| Summary/Abstract |
More than twenty years ago, historian Robert McMahon pointed out that studies of U.S.-Southeast Asian relations with a “broad, regional focus” remain “surprisingly rare.”1 His observation came in the bibliographic essay accompanying his own contribution to this sparse field, and his book remains one of precious few examples. As Kenton Clymer demonstrates in the opening essay in this Roundtable, it remains the case that few scholars study U.S. relations with countries in Southeast Asia other than Vietnam and the Philippines. The U.S. war in Vietnam, and the immediate and lingering effects of U.S. imperialism in the Philippines rightly attract significant attention. Scholars have produced compelling and sophisticated works about these topics, and continue to do so. However, contributors to this Roundtable demonstrate that the region as a whole, as well as individual countries and topics within it, deserve more study.
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