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Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin III and Britain: The Making of Brunei Darussalam. By A. B. HUSSAINMIYA. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1995. xxix, 447 pp. $45.00.
Dr. Hussainmiya is Senior Lecturer in History at Universiti Brunei Darussalam. Due to "many constraints, including the paucity of vital local source material," this is not a biography, and he disavows that it is hagiography or official history (p. x). Much of the narrative follows a path beaten by other writers, but there is also relatively open discussion of matters which the Bruneian authorities have regarded until recently as sensitive.
Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin III, revered as the architect of modern Brunei, succeeded his brother, Sultan Ahmad Tajuddin II, in 1950, when Brunei was a British protectorate. The succession is presented as a watershed in Brunei's history as the new sultan began to challenge the authority of the British Resident, using his visits to England in 1952 and 1953 to establish contacts there (pp. 65-68). As the political options widened during the 1950s and 1960s, the sultan developed his political and diplomatic skills, playing one...