This is a history of one of the most complex and exotic regions on the globe: North Borneo and Sarawak, now part of East Malaysia. It is a history set in spectacular scenery - the dense gloom of tropical forest relieved by splashes of the brilliant colour of vivid flora and fauna, and full of the sounds of the jungle and of the countless hidden eyes of living creatures.

There are wide belts of mangrove swamp, mighty rivers meandering to golden beaches and the sea; and all is dominated and capped by the magnificent Mount Kinabalu, the highest mountain in South-East Asia. Rising sheer from the Crocker range, Kinabalu dominates people's lives and even souls are said to migrate to paradise over its lofty summit.

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For thousands of years the peoples of Borneo and Sarawak have resisted, absorbed and merged with outside influences while retaining their unique identities, traditions and customs. Robert Wilson's history of the region from earliest times draws on a wide range of original and secondary sources and is informed by his own experience on the ground.

He explores the establishment of the great sultanates, the advance of Islam, European colonial expansion - Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch and British - and the development of trade in the region and of contacts with China. He also covers the reign of the 'White Rajas' of Sarawak, piracy ancient and modern, and British imperial power from the nineteenth century to independence.