How Digital-Age Scholarship is Different
All fields are different, but the field I am most active in now (looking at early Southeast Asia through Chinese sources) is very different today than it was just 10…
The Thai-icization of Zhenlifu (Chen-li-fu) and Southeast Asian History
Zhenlifu 真里富 (Chen-li-fu) is the name of a small kingdom in central Cambodia that briefly interacted with the Song dynasty at the beginning of the thirteenth century.If you search for…
Zhenlifu (Chen-li-fu) was NOT in Thailand!!
There is a kingdom by the name of Zhenlifu 真里富 (also, Chen-li-fu) that is mentioned in a Song dynasty source known as the Song huiyao jigao 宋會要輯稿 (Draft Institutional History…
The Rise of the Pu’s – FINALLY EXPLAINED
Last year I wrote a couple of blog posts on a term, “Pu” 蒲, that appears in Song dynasty sources: “When the Cham Ruled the Seas” and “More Evidence for…
Zhenla in the Tang and Song
I recently learned/realized that during the Tang dynasty period, there was an overland trade route that went from what is now central Vietnam over to Cambodia and then south to…
Chinese Tributary Names as Geographic Containers
There is something that I have come to realize as I’ve worked with Chinese sources on early Southeast Asian history, and it is that the scholars who have written on…
The Gradual Advance of AI
When technology advances gradually, we tend to not fully appreciate the scale of the transformation that it brings. This is because we adapt to its gradual changes, and lose track…
Aromatic Bird Droppings and Historical Scholarship in the Digital Age
For years, I have been telling people that we are living in a new age. With the digitization of historical sources, something that has really only developed significantly in the…
What the Heck is Happening on Wikipedia?!!
In 2024, the Wikipedia page for Chenla [Zhenla], contained the following sentence:“According to Paul Pelliot, Sambhupura was the capital of Land Chenla [km] (Upper Chenla) and Vyadhapura was the capital…
Locating Linyi
There is a place name in early Chinese sources called “Linyi” 林邑.For 100+ years, scholars have been trying to figure out where exactly it was, and how it was related…