| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 108.1

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 108.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Comparative/World

Matthew Jones. Conflict and Confrontation in South East Asia, 1961–1965: Britain, the United States and the Creation of Malaysia. New York: Cambridge University Press. 2002. Pp. xxi, 325. $60.00.

When Truman-era secretary of state Dean Acheson observed in 1962 that "Great Britain has lost an empire and has not yet found a role," he was not ridiculing the weakness of America's foremost ally but lamenting what he perceived as the loss of the order and stability that imperial influence represented in his foreign policy designs. Matthew Jones has written an important study of Britain's imperial demise in Southeast Asia and the complex Anglo-American relationship that affected diplomacy toward Malaysia and Indonesia. In doing so, Jones shows not only how Britain and the United States struggled to deal with emerging nationalist movements but also how American efforts in Vietnam and British efforts in Indonesia became linked and yet produced very different outcomes. 1

Britain was trying to extricate itself from the heavy costs of imperial defense by creating a secure Greater Malaysian Federation that would include Malaysia, Singapore, and territories in northern Borneo. Importantly, the key British military base at Singapore would be safely within this anticommunist bastion. As Jones points out, this plan "overlooked the significant local impact such a reordering of states would necessarily produce" (p. 28). Indonesia, led by the troublesome Sukarno, was afflicted by chronic domestic political instability, a significant communist movement, and hypersensitivity to perceived imperial-style meddling. . . .

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