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…
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…
The Thai-ification of Tang-era Chinese Placenames, or Why the Work of Scholars is Inconsequential
I recently wrote a blog post on the problems with the work of Japanese historian Tatsuo Hoshino, and what I see as the bigger problem of how scholars deal (or…
Wendan was Sambor Prei Kuk
There is a place mentioned in the New History of the Tang called “Wendan” 文單. It appears in an itinerary that was recorded by Tang dynasty scholar-official Jia Dan in…
Chitu in Cambodia: A “Vigorous Rejection” of Tatsuo Hoshino’s Work
There is a Japanese historian by the name of Tatsuo Hoshino who wrote about premodern mainland Southeast Asia.In 1996, he published an article in the Journal of the Siam Society…