This is not the place to discuss Smail’s legacy; Laurie Sears has
edited an excellent collection of essays on this subject. I have dwelt on Smail
somewhat because my arrival at Cornell coincided with the casual
implementation of his “third way” in the Southeast Asian studies curriculum.
Wolters, Anderson (who had started lecturing the year I arrived), and, later,
David Wyatt, were fairly committed to Smail’s recommendations. These were,
in brief, that it is possible to write an autonomous history of Southeast Asia if
we focus on the social history of the region; that, to avoid being
Europe-centric or Asia-centric, one must look beyond the colonial
relationship, shake off the preoccupation with the nationalist or anticolonial
encounter, examine the underlying social structure, and detail the social
changes of the people, other than the domestic elite, who make up the bulk of
the population.