This edited work explores piracy and surreptitious activities such as privateering, war-making, slave-hunting and raiding, focussing on Southeast Asia in the early modern period. Readers will discover nine essays studying the different sub-regions of the Malay Archipelago and adjacent seas and exploring the nature and historiographical perception of piracy, maritime conflict and surreptitious activities. The authors probe the linkages between these occurrences with war and economy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in particular, and look at the transition into the nineteenth century.

The introduction covers the study of piracy in this period and chapters explore themes of Siak and Malay activities, Dutch privateering, Chinese actions in the Melaka-Singapore region, activity in the Malukan Archipelago and the political background of the Maguindanao “piracy” in the early eighteenth century. Later chapters explore the Sulu Sultanate and the seafaring world, the deeds of Iberians in this region and especially the identities and activities of the Portuguese in these seas.

The authors contribute to the literature by complementing studies that favour a closer discussion of the ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ sectors in history. This book opens up the subject area for delving into the various geographical locales and participating groups, as well as their possible linkages with one another and with other groups.

This volume will be of interest to students and academicians of Southeast Asian studies and those with a general interest in maritime piracy.