May 13: Declassified Documents on the Malaysian Riots of 1969

May 13

Declassified Documents on the Malaysian Riots of 1969

2007 • 147 pages

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Average rating3

15

This book attempts to present the events leading to and surrounding May 13 using British declassified documents. As such, the viewpoints are primarily from British citizens or correspondents, either in an official or non-official capacity. Since the Malaysian government is still keeping the episode under wrap, this is as close as one can get to get a glimpse of what happened.

As a history book, it somewhat fails at its impartiality. While it does attempt to give a chronology of events based on the declassified documents, the summaries and conclusions were drawn with a political bent - understandable I suppose. But as a book that purports to she'd some light on that tragic event, being unable to completely free itself of political bias was unfortunate. It would have had a greater influence had the reader been given more of an opportunity to draw the conclusions themselves given the accounts from the documents, rather than having the author's conclusions given to the reader.

May 24, 2013Report this review