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- Reads and Resources
For sites and databases relevant to Southeast Asian environmental history
Southeast Asian ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY BIBLIOGRAPHY
With the support of colleagues, I am compiling a bibliography of recent environmental history books and articles that are geographically focused on Southeast Asia, as a reference for those interested in the subject. While "environmental history" is a contested category, at present, the bibliography focuses on work that centres on the non-human as a key structuring influence or agent and concerns change over time. Suggestions for the building up the list is very much welcome.
You can view the bibliography by clicking on the links below:
Southeast Asia News
Digital Archives and Databases
Digitized Collections
NAISSE Prophetic Food Knowledge Repository - searchable database of recipes for mitigating illness using prophetic foods with Malay manuscripts as sources, among others.
British Library Digitized Manuscripts - with Southeast Asian material often covered in the Asian and African studies blog (see here). Great for reading Jawi manuscripts online.
Cornell University Library Southeast Asia Collections - includes some digitised collections of materials from US Southeast Asian professors at Cornell and also useful as a portal for other Southeast Asia online databases
Delpher - Digitized Dutch books, newspapers and journals including those covering 19th century Dutch East Indies
Digital Islamic Humanities Project - at Brown University
Leiden University Digital Collections - marvelous range of materials including KITLV's historical photographs and early Sino-Malay literature, especially for the Dutch East Indies
Malay Concordance Project - Digitized Malay manuscripts, including a word search function
National Library of Singapore BookSG - for Singapore and Southeast Asian digitised books, including early surveys of the region and Malay manuscripts from the British Library, and Berlin Library. For early Singapore and Malaya newspapers, check out NewspaperSG
National Library of Indonesia (Perpusnas) - e-resources available to members only
General digital libraries - HathiTrust Digital Library and the Internet Archive has a lot of useful digitised texts for those working on Southeast Asia's colonial history
Indonesian Economic History - contains datafiles on Indonesia's economic development from 1800 to 2000 but what I find most useful is the list of links to statistical agencies
Climate DataBases and Proxy Records
A Blog for Historical Climatology
Ways to do climate history, how climate change affects social structures, and more..
ACRE (Atmospheric Circulation and Reconstructions Over the Earth) -
Data sets on historical recovery on meteorological data and marine global weather observations
National Center for Environmental Information -
Data Sets for Ice core records, pollen, historical fires and more
Dendrochronology - There is an old world drought atlas, based on data from tree rings.
Past Global Changes - including a global charcoal database (trace evidence of forest clearings through fire, among others), an open access magazine focusing on historical land use and a list of people to contact if you need paleoclimate data
Palynology - pollen analysis helps in the reconstruction of past vegetation cover. Unfortunately, there has not been much sampling done in Southeast Asia, specifically, the best bibliography for the outcome of such research that I can find is here.
Mapping Projects and Digital Tools
Dataquest - Free place to learn basics of Python and R!
Dutch Royal Tropical Institute Digital Map Collection - especially useful for colonial-era maps
KITLV map collection - still under construction and mostly 19th to 20th century Dutch East and West Indies, the Dutch Antilles and parts of Southeast Asia
Open Source Software:
Download QGIS for mapping (I personally like this online video tutorial here, to start)
and GEPHI for network analysis
Stanford Digital Humanities Project, including a great one on mapping vice in early 20th century Philippines for Southeast Asianist
Do some environmental good through online mapping here!
Environmental Sites