Theo Von and Sam Altman on the Future of Historians
CEO of OpenAI Sam Altman was recently interviewed by comedian Theo Von. Early in the interview, Theo asks Altman about the future of History and historians.Here is what they said:(11:14…
The Rise of AI and Liberal Arts Degrees
Whenever I open Google on my phone, I get suggested news articles to read. For the longest time they were always about classic rock, and I couldn’t figure out why…
Vietnam Over the Long Twentieth Century
Last year I had the honor of bringing to completion, together with my friend and colleague Gerard Sasges, an edited volume called Vietnam Over the Long Twentieth Century: Becoming Modern,…
The Tai and Nanzhao
A reader left a comment recently on a blog post that I wrote 14 years ago about what I thought was evidence of some Tai-language speaking people in the area…
The Jawa – Cham Connection
I was recently reading an article by historian Nicolas Weber entitled “Malays in the Indochinese Peninsula: Adventurers, Warlords and Ministers” [Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society…
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…
Southeast Asia in the History of the Song
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…
The History of Cambodia You Never Knew About
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…
The Extremely Modern Knowledge of a “Traditional” Vietnamese Scholar
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…
Locating Zhenla
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…