In this talk, Prof. Thompson will discuss the writing of his new book, The Story of Southeast Asia (NUS Press, 2024), which examines a series of themes that have created the region as we know it today: state building (and state avoidance), adoption of popular religions, contested sovereignty, and modernity. Prof. Thompson will engage us in a discussion of how to frame the ongoing debates in Southeast Asian studies through the following questions: what were the motivations for writing the book? Why attend to an exceptionally longue durée? What are the parallels between the adoption and spread of Theravada, Islam, Confucianism, and Christianity in the region? How can we (and should we) put colonialism in its place? And of course, what in the heck was Sriwijaya?