280 pp. May 1994
paper, ISBN 978-0-8248-1974-3, $24.00
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Keywords: |
history
geography
Southeast Asia
textbook |
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Siam Mapped: A History of the Geo-Body of a Nation
by Thongchai Winichakul
Winner, 1995 Harry J. Benda Prize in Southeast Asian Studies from the Association for Asian Studies
"In telling his story of the encounters ... Thongchai generates a number of remarkably original insights into the dynamics of Siamese/Thai history in the 19th and 20th centuries. With Siam Mapped Thongchai presents an exciting and fertile new approach to the emergence of modern nationhood and nationalism." --AAS Committee Citation. "A highly original and important study... A work where theory illumines history equally as history informs theory." --American Historical Review "An excellent and well-researched example of how concepts of the space of a nation change over time and effect how a nation develops." --Chicago Anthropology Exchange
This unusual and intriguing study of nationhood explores the 19th-century confrontation of ideas that transformed the kingdom of Siam into the modern conception of a nation. Siam Mapped challenges much that has been written on Thai history because it demonstrates convincingly that the physical and political definition of Thailand on which other works are based is anachronistic.
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