[Tlc] new books

[justinm at ucr.edu]

Here are eight new books in which members may be interested
(see below). If anyone has any new books that they would like
to inform TLC members about, please let me know.

Best,
justin

1)
I Little Slave

by Bounsang Khamkeo

20077, Eastern Univ. of Washington Press 


In pre-revolutionary Laos, "I, little slave" was the
traditional, formal expression of the word "I." This book is
the memoir of the Laotian civil servant Bounsang Khamkeo, who
was raised in the Laos of tradition and feudal politeness but
was educated in France. Upon his return to Laos during the
chaotic seventies he worked in the Foreign Affairs Ministry of
the last non-communist government and was witness to the
corruption and eventual disintegration of that world. He
continued in the same capacity for the Pathet Lao until the
new regime became distrustful of the worldly Khamkeo and
imprisoned him. He survived his years in prison and moved to
the United States in 1989.

Told with a directness, honesty, and attention to detail that
is rare in such documents, I, Little Slave also gives us the
tragedy of Laos, an ancient land caught between competing
forces, ideologies, and values. The book is unforgettable and
ranks with the best captivity stories ever written.

Bounsang Khamkeo was able to flee Laos after he was released
from prison. He and his family moved to the United States,
where he now lives in Vancouver, Washington, with his wife, Vieng.

2) Pali Grammar for Students

by Steven Collins

2006, Silkworm


This book is intended for modern students, inside or outside
the classroom, as a work of reference rather than a "teach
yourself" textbook. It presents an introductory sketch of Pali
using both European and South Asian grammatical categories. In
English-language works, Pali is usually presented in the
traditional terms of English grammar, derived from the
classical tradition, with which many modern students are
unfamiliar. This work discusses and reflects upon those
categories, and has an appendix devoted to them. It also
introduces the main categories of traditional Sanskrit and
Pali grammar, drawing on, in particular, the medieval Pali
text Saddaniti, by Aggavamsa. Each grammatical form is
illustrated by examples taken from Pali texts, mostly
canonical. Although some previous knowledge of Sanskrit would
be helpful, the book can also be used by those without
previous linguistic training. A bibliographical appendix
refers to other, complementary resources.

Steven Collins is professor of South Asian languages and
civilizations at the University of Chicago, and was formerly a
council member of the Pali Text Society (London). He is the
author of Selfless Persons: Imagery and Thought in Theravada
Buddhism and Nirvana and Other Buddhist Felicities: Utopias of
the Pali Imaginaire.

3)  The Mekong Arranged and Rearranged
edited by Maria S.I. Diokno and Nguyen Van Chinh

ISBN 978-974-94804-9-6
205 pp., 6.5 x 9.5 in, 425 Baht

Flanked by a fast-growing China hungry for markets and energy
and other resources, the Mekong region is a target of
competing local, national, regional and transnational as well
as commercial interests. There are many Mekong regionsŽ and
claims to its water, heritage sites, tourism potential and
other resources affect one or all the countries. Given the
vast amounts of finance and resources being committed to
projects ostensibly for the development of the Mekong region,
this volume contains valuable provocative, and sometimes
conflicting, views about history, geopolitics and current
dilemmas by scholars across the region.

4)
Laos: From Buffer State to Crossroads?
by Vatthana Pholsena and Ruth Banomyong

ISBN 978-974-94805-0-2
225 pp., 6.5 x 9.5 in, 525 Baht

Can LaosÞwith its small, scattered, ethnically diverse
population, enchanting but rugged landscapes, and rich natural
resourcesÞemerge from the shadows of its more powerful
neighbours after being carved up by colonial powers in the
19th century and dragged into devastating revolution and war
in the 20th? A full, frank and engaging survey of Laos today,
assessing its history, prospects and hopes. 

5)
 Constructing Suvarnabhumi:
A Photographic Study During Construction of the New Bangkok
International Airport
Carl J. D’Silva

ISBN-10: 974-93619-8-9
ISBN-13: 978-974-93619-8-6
2006. 105pp, 255x255 mm, 49 b/w photographs, B950

This book of black-and-white photographs is a powerful
collection of images taken during the construction of the new
Bangkok airport. Forty-nine, full-page photographs portray the
unexpected beauty of repeating patterns of steel, glass, and
concrete combining to create a work of art in progress.
Looking through the eyes and lens of the on-site architect,
the marvelous geometry of frames and columns, wall and roof,
come into sharp focus. Cold clean lines, precisely repeating
curves, negative and positive space, shapes within shapes in
trusses and meshes—these are the raw elements of this
superlative visual feast of architectural images. The back
cover design featuring the forty-nine photographs in miniature
is itself a stunning work of art.

All full-page images in this study were taken with a
Hasselblad 501CM, with 80mm lens, using Ilford Delta 100 film.

Carl J. D’Silva is an Associate Principal Architect at
Murphy/Jahn Architects in Chicago, where he has been working
since 1994. He worked on the Passenger Terminal Complex design
for the new Suvarnabhumi Airport from 1996–2006 and served as
the on-site Project Architect during the construction phase.


