This is a long boring tome on Malaysian history filled with a plethora of incomprehensible names of people and places. The minute details, instead of enlightening, cause one to find it hard not to fall asleep - much less make any sense out of what the authors are trying to relate. The 344 pages of text could have been easily reduced by 50%, thus making the book much easier to read & understand. The authors swamp the reader with so many useless insignificant details that it is almost impossible to glean any useful information from this tediously long book. Given the fact that this gobbledygook is a 2nd edition, the first having been written 20 years ago, it is hard to believe that there could have been much demand for a revised look at Malaysia's history. I had hoped to use this book in one of my university history courses on Southeast Asia. There is no way I would inflict such esoteric pedagogic claptrap on my students.