It is with sadness that the Asian Studies Association of Australia (ASAA) marks the passing of one of its Life Members and founders, Emeritus Professor Anthony (Tony) Reid.
Tony was born in New Zealand in 1939 and acquired most of his university education at Victoria University of Wellington, before going to the University of Cambridge (UK), where he received his doctorate. He married Helen in Cambridge in 1963, and the ASAA passes on its deepest condolences to his wife Helen and his daughter Kate.
Most of Tony’s academic career was spent at the Australian National University (ANU), which he joined in 1970 after completion of his doctorate. He was based in the School of Culture, History, and Language, in the College of Asia and the Pacific, where he soon established a reputation for being one of the world’s foremost scholars of the history and politics of Indonesia (especially Aceh) and Southeast Asia more broadly.
Tony spent three years at the University of California Los Angeles as Director of Southeast Asian Studies (1999–2002), before becoming the founding Director of the Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore (2002–07). He returned to live in Canberra and continued to be a wonderfully collegial presence at the ANU, where his papers are held, until his unexpected passing in early June.
Tony Reid will be deeply missed by his family, colleagues, students, and friends around the world, not least of all at the ASAA. More than anyone else, the founding of the Association can be attributed to Tony. According to his longtime friend and colleague, Robin Jeffrey (La Trobe), Tony ‘took on the delicate task of organizing the meeting in January 1975 of seventy scholars of Asia during an ANZAAS conference in Canberra. The meeting decided to create an Asian Studies Association of Australia. Tony became the convenor of the committee to draft a constitution and set up an inaugural conference in Canberra in May 1976’.
Tony’s commitment to the ASAA and the field of Asian Studies was a hallmark of his career. As Louise Edwards (UNSW) puts it, ‘Across decades, he was unstinting in his advocacy of Asian Studies and Languages to government, the media and across the education sector. During his Presidency the Asian Studies Review moved became a fully peer reviewed journal ensuring that the ASAA’s flagship publication would showcase Australia’s role in building global scholarship on Asia’.
He will remain central to the Association’s mission for many years to come, thanks to his generous donations. ‘In 2002, after winning the Fukuoka Prize for outstanding contributions to knowledge of Asia, Tony donated his prize money to the ASAA’, Louise reports. He and Helen made a second, larger donation in 2022, to form the Reid Prize (and the Reid Lecture, which is delivered at the biennial conference), which recognises ‘work that has made an exemplary contribution to understanding of Asia’.
Tony himself could certainly lay claim to having made such exemplary contributions to knowledge of Asia, especially but not only in relation to Indonesia. In the words of Ed Aspinall (ANU), Tony ‘was a leading exponent of a generation of Southeast Asian historians who turned their backs on the pejorative accounts of their colonial-era predecessors, and who tried to generate a vision of Southeast Asian history that looked at the region in its own terms’. According to Katharine McGregor (University of Melbourne), ‘He fundamentally shaped knowledge of both the early modern and modern periods of this region. His prolific worked changed understandings of Indonesia and the region and included attention to themes such as trade, transnational connections, political transitions, the revolution, heroism, nationalism, the Cold War, Aceh, and disasters.’
While Tony’s work was eagerly read by non-Asian scholars who were dedicated to the study of the region, he was also widely admired within the region. Eva Nisa (ANU, and current ASAA Vice-President) says that ‘His writings have been essential reading across disciplines, and nearly all of his major works have been translated into Indonesian, allowing his insights to resonate across generations’. Furthermore, adds Vedi Hadiz (University of Melbourne), ‘Tony Reid’s work was valued and admired by his colleagues in Indonesia, not just by historians but also social scientists in general. But that was not all. During a visit to Aceh with him following the 2004 tsunami, I sensed the great affection that its people had for him – not just academics but also civil society activists and even civil servants. They knew that he cared deeply about the societies whose histories he studied, and that he always had a special place in his heart for Aceh.’
As Ed Aspinall notes, ‘one of the striking features of Reid’s work is its dazzling breadth: he is able to switch from the minutiae of social life to topics as large as the origins of poverty in Southeast Asia, to shift effortlessly from a telling anecdote to a big question about large-scale change across time’. That breadth was evident in his historical novel, Mataram (2018), in which, says Eva Nisa, ‘he consciously gave a more prominent emotional depth and narrative space to female characters, pushing against the male-dominated perspectives that often characterise historical records. His intellectual generosity, expansive vision, and lifelong dedication to Southeast Asian history have left an enduring legacy.’
Tony Reid’s friendship and collegiality persisted throughout his five decades at the heart of Asian Studies in Australia. According to Elly Kent (ANU, and current ASAA Secretary), ‘Tony recently moved into the office across the hall from me and I have been enjoying his regular visits to pass on ephemera and objects he’d discovered in the move. Tony was generous to a fault in all things, and we’ll miss him sorely.’ What is more, adds Louise Edwards, ‘Tony’s generosity to academic colleagues and students over many decades was evident in the hours he spent debating myriad topics of interest and mentoring dozens of students and scholars – all with a broad and ready smile.’ The last word on Tony’s collegiality goes to his old friend Robin Jeffrey: ‘Tony and his wife Helen befriended me in my first months in Australia, and I have always been proud to feel able to say that “Tony Reid is a friend of mine.”’
The comments above were made in the hours and days after Tony’s passing, and we would welcome longer reflections and testimonies from the many people who knew him. The ASAA will create a dedicated page of its Asian Currents blog for anyone who would like to provide their own reflections on what Tony meant to them.
The Asian Research Institute at the NUS has also set up a page to collect reminiscences (https://ari.nus.edu.sg/anthony-reid/), and you are also welcome to share your thoughts there.
Friends and colleagues of Tony will be invited to attend his service in Canberra, details of which will be shared in due course.