6)
Border Landscapes: The Politics of Akha Land Use in China and
Thailand
Janet C. Sturgeon

ISBN 978-974-9511-19-0,
262 pp, 140x215 mm, 625 Baht

In this comparative, interdisciplinary study based on
extensive fieldwork as well as historical sources, Janet
Sturgeon examines the different trajectories of landscape
change and land use among communities that call themselves
Akha (known as Hani in China) in contrasting political
contexts. She shows how, over the last century, processes of
state formation, construction of ethnic identity, and regional
security concerns have contributed to very different outcomes
for Akha and their forests in China and Thailand, with Chinese
Akha functioning as citizens and grain producers, and Akha in
Thailand being viewed as “non-Thai” forest destroyers.

Modern nation-states grapple with local power hierarchies on
the periphery of the nation with varied outcomes. Citizenship
in China helps Akha better protect a fluid set of livelihood
practices that confer benefits on them and their forests.
Denied such citizenship in Thailand, Akha are helpless when
forests and other resources are ruthlessly claimed by the
state. Drawing on current anthropological debates on the state
in Southeast Asia and more generally on debates on property
theory, states and minorities, and political ecology, Sturgeon
shows how people live with continually negotiated
boundaries—political, social, and ecological.

This pioneering comparison of resource access and land use
among historically related peoples in two nation-states will
be welcomed by scholars of geography, political ecology,
environmental anthropology, ethnicity, and politics of state
formation in East and Southeast Asia.

Janet C. Sturgeon is assistant professor of geography at Simon
Fraser University.

“This innovative, carefully researched, and strikingly
designed study will make an important contribution to
comparative legal and institutional histories of resource
management on the one hand and the analysis of sovereignty on
the frontiers of nation states on the other.”—James C. Scott,
Yale University

“Border Landscapes is a wonderful, richly observed study where
comparison is used to illuminate some difficult issues about
ethnicity, politics, and the environment”—Nicholas K. Menzies,
author of Forest and Land Management in Imperial China

7)
 Of Gods, Kings, and Men: The Reliefs of Angkor Wat

Jaroslav Poncar
Text by Thomas S. Maxwell

Built for the Khmer king Suryavarman II in the twelfth
century, the enormous temple complex of Angkor Wat consists of
an outer enclosure surrounded by a moat, with three further
concentric rectangular enclosures inside it. The rich and
evocative bas-reliefs featured in this book are carved on the
walls of the third enclosure.

Jaroslav Poncar has brilliantly captured the detail of these
huge reliefs, measuring more than two meters in height and
five hundred meters in overall length, using the
high-precision technique of slit-scan photography. One
hundred, full-page panoramic photographs bring readers within
the very walls of Angkor. Here, scenes from the great Indian
epics, the Ramayana and Mahabharata, depict the dharmic
history of the cosmos. One can admire the skill of the
Angkorian artists at close proximity for their imaginative
portrayal of this ancient narrative of struggle and conflict.
The scenes are expansively explained and interpreted for the
modern reader and observer by Angkor expert Thomas S. Maxwell.

Jaroslav Poncar is Professor for Photo Engineering and Media
Technology at the University of Applied Sciences in Cologne.
He is currently in charge of photographic documentation of
Angkor Wat as part of the unesco program for the preservation
of Angkor.

ISBN-10: 974-9511-18-2
ISBN-13: 978-974-9511-18-3

100 full-page color photographs, appendixes
192pp
Baht 1,750 

8)
The Pa-O: Rebels and Refugees
Russ Christensen and Sann Kyaw

ISBN–10: 974-9575-93-8
ISBN–13: 978-974-9575-93-2
2006. 127pp, 145x210mm, 11 color photographs, 1 b/w
illustration, B625

The Pa-O are one of Burma’s many ethnic minorities, considered
to be one of the four main subgroups of the Karen. They live
primarily in southwestern Shan State, where they have
maintained their own language and culture for centuries. They
were engaged in a forty-year insurgency against the government
of Burma, which ended with a cease-fire in 1994. During the
last two decades of the insurgency, the nationalist Pa-O and
the Communist Pa-O spent as much time fighting each other as
they did the Burmese army.

This is the first book on the Pa-O in English. Drawing upon
historical accounts, contemporary writing, and personal
interviews, the authors present the mythological and
historical background of the Pa-O in Burma and Thailand. They
recount the recent political history and focus on the
experiences and difficulties of one village community that was
forced to relocate ten times between 1978 and 1996. Interviews
with several recently arrived Pa-O provide first-hand evidence
of the difficult conditions under which the Pa-O live both in
Burma and Thailand.

Russ Christensen has spent over four years with the Pa-O in
the Mae Hong Son area of northern Thailand. He became
interested in the people of Southeast Asia while serving as a
U.S. army officer with the Twenty-fifth Infantry Division in
Vietnam.

Sann Kyaw, an ethnic Pa-O, completed two years at University
of Mandalay, before the pro-democracy uprising in 1988 when
the universities were closed. He joined the Pa-O National
Organization (PNO) military headquarters and served as a
signal officer.

 

______________
Dr. Justin McDaniel
Dept. of Religious Studies
2617 Humanities Building
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521
951-827-4530
justinm at ucr.edu