Chronicles the history of Laos, discussing such topics as its early kingdoms, French rule, the Royal Lao Government, and the impact of the Vietnam War.

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Karen Coates and Jerry Redfern spent more than seven years traveling in Laos, talking to farmers, scrap-metal hunters, people who make and use tools from UXO, people who hunt for death beneath the earth and render it harmless. With their words and photographs, they reveal the beauty of Laos, the strength of Laotians, and the commitment of bomb-disposal teams. People take precedence in this account, which is deeply personal without ever becoming a polemic.

This book is an account of Peter and Sanda Simms' travels in the Kingdom of Laos, way back in 1955. It captures the culture, tradition and the atmosphere of a time when the people there were still fully immersed in their centuries of colourful customs, folklore and rituals.The outside world had left the kingdom on their own for centuries, but there were already signs of profound and destructive changes to come.The book brings to life the every-day world of the Laotians and their attitude of helpful curiosity towards the authors. The landscape that they travelled through described vividly, comes to life as they walk, ride horses or are given lifts by the Royal Laotian army. Their eye for humour added many light-hearted moments during their journey, but these were also interleaved with some more serious episodes. Much of the danger was in trying to avoid the Pathet Lao and Vietminh forces who were very trigger happy.Reading the book, you will feel like you are there; experiencing the excitement, joy and a few tribulations too.Peter and Sanda were journalists and their publications, jointly and singly, have been well-known for many years. Their astute knowledge of the politics of Southeast Asia will add background understanding to the turmoil that followed in later years.

More than a quarter of century after the end of the war in 1975, the Lao leadership is still in search for a compelling nationalist narration. Its politics of culture and representation appear to be caught between the rhetoric of preservation and the desire for modernity. Meanwhile, originating from the periphery where ethnic minorities had hitherto been symbolically, politically and administratively confined, the participation of some of their members in the Indochina Wars (1945-75) exposed these individuals to socialization and politicization processes.This rigorously researched and cogently argued book is a fine-grained analysis of substantial ethnographic material, showing the politics of identity, the geographies of memory and the power of narratives of some members of ethnic minority groups who fought during the Vietnam War in the Lao People's Liberation Army and/or were educated within the revolutionary administration. No study has ever been conducted on the latter's views on the national(ist) project of the late socialist era. Their own perceptions of their membership of the nation have been overlooked.Post-War Laos is a set to be a landmark study, and an original contribution which refines established theories of nationalism, such as Anderson's 'imagined community', by addressing a common weakness: namely, their tendency to deny agency to individuals, who in fact interpret their relationship to, and place within, the nation in a variety of ways that may change according to time and circumstance.

The untold story of how America’s secret war in Laos in the 1960s transformed the CIA from a loose collection of spies into a military operation and a key player in American foreign policy. January, 1961: Laos, a tiny nation few Americans have heard of, is at risk of falling to communism and triggering a domino effect throughout Southeast Asia. This is what President Eisenhower believed when he approved the CIA’s Operation Momentum, creating an army of ethnic Hmong to fight communist forces there. Largely hidden from the American public—and most of Congress—Momentum became the largest CIA paramilitary operation in the history of the United States. The brutal war lasted more than a decade, left the ground littered with thousands of unexploded bombs, and changed the nature of the CIA forever. With “revelatory reporting” and “lucid prose” (The Economist), Kurlantzick provides the definitive account of the Laos war, focusing on the four key people who led the operation: the CIA operative whose idea it was, the Hmong general who led the proxy army in the field, the paramilitary specialist who trained the Hmong forces, and the State Department careerist who took control over the war as it grew. Using recently declassified records and extensive interviews, Kurlantzick shows for the first time how the CIA’s clandestine adventures in one small, Southeast Asian country became the template for how the United States has conducted war ever since—all the way to today’s war on terrorism.

Originally presented as: Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Sydney, 2007.

Describes the changes in society over 600 years as Lan Xang was gradually dismembered and became a French colony. Most importantly, it shows the essence of the Lao and why, despite all that has happened, they possess their own social and cultural values that mark them as distinctive.

Changes in the character of the political regime in Laos after 2000, a massive influx of foreign investment, and disruptions to rural life arising from improved communications and new forms of mobility within and across the borders have produced a major transformation. Alongside these changes, a group of young scholars carried out studies that document the rise of a new social, cultural and economic order. The contributions to this volume draw on original fieldwork materials and unpublished sources, and provide fresh analyses of topics ranging from the structures of power to the politics of territoriality and new forms of sociability in emerging urban spaces.