The passing of Anthony (Tony) Reid is a profound loss – not only for historians, but also for intellectuals, students, and all who admired his work across disciplines. Internationally, Tony built a remarkable career anchored in Asia, particularly in Southeast Asia, with deep engagements in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore. His role in shaping the field of Asian Studies in Australia was pivotal. He was instrumental in the establishment of the Asian Studies Association of Australia (ASAA) in the mid-1970s, drafting its constitution, convening the inaugural conference at Monash University, and serving as the founding editor of the ASAA Review (which was later renamed the Asian Studies Review) until 1978.
The Reid Prize, awarded by ASAA in honour of both Tony and his wife Helen, continues to recognise excellence in Southeast Asian and Asian Studies. Nearly all of Tony’s major works have been translated into Indonesian, ensuring that his scholarship continues to inspire new generations of readers and researchers. His monumental two-volume Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce, 1450–1680 (1990, 1995) has become essential reading – particularly within Indonesian scholarship on early modern Southeast Asia and Islamic history.
I first met Tony – or Pak Tony, as I and many Indonesians affectionately call him – at the Australian National University in early 2020, when I invited him to give a guest lecture for my course, ‘History of the State System in Southeast Asia’. I wished in my heart that he might still feel inclined to teach after retirement. To my surprise and delight, he replied immediately with an enthusiastic yes. Over the next two years, he generously delivered guest lectures that were as intellectually rigorous and wide-ranging as they were engaging and warm.
For that lecture, students were assigned two chapters (‘Making States, 1824–1940’, ‘Mid-Twentieth Century Crisis, 1930–1954’) from A History of Southeast Asia: Critical Crossroads (2015). Tony titled his session ‘Understanding Nationalism and the Nation-State in Southeast Asia,’ and began with a captivating slide: ‘Nationalism in Vogue.’ He carefully contextualised the theme – beginning with the political disillusionment of the 1980s and its unexpected parallel: a surge of scholarly interest in nationalism. He cited foundational works by John Armstrong (Nations before Nationalism, 1982), Benedict Anderson (Imagined Communities, 1983), Ernest Gellner (Nations and Nationalism, 1983), Anthony Giddens (The Nation-state and Violence, 1985), and Liah Greenfeld (Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity, 1992).
Throughout the lecture, Tony paused frequently to ensure students could follow the depth of his explanations. He posed open-ended questions, welcomed reflections, and clarified complex ideas. He reminded the class that nationalism – often romanticised as natural love or loyalty to one’s country – is in fact a modern construct shaped by specific historical forces. Drawing on his own Imperial Alchemy: Nationalism and Political Identity in Southeast Asia (2010), he made powerful connections between the region’s colonial past and present-day transformations, from globalisation and digital media to the rise of multiculturalism and the mobility of labour.
Students spoke glowingly of his teaching – not only for its comprehensiveness, but for the clarity, humour, and humility with which he delivered it. Tony often included light jokes between slides and deeply valued direct engagement with students. When I once mentioned that, due to COVID, the lecture might be pre-recorded, he firmly insisted on presenting live over Zoom. ‘I want to talk to them,’ he said. And he did – generously, insightfully, and with a sincere love for teaching that left a lasting impression on us all.
Since then, I developed a close connection with Pak Tony, including co-supervising a PhD student together. Every time I met him – often after his morning tennis at the Gods Café – there was always something new to learn. His command of Indonesian history was astonishingly wide-ranging. Our last conversation was about early trade between Indonesia and other Muslim countries, which led him to kindly share two of his articles on Turkey–Indonesia relations.
Tony Reid’s scholarship – across books, essays, and lectures – epitomises an interdisciplinary approach to Southeast Asian history. From his seminal work Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce onward, Tony employed an Annales-style framework inspired by Fernand Braudel, blending longue durée analysis with a deep sensitivity to economic, social, cultural, and environmental structures. This Braudelian perspective is further developed in Charting the Shape of Early Modern Southeast Asia (1999), which compiles two decades of essays that highlight regional dynamics of exchange, identity, and transformation.
Tony’s work is methodologically expansive, drawing from anthropology, philology, sociology, geography, archaeology, and indigenous historiography. He also incorporated accounts by early modern travellers – such as Marco Polo, Tome Pires, and Chinese, Arab, and Indian chroniclers – recognising them as valuable (if partial) windows into local transformations and global connections. For Tony, the study of Southeast Asia required both engagement with local sources and participation in broader comparative debates.
This interdisciplinary approach, for example, is evident in his second chapter of Charting the Shape of Early Modern Southeast Asia, ‘The Islamization of Southeast Asia.’ Here, he explores the region’s religious transformation through multiple lenses: personal piety, mystical experience, elite conversions, political patronage, trade networks, and the integration of Islamic practices into pre-existing animist and Hindu–Buddhist cosmologies. He shows how Sufi rituals such as berkat (blessing) and ziyarah (visiting the tombs of saints) aligned with local beliefs about spirits and the dead, allowing Islam to take root not through rupture but through adaptation and resonance. By weaving together textual sources, oral histories, and ethnographic insights, Tony modelled a deeply contextual and non-reductionist historiography – one that has profoundly shaped the field of Southeast Asian studies.
A Visionary Voice for Southeast Asia and Asian Studies
Tony challenged prevailing scepticism about Southeast Asia’s distinctiveness as a historical region. He argued passionately that, despite its religious, linguistic, and cultural diversity, Southeast Asia shares a common core identity – visible even during the early modern period. A strong advocate for constructing a shared regional history, Tony articulated his vision most fully in Charting the Shape of Early Modern Southeast Asia, where he directly addressed critics who questioned the region’s historical coherence.
Tony’s scholarship helped reshape how Southeast Asia is understood in the context of global modernity. Today, the early modern era (ca. 1400–1600) is widely recognised as a transformative period in Southeast Asian history – a recognition due in large part to his influence.
Tony Reid’s presence was a source of wisdom, inspiration, and friendship – not only at ANU or in Australia, but across the world. International scholars have shared heartfelt reflections and tributes that testify to the lasting significance of his contributions. His rejection of monolithic narratives, his insistence on recognising grassroots agency and marginalised voices – particularly women, whom he championed even in his fiction – and his framing of history as a space for collective reflection, have had a profound impact on Indonesian historiography.
His dedication to broadening the reach of historical knowledge was evident in his decision to publish his historical novel Mataram (2018). In an interview, he explained that the book was intended ‘agar bisa meraih pembaca yang lebih luas’ (‘to reach a wider audience’). He hoped that younger generations might come to enjoy history through storytelling.
Tony’s contributions to building scholarly ecosystems – through his foundational role at the Asia Research Institute (Singapore), the ASAA, and other institutions – have helped shape the field of Southeast Asian and Asian studies for decades. We are fortunate that Tony’s legacy endures – in his books (translated, retranslated, and reread), in his students, in the institutions he helped build, and in the many conversations he sparked across disciplines. We honour him. We remember. We continue.
