Thailand (eBook)

The Worldly Kingdom

Maurizio Peleggi (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2013 | 1. Auflage
256 Seiten
Reaktion Books (Verlag)
978-1-86189-460-1 (ISBN)

Infos

Tourist brochures and travel guides depict Thailand as an exotic country with a rich cultural heritage, strong religious traditions, and a popular monarchy. Historians also contribute to Thailand's international allure with chronicles of its unique historical and cultural continuity in comparison to the other southeast Asian countries, whose histories are stained by colonialism and nationalist struggles for independence.

Thailand challenges these stereotypes with a reinterpretation as well as an introduction to the emergence of Thailand as a nation-state. The book argues that the development of Thai nationhood was a long-term process shaped by interactions with the outside world, its pursuit of civilization, and, more recently, globalization. Maurizio Peleggi's original account investigates, among other issues, the evolution of the geographical and linguistic landscapes, changes in class and gender relations, the role of institutions and ideologies, modern cultural expressions, social memory, and the conception of the Thai national self as contrasted against the racial and cultural Others of Burmese, Chinese and Westerners.

Thailand is a concise and compelling introduction to the complexities that lie behind Thailand's exotic facade.

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Tourist adverts and glossy publications present Thailand as an exotic country with a rich cultural heritage, strong religious traditions and a much-loved monarchy. Historians too have contributed to Thailand’s international allure by asserting its unique historical and cultural continuity in comparison to the other countries of South-East Asia, whose modern histories are stained by colonialism and nationalist struggles for independence.Thailand: The Worldly Kingdom challenges these commonplaces by offering a reinterpretation of the emergence and development of the Thai nation-state, showing it to be a long-term process shaped by interactions with the outside world in the pursuit of civilization and, more recently, globalization. Maurizio Peleggi’s original approach is reflected in the book’s thematic structure, with chapters that investigate, among other issues, the geographical, linguistic and ethnic diversity of the territories that came to form modern Thailand; changes in class and gender relations; the role of institutions and ideologies; and the reinvention of Thai identity from within through a repackaging of its heritage in magazines, novels, art and the mass media. Peleggi goes on to explore how the Thai people relate to the outside world: their prototypical enemies - the Burmese; southern Chinese immigrants; and, above all, farang - Westerners - who have been involved in the region since the seventeenth century and yet remain, for the Thais, the quintessential ‘other’.Thailand: The Worldly Kingdom is a concise yet exceptional introduction to the myriad complexities that lie behind Thailand’s blandly exotic facade.

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 7.2.2013
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Reisen ► Bildbände
• Themenwelt: Reisen ► Reiseführer
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
• Themenwelt: Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Kulturgeschichte
• ISBN-10: 1-86189-460-0 / 1861894600
• ISBN-13: 978-1-86189-460-1 / 9781861894601