A Short History of Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei

I bought this book the other day from ebay for about US$8. It cost me another US$14 to get it over to Brunei. I don't mind paying for expensive books and expensive shipping if the book is worth it.

This book unfortunately was not as exciting as I thought it would be. It does a decent enough job previewing the history of the three countries going as far back as the early history. The book did more of the Malaysian history, Melaka, Acheh, Johor etc but of Brunei, she only did it in passing. Mary Turnbull was at the University of Hong Kong when she wrote this book more than 30 years ago.

The book was published in 1980, a few years before Brunei's independence. Its last words on Brunei were 'a question mark hung over its future as an independent unit'. I guess the 27th National Day marking the 27 years of independence of Brunei had removed that question mark.

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