Those in Asian history include Britain, the Brookes and Brunei (1971), Sulu and Sabah (1978), The Burthen, The Risk and the Glory (1982), and The Fourth Anglo-Burman War (1987). Tarling published some 45 books and edited fifteen. Tarling died on while swimming at Narrow Neck beach on Auckland's North Shore. In the 1996 Queen's Birthday Honours, Tarling was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to historical research and the arts.

He was also a visiting professor at University of Brunei Darussalam and honorary professor at University of Hull. He was a Fellow of the New Zealand Asia Institute and served for a while as director of the institute and later of the International Office. He was a busy amateur actor and served for many years as University Orator. His interest in the arts led to his appointment to Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council, to the chairmanship of the Symphonia of Auckland, and to a directorship of Opera New Zealand. He was the founder and president of the New Zealand Asian Studies Society (NZASIA) and also had two terms as President of the Association of University Teachers of New Zealand. He also served on a number of inter-university and government committees. He also held posts as Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Chairman of the Deans Committee, and Deputy Vice-Chancellor. In 1965 Tarling was appointed associate professor at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, and in 1968 he became a full professor, still as a European and Asian history teacher. During those years he visited Southeast Asia and the US, and published three books: a revised version of his thesis Anglo-Dutch Relations in the Malay World Piracy and Politics in the Malay World. There, he taught courses in both European and Asian history. In 1957 he took up a teaching post at the University of Queensland in Gordon Greenwood's Department of History and Political Science. He also earned his PhD at Cambridge, supervised by Dr Victor Purcell. As an undergraduate at Christ's College, Cambridge, he was supervised by, among others, Sir John H. Nicholas Tarling was born on 1 February 1931 in Iver, Buckinghamshire, England, and obtained his secondary education at St Albans School.

Download tarling