Breaking New Ground in Lao History: Essays on the Seventh to Twentieth Centuries

The essays in this volume form a rich collage of the central Mekong basin spanning nearly 1,400 years of history. Gathered from an international group of scholars, each with a unique approach to the region, this research drawn upon materials in more than a dozen languages scattered in archives around the world. Topics include basic structural problems in writing Lao history; political geography from the 600s to the 800s; separate discussions of Lao, Vietnamese, and Western sources of early Lao history; the Lao-Tay-son alliance in the late 18th century; Lao millenarian movements and French colonial rule; and the geographical history of changing territorial boundaries of modern Laos.This collection breaks new ground, and is certain to stimulate new questions, ideas, and research. Mayoury Ngaosrivathana is the coauthor of "Paths to Conflagration: Fifty Years of Diplomacy and Warfare in Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam, 1778-1928". Kennon Breazeale is projects coordinator, East-West Center, Honolulu. Other contributors include Bernard Gay, Tatsuo Hoshino, Pheuiphanh Ngaosrivathana, Meg O'Donovan, Souneth Phothisane, Martin Stuart-Fox, and Tran Van Quy.