In these four volumes, published in paperback in 2000, twenty-two scholars of international reputation consider the whole of mainland and island Southeast Asia from Burma to Indonesia. Each volume has a new preface which points to the relationships with the other volumes. The prefaces also comment on some of the research into and thinking about the subject undertaken since the original contributions were completed for the first edition. Volume 2, Part 2 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.