Interpreting Southeast Asia's Past: Monument, Image and Text features 31 papers read at the 10th International Conference of the European Association of Southeast Asian Archaeologists, held in London in September 2004. The volume covers monumental arts, sculpture and painting, epigraphy and heritage management across mainland Southeast Asia and as far south as Indonesia. New research on monumental arts includes chapters on the Bayon of Angkor and the great brick temple sites of Champa. There is an article discussing the purpose of making and erecting sacred sculptures in the ancient world and accounts of research on the sacred art of Burma, Thailand and southern China (including the first study of the few surviving Saiva images in Burma), of a spectacular find of bronze Mahayana Buddhas, and of the sculpted bronzes of the Dian culture. New research on craft goods and crafting techniques deals with ancient Khmer materials, including recently discovered ceramic kiln sites, the sandstone sources of major Khmer sculptures, and the rare remaining traces of paint, plaster and stucco on stone and brick buildings. More widely distributed goods also receive attention, including Southeast Asian glass beads, and there are contributions on Southeast Asian heritage and conservation, including research on Angkor as a living World Heritage site and discussion of a UNESCO project on the stone jars of the Plain of Jars in Laos that combines recording, safeguarding, bomb clearance, and eco-tourism development.

The aftermath of the Vietnamese liberation of Cambodia sets the stage for a chilling pursuit of justice. In the refugee camps along the Thai border, a ruthless killer is targeting young girls. Decades later, a series of similar crimes in Phnom Penh awakens painful memories for the Minister of the Interior, whose sister was a victim. Determined to find answers, he assigns his trusted investigator, Chamreun, to join forces with Sophie Chang, a seasoned police officer returning from Boston. Together, they delve into the past while racing against time to solve the murders. As Interpol links the Asian crimes to unsolved killings in Europe, Chamreun and Sophie's investigation takes an unexpected turn. Amidst the unfolding horror, their own connection deepens, forging an unbreakable bond. Through the chilling perspective of the killer's diary and their relentless pursuit of truth, "Angkor Cloth, Angkor Gold" delves into a web of forgotten victims, haunting secrets, and the enduring fight for justice. Will Chamreun and Sophie unmask the killer, or will the victims remain forgotten, denied their rightful closure?

Pribble investigates the barter economies that developed in many of the labor camps established under the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. When the Khmer Rouge abolished currency and markets in 1975, starving Cambodians created underground exchanges in labor camps throughout the country, bartering luxury items for food and other necessities, while simultaneously undermining the regime’s ideological goals of eliminating any traces of capitalism in Democratic Kampuchea. Pribble asserts three key points about the barter economy in the Khmer Rouge labor camps. First, the underground exchanges in Democratic Kampuchea provided food and medicine for desperate people subsisting under a totalitarian regime, saving the lives of countless Cambodians. Second, bartering was the riskiest way to obtain food because it was dependent upon the discretion of two or more individuals from different social classes under the threat of violent punishment, thereby altering the social dynamics of the camps. Finally, despite the regime’s extreme efforts to eliminate foreign influence from the country and impose communist ideology on millions of citizens, basic forms of market capitalism and a demand for superfluous luxury goods persisted in labor camps throughout the country. A fascinating study of the human consequences of imposing rigid ideology, that will be of particular interest to scholars and students of political history and Southeast Asian history. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

People & Places is a special collection from the World of Wonder series. World of Wonder is a weekly illustrated full-page feature syndicated in over 100 newspapers nationwide. Devoted to exploring educational themes and examining the realms of history, science, nature and technology, it is written in a reader-friendly style and accompanied by colorful illustrations. This collection gives the reader a wealth of information on everything from Angkor to Dracula.

Uncovers one of the biggest secrets of the twentieth century.

In Cambodian Grrrl: Self-Publishing in Phnom Penh, writer and independent publisher Anne Elizabeth Moore brings her experience in the American cultural underground to Cambodia, a country known mostly for the savage extermination of around 2 million of its own under the four-year reign of the Khmer Rouge. Following the publication of her critically acclaimed book Unmarketable and the demise of the magazine she co-published, Punk Planet, and armed with the knowledge that the second generation of genocide survivors in Cambodia had little knowledge of their country’s brutal history, Moore disembarked to Southeast Asia hoping to teach young women how to make zines. What she learned instead were brutal truths about women’s rights, the politics of corruption, the failures of democracy, the mechanism of globalization, and a profound emotional connection that can only be called love. Moore’s fascinating story from the cusp of the global economic meltdown is a look at her time with the first all-women’s dormitory in the history of the country, just kilometers away from the notorious Killing Fields. Her tale is a noble one, as heartbreaking as it is hilarious; staunchly ethical yet conflicted and human.

As the Leaves Turn Gold examines the challenges and opportunities around aging for Asian American women and men in the United States. The book looks at a range of Asian Americans—affluent and poor, third-generation natives and recent immigrants, political exiles and recent migrants, people who immigrated early in life and those who immigrated late in life—and features interview excerpts that bring these issues to life. The book shows how the life courses of individuals, including discrimination they may have faced in earlier years, can shape their golden years. As they grow older, Asian Americans continue to struggle to fit into American society—this is true even of those who are highly educated, relatively affluent, and have lived and worked with non-Asian Americans for most of their lives. As the Leaves Turn Gold discusses not only the challenges older Asian Americans face, such as lack of adequate support services, but also local and transnational solutions. As the Leaves Turn Gold is an important examination of aging, immigration, and social inequality.

It's 1979 and Morgan O'Reilly, a dispirited CIA desk officer, is desperately trying to bury his memories. Sent to Cambodia as a Marine and then as a CIA operative during the Vietnam War, he had been given the unlikely task of pulling together a secret spy unit of orphaned street children. At the end of the war, he was only able to get one child out of the country, his surrogate son, Sophal. Years later, Sophal, now a CIA agent, disappears on a secret mission in the Cambodian refugee camps in Thailand. Tom Dillon, the dashing young superstar of the White House foreign policy staff, asks O'Reilly to find Sophal and bring him home. O'Reilly's search takes him deeper and deeper into the politics of the Thai-Cambodian border and finally into the deadly Khmer Rouge zone - a place where all foreigners are forbidden from entering and where cruelty and death are omnipresent. Filled with the fascinating workings of the refugee camps, the life or death politics of Washington, DC, and the inner workings of the personalities that are drawn to such extreme circumstances, Jamie Metzl's The Depths of the Sea is a thriller that both entertains and educates.