In 1947, the Scarbrough Commission asserted that knowledge of Asian countries needed to be granted a permanent place in British academia. The commission, in its report, believed that knowledge of the histories, cultures, and languages of Asia were "quite inadequate for Britain's national purposes."[3]Ralph Lilley Turner, the second Director of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), requested state funding to implement the commission's recommendations, which began in 1948. SOAS planned to appoint 18 professors, 35 readers, and 114 lectures over a five-year time period.[4] The launching of an academic journal in 1967 represented the culmination of these efforts.
The journal nowadays publishes monographic essays on a wide range of topics that are supported with empirical data. It is one of the leading journals in the field and has long been considered the flagship area studies journal of Cambridge University Press.[5]
^Brown, Ian (2016). The School of Oriental and African Studies: Imperial Training and the Expansion of Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 126.
Woo, Park Seung and Victor T. King. The Historical Construction of Southeast Asian Studies: Korea and Beyond Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2013.