Thus, the impact of European colonialism on native societies a nd cultures began to generate, prior to the Second World W ar, scholarly interest in the kinds of social transformations which had been taking place the region and the consequences of these for the welfare of the local populations. The Dutch sociologist, Wim Wertheim, provides an excellent sociological overview of these processes and focuses especially on the utility of concepts from the great social philosophers Karl Marx and Max Weber in understanding the complexi ties of historical change in the region. He notes that the impact of nineteenth century and early twentieth-century W estern capitalism on South-East Asian societies was profound and lasting (1980: 14). but it was not until the introduc tion and rapid expansion of large-scale Western-dominated cash crop agricul ture from the late eighteenth century that tundamental changes in locai ways of fe began to be set motion. Osborne too notes that the ghteenth century was the last century in which the traditional world of Southeast Asia was dominant, if not universal' (1985: 38). Thereafter, the commoditization of land labour and other resources and the expansion of a market economy. accompa nied by increased European political, territorial and administrative control, trans- formed local social and cultural organization, and integrated even the remotest South East Asian communities into a global economic and political system