At a period when sea navigation depended more on the skill and courage of sailors than on technology, men were nonetheless able to build maritime regional empires that stretched from Indochina to the Indonesian Archipelago. This book, which draws on a huge body of archaeological and documentary research, provides a much-needes overview of the history the Malay Peninsula and insular Southeast Asia from its earlist times up till the 16th century. It also provides an in-depth analysis of the international context of the political, economic and social evolutiom of these kingdom, and so provides a useful background to the modern history of the region. An impressive collection of charts, reproductions of major stone inscriptions and an extensive glossary of Sanskrit, old Malay, Javanese and Tamil words and names are also included.