Book excerpt: Just who are ‘the Malays’? This provocative study posesthe question and considers how and why the answers have changedover time, and from one region to another. Anthony Milner developsa sustained argument about ethnicity and identity in an historical,‘Malay’ context. The Malays is a comprehensiveexamination of the origins and development of Malay identity,ethnicity, and consciousness over the past five centuries. Covers the political, economic, and cultural development of theMalays Explores the Malay presence in Brunei, Singapore, Indonesia,Thailand, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, and South Africa, as well as themodern Malay show-state of Malaysia Offers diplomatic speculation about ways Malay ethnicity willdevelop and be challenged in the future