Why are you a historian of the Malay world?
I grew up in Brunei, my mom is from Kedah in Malaysia, and I used to be stunned by West Java in Indonesia the place I taught in my hole yr: contrasting worlds related by language.
What’s an important lesson historical past has taught you?
Issues don’t essentially get higher.
Which historical past ebook has had the best affect on you?
Takeshi Ito’s 1984 PhD thesis ‘The World of the Adat Aceh’ made sense of a tough Seventeenth-century Malay textual content with no single direct citation.
What ebook in your subject ought to everybody learn?
Illuminations: Writing Traditions of Indonesia, revealed by Lontar.
Which second would you most like to return to?
Melaka within the fifteenth century, the ‘Venice of the East’, to see what books they’d.
Which historian has had the best affect on you?
Anthony Reid, who delivers the macro and the micro of Southeast Asia.
Which particular person in historical past would you most prefer to have met?
Sir Hans Sloane, collector extraordinaire, and founding father of the British Museum and its library.
What number of languages do you could have?
Malay/Indonesian and English.
What historic subject have you ever modified your thoughts on?
Orality. Historians seek for ‘misplaced’ manuscripts which could by no means have existed.
What’s the most typical false impression about your subject?
That Malay is a straightforward language.
What’s essentially the most thrilling subject in historical past at present?
The Indian Ocean world.
Who’s essentially the most underrated particular person in historical past…
Sultanah Tajul Alam, the primary queen of Aceh.
… and essentially the most overrated?
Her father, Iskandar Muda, essentially the most well-known sultan of Aceh.
Is there an essential historic textual content you haven’t learn?
Barbara Andaya’s The Flaming Womb.
What’s your favorite archive?
The British Library.
What’s one of the best museum?
The Pedir Museum in Aceh, based with ardour.
What know-how has modified the world essentially the most?
Printing.
Suggest us a historic novel…
Nikos Kazantzakis’ Christ Recrucified.
… and a historic drama?
Seven Samurai.
You possibly can remedy one historic thriller. What’s it?
Which Malay manuscripts have been misplaced when Raffles’ ship Fame sank in 1824.
Annabel Teh Gallop is Head of the Southeast Asia Part on the British Library.
