A History of Ayutthaya: Siam in the Early Modern World

Chris Baker · Pasuk Phongpaichit

may 2017 · Cambridge University Press

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Early European visitors placed Ayutthaya alongside China and India as the great powers of Asia. Yet in 1767 the city was destroyed and its history has been neglected. This book is the first study of Ayutthaya from its emergence in the thirteenth century until its fall. It offers a wide-ranging view of social, political, and cultural history with focus on commerce, kingship, Buddhism, and war. By drawing on a wide range of sources including chronicles, accounts by Europeans, Chinese, Persians, and Japanese, law, literature, art, landscape, and language, the book presents early Siam as a 'commercial' society, not the peasant society usually assumed. Baker and Phongpaichit attribute the fall of the city not to internal conflict or dynastic decline but failure to manage the social and political consequences of prosperity. This book is essential reading for all those interested in the history of Southeast Asia and the early modern world.

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Chris Baker is an independent scholar. Together, with Pasuk Phongpaichit, he has written eight books and over thirty articles on Thailand's history, literature, and political economy; has translated key historical sources, pioneering works by Thai historians, and literary classics, including the epic poem The Tale of Khun Chang Khun Phaen (2010) which won the 2013 Becker Translation Prize from the Association for Asian Studies; and has held visiting posts at universities in the USA, Japan, and Australia.

Pasuk Phongpaichit is Professor of Economics at Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok. Together, with Chris Baker, she has written eight books and over thirty articles on Thailand's history, literature, and political economy; has translated key historical sources, pioneering works by Thai historians, and literary classics, including the epic poem The Tale of Khun Chang Khun Phaen (2010) which won the 2013 Becker Translation Prize from the Association for Asian Studies; and has held visiting posts at universities in the USA, Japan, and Australia.