Locating Foluo’an 佛羅安
Over the past several years, I have been going through the Chinese sources for Southeast Asian history and reinterpreting them. One big issue that I have found is that people…
Over the past several years, I have been going through the Chinese sources for Southeast Asian history and reinterpreting them. One big issue that I have found is that people…
The History of the Song (Songshi 宋史) is a very important source for the study of Southeast Asian history.One section of that work that is particularly important is Liezhuan 列傳…
As I have been writing for years now, there is a place name in Chinese sources, Sanfoqi 三佛齊, which, for the past 100+ years, scholars have thought indicated a place…
There is a general narrative about modern Vietnamese history which states that at the beginning of the twentieth century, the traditionally-trained educated elite failed to adapt to the changes of…
Update: No, I'm wrong in this post. I didn't realize people can cover so much distance in a month. To get from Champa to say Sambor Prei Kuk in that…
I recently translated the section on Zhenla, a polity that appears to have existed in the area of what is now Cambodia and southern Vietnam, in the History of the…
Hey kids!! Let’s draw a picture by connecting the dots!!The Treatise on the Success and Obstructions in the Spread of the Dharma (Fayun tongsai zhi 法運通塞志) in Zhipan’s 志磐 (ca.…
A kind reader asked me if I would recommend pursuing the path of studying history. . . And I don’t have an answer, but I have certain thoughts. So, I’ll…
A confession: the history of early maritime Southeast Asia is not my field. I just stumbled into it starting about five years ago.Yes, before that time, I had at times…
Five years ago, I listened to a colleague at Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Johannes Kurz, give a presentation on how problematic the scholarship on “Srivijaya” is, and in particular, how problematic…