Trans –Regional and –National Studies of Southeast Asia enters its second year of publication with an examination of heritage, history and historical processes. The contributions range from a critique of broad world-historical frameworks to detailed analysis of architectural references in court chronicles. Together, the articles share in attending to historical, regional, and comparative processes in, across, and beyond Southeast Asia.

In the opening article of this issue, Geoffrey Gunn takes a broad view of East and Southeast Asia from the perspective of world history. Gunn critiques the laudable, yet still Euro-centric rise of world history among professional historians. As he explains, attention to globalisation has led historians to look beyond the narrow confines of local and national histories, yet there is still much conceptual and empirical work to be done in order to produce a truly global and long-durée account of world history. The process of writing on globalisation and world history has been a long-term one, with modern examples dating at least as far back as the early twentieth century. The momentum for world history has accelerated in recent decades, given that we now live in times described by many as an era of globalisation. Gunn traces this history of world history writing and also argues for the importance of attending to historical cycles of globalisation. The current ‘rise of Asia’, Gunn points out, is nothing new, except to those who are unaware of history or subscribe to the now debunked idea that Asia was a stagnant backwater prior to the arrival of European colonial adventurers. Gunn also aims his critique at those who would treat regions such as East and Southeast Asia as bounded units in the way that modern nation-state histories have been written. In this respect he argues that an East-Southeast Asian analysis is necessary to understand many of the historical processes that have shaped this area as well as global history more generally.

Subsequent articles in this issue provide more specific analysis of history and historical processes. Contributions by Tansen Sen and Shiro Momoki focus on earlier periods of history – Sen on maritime trade networks prior to the sixtieth century and Momoki on Thang Long (Hanoi) c. AD 1000 to AD 1200 Similar to Gunn, Sen's interest is with large scale and long-durée processes. In keeping with much current scholarship, Sen eschews earlier frames of analysis, which emphasised either ‘Indianisation’ or ‘Sinicisation’ of Southeast Asia to focus on the agency of Southeast Asian subjects themselves in producing, shaping and mediating these complex long-distance networks of trade and exchange. Sen describes multiple, intersecting trade networks between the South China Sea and the Bay of Bengal. He also pays particular attention to the earliest centuries AD and to the spread of Buddhism through these trade networks.

Momoki's analysis of the Thang Long capital, like Gunn's broad discussion of world history, also considers interactions that span the common East-Southeast Asian regional divide. Momoki's interest is in understanding the spatial logics of Vietnamese dynastic architecture in the period after the people of the Red River Delta gained independence from direct Chinese imperial rule. Momoki re-examines Vietnamese dynastic chronicles in order to better understand architectural forms of the period and the extent to which they replicated inherited Chinese architectural sensibilities. Although, as Momoki argues, the sources we have cannot resolve all questions and ambiguities concerning this early independent Vietnamese architecture, his close readings of the texts provide a nuanced understanding of how Vietnamese rulers and their courts drew on inherited patterns while adapting them to the local climate and building materials.

Articles by Daniel Goh and Philip Taylor draw our attention to more recent periods of history and their contemporary repercussions. Goh's article examines history articulated in the present through heritage conservation schemes in Malacca, Penang and Singapore, all former British colonial Straits Settlements. He demonstrates that the divergent histories and contemporary politics of the three cities produce varied representations and practices of heritage in the present. His analysis provides an exemplary reminder of the effects of the past in the present as well as the ways in which representations of the past are shaped by present interests and concerns.

In similar fashion, Taylor examines contemporary dynamics of Khmer settlements in the Mekong Delta with reference to historical processes. Taylor raises the question of how these settlements were able to flourish on the Mekong Delta's turbulent multi-ethnic frontier. The answer, he argues, lies in the particular traditions of freshwater harvesting centred on Theravada Buddhist temples. These traditions allowed Khmer settlements to thrive in a freshwater-scarce environment due to high levels of saline incursions in the Delta. Despite their longevity, Taylor finds that these settlements have been threatened and begun to succumb to competition from other non-Khmer settlements in the past decades due to the development of canals and dykes that prevent saltwater incursion. Among other things, the article demonstrates the articulation of environmental conditions, sociocultural systems and political economies.

The final contribution to this issue, by Yamamoto Nobuto returns to broader regional dynamics. Yamamoto examines the ‘China problem’ faced by colonial Southeast Asian governments in the early twentieth century. The China problem had to do with increasing migration from China into Southeast Asia during the first decades of the century, coupled with security concerns of the colonial regimes. Due to the fragmented nature of colonial rule, the colonial powers did not have a uniform response to the rising tide of Chinese migration. However, as Yamamoto demonstrates, the ‘China problem’ was the impetus for greater information sharing and coordination between colonial regimes and led to the rise of an immigration regime in the region.

The set of articles presented in this issue emphasise two lines of analysis that the editors and editorial board of Trans –Regional and –National Studies in Southeast Asia aim for this journal to provide. First, the framework of Southeast Asia is not meant to be a bounded construct, but rather a platform from which to conduct critical scholarship that intersects with both smaller local and national scales and broader trans-regional and global analyses. Second, the articles provide detailed, careful analysis that enhance as well as challenge traditional understandings of societies and histories within, across and beyond Southeast Asia.