Syed Hussein authored a number of books, the most well-known being The Myth of the Lazy Native.[7] In 1966, Syed Hussein began pondering the question of why Western colonialists had, for four centuries, considered the natives of Maritime Southeast Asia to be generally lazy since Europeans had not arrived until the 17th century. His research eventually produced The Myth of the Lazy Native, a book which was published in 1977.