In these four volumes, now published in paperback, twenty-two scholars of international reputation consider the whole of mainland and island Southeast Asia from Burma to Indonesia. Volume 4 covers the period from World War II to the present and examines the end of European colonial empires, the emergence of political structures of the independent states, economic and social change, religious change in contemporary Southeast Asia, Southeast Asia's role and identity in decolonisation, and the ongoing weakening of links with the West.