Contesting Visions of the Lao Past

Know about the book -

Contesting Visions of the Lao Past is written by Christopher E. Goscha and published by NIAS Press. It's available with International Standard Book Number or ISBN identification 8791114020 (ISBN 10) and 9788791114021 (ISBN 13).

Laos's emergence as a modern nation-state in the 20th century owed much to a complex interplay of internal and external forces. Arguing that the historiography of Laos needs to be understood in this wider context, this study considers how the Lao have written their own nationalist and revolutionary history "on the inside," while others-the French, Vietnamese, and Thais-have attempted to write the history of Laos "from the outside" for their own political ends. As nationalist historiography, like the formation of the nation-state, does not emerge within a nationalist vacuum but rather is created and contested from inside and out, this incisive volume's approach has applications and implications far beyond Laos.