Tim Harper
Tim Harper is Professor of the History of Southeast Asia and Head of the School of the Humanities and Social Sciences at Cambridge University. He has been a fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge since 1990.
Tim’s first book, The End of Empire and the Making of Malaya (1999), was a study of war, communist insurgency and the achievement of independence in Malaya and Singapore. Since then, he has published widely on the histories of Southeast Asia, empire and global connections. He wrote, with Christopher Bayly, a two-volume account of the Second World War and its aftermath in South and Southeast Asia: Forgotten Armies: The Fall of British Asia (2004) and Forgotten Wars: The End of Britain’s Asian Empire (2007, both Penguin).
He has held visiting research positions in Malaysia, Singapore, the United States and Paris and is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. His new book is about how modern Asia emerged from a struggle to overturn the old world order. Underground Asia was published in autumn 2020 by Allen Lane / Penguin, and was longlisted for the 2021 Cundill History Prize.
