explains the objectives of the study—an analysis of the social history of plantations and towns in British Malaya, focusing on the experiences of individuals (workers, managers, merchants, teachers, and officials) who became British subjects during the colonial era. The book is organized into two parts: the first four chapters on the late nineteenth century and four other chapters covering the early twentieth century. The epilogue previews the end of empire in the post–World War II era and offers a perceptive search for representations and memories of colonialism in contemporary Malaysia.

Lees does not mince words in her account of the horrific conditions endured by workers on plantations “who faced flogging, fines, or jail time if they did not obey orders and complete their contracts” (64). She concludes, “[p]lantation colonialism in Malaya was a coercive regime, which depends on physical violence and cultural caricatures to sustain a rigid hierarchy of power and inequality reinforced by the colonial state” (99). This assessment of plantation life is contrasted with Lees's account of the lives of urban residents in British Malaya, especially in the twentieth century, where colonial surveillance was relatively minor. Malayans from all ethnic backgrounds communicated with each other in Bazaar Malay or, among the educated middle class, English; they were exposed to international events and ideas through newspapers, periodicals and the cinema; and they participated in civil society through new organizations, including the YMCA, Boy Scouts, and Rotary International associations. This layer of urban cosmopolitism, Lees agues, left a deep legacy in independent Malaysia through continuing ties to the British Commonwealth that shares a common language and values of transnational allegiances and the rule of law (310).

All readers, even specialists on Malaysia, will learn many new facts and nuances of Malayan history from a close reading of this book. I was particularly impressed with the Lees's thorough account of the costs of production, management, and profitability of British-owned sugar plantations in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The success of rubber plantations in the twentieth century has created the popular impression that European entrepreneurship was the key that brought economic progress to colonial Malaya. However, European investors in nineteenth-century Malaya had a mixed record. European firms had to contend with the high costs of imported machinery and technology, a top-heavy administration, and competition with lower-cost producers. However, the colonial government subsidized European firms, directly and indirectly, though preferential access to land and cheap imported labor, a transportation infrastructure built for an export economy, and police and courts that largely reinforced European commercial interests. All of this came with virtually no taxes on European individuals or enterprises. Even with these subsidies, Lees reports, an 1882 audit of a typical European sugar plantation revealed a return of only 4.4 percent annually on the initial investment (35).

In spite of these and many more important contributions, I was disappointed with the lack of an overarching narrative about the colonial period. Lees points to complexity and the contradictions of colonial rule, which reinforced economic exploitation but also introduced Western ideas that subverted European dominance. Many Malayans were able to use the opportunities and knowledge created by the colonial regime to improve their lives and to advance their communities. However, without showing connections between the complex layers of economic, political, and social life during the colonial period, Lees makes it is difficult to understand and assess the overall impact of colonialism. The British colonial system created an acquiescent Malay aristocracy and a self-serving European ruling class—both supported, in large part, by revenues from “sin” taxes on the Chinese working class. The Malay peasantry was isolated geographically, socially, and politically, while modernity allowed a small minority of urban residents access to schooling and Western culture. These were not isolated features of British Malaya, but parts of an interconnected system designed to reinforce power and to differentially reward communities and social groups based on their value to the colonial state.

My other concern is Lees's interpretation of the influence of Western modernity and institutions, which are credited with the creation of a multicultural cosmopolitism in urban areas. As Lees notes, there was a growing middle class in towns and cities that participated in civic society and occasionally petitioned the colonial government for recognition of Asian voices in governance. However, the term cosmopolitan has a broader meaning of a belief in a shared humanity and respect for peoples of different cultures and backgrounds. The problem was that colonialism reinforced and rigidified an ideology of hierarchy and race and not a liberal understanding of cultural differences.

In early twentieth-century British Malaya, Europeans created caste lines with “whites only” institutions and organizations, including private clubs, professional organizations, railroad cars, and elite positions in government employment. The arrival in the early twentieth century of significant numbers of European women—almost exclusively as wives—reinforced the growing segregation of social life between whites and Asians. This disconnect between the popular aspirations to become more “Western” and the refusal of white colonials to accept Asians as status equals was one of the basic contradictions of colonial society. Europeans also reinforced ethnic stereotypes of lazy Malays, greedy Chinese, and indolent Indians.

These issues are important, not only to understand the past, but also because of their influence on the politics and culture of contemporary Malaysia. It has been more than sixty years since the end of the colonial era, and most of the blame (or praise) for developments in Malaysia rests with its post-independence leaders. But there are simply too many continuities of illiberal policies from the colonial era to the present—authoritarian governance, government-sanctioned racial preferences, prevention detention of political dissidents, and state subsidies for feudal aristocratic families, to name but a few—to not address the overarching legacy of colonial period.