 Syed Hussein wrote several books on corruption, multi-racialism, imperialism, and intellectual captivity as part of the colonial, and postcolonial, project, the most famous being "The Myth of the Lazy Native".Syed was born in Buitenzorg (now Bogor), Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia).His grandfather, Sayyid 'Abd Allah bin Muhsin al-Attas ( ), was a Hadhrami from Hadhramaut, Yemen and settled in Bogor.