Syed Hussein Alatas and the School of Autonomous Knowledge compiles 15 essays from writers around the Southeast Asian region on the ideas of the late Syed Hussein Alatas, renowned Malaysian social theorist and professor. Enter the School of Autonomous Knowledge, a school of thought which began during Alatas' professorial tenure at the National University of Singapore. Alatas noticed that the study of the history, society, and culture of the Nusantara was still limited by Eurocentric, nationalistic, sectarian, and nativist mindsets within the scholarly community itself. In response to these limitations, he called for a change in the way knowledge was created in the field of the social sciences, to encourage freedom of thought and awareness of such biases.