Suchergebnisse

Frontmatter -- FOREWORD -- EXECUTIVE SUMMARY -- Thailand's Hyper-royalism: Its Past Success and Present Predicament -- HISTORICAL BACKGROUND -- CHARACTERISTICS -- CONCEPT: THE IDEAL MODERN MONARCHY -- SPELLS: THE RIGHTEOUS MONARCHY FOR ALL PEOPLE -- MAGIC: VISUAL ILLUSION OF SACRED MONARCHY -- CRISIS AND DISENCHANTMENT -- PREDICAMENT -- REFERENCES

Historical studies in Thailand have been closely related to the formation of the nation since the late nineteenth century, and until recently the pattern of the past in this elitist craft changed but little. It presented a royal/national chronicle, a historiography modern in character but based upon traditional perceptions of the past and traditional materials. It was a collection of stories by and for the national elite celebrating their successful mission of building and protecting the country despite great difficulties, and promising a prosperous future. The plot and meaning of this melodramatic past have become a paradigm of historical discourse, making history an ideological weapon and a source of legitimation of the state.

In the seventeenth century, the Dutch established a trading base at the Indonesian site of Jacarta. What began as a minor colonial outpost under the name Batavia would become, over the next three centuries, the flourishing economic and political nucleus of the Dutch Asian Empire. In this pioneering study, Jean Gelman Taylor offers a comprehensive analysis of Batavia's extraordinary social world--its marriage patterns, religious and social organizations, economic interests, and sexual roles.