Abstract
‘The last stand’ naturally conjures up images reminiscent of General George Armstrong Custer and the Battle of the Little Big Horn. Its associations are implicitly defensive, and it vaguely suggests hopelessness and perhaps foolishness. The ‘last stand’ is a romantic and symbolic gesture: it is perhaps brave and gallant, but in no way could it reverse the irresistible historical tide against which it ‘stood’. The imagery of the ‘last stand’ is not conventionally used in the usual emplotment of Southeast Asian history, especially in the nineteenth century, but it could be so employed. One of the values of so using it here is that it both serves to highlight some of the qualities of the current historiography of the period and stimulates thinking towards a richer and more appreciative reading of the period of history to which it refers.
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Notes
John Smail, ‘On the possibility of an autonomous history of modern Southeast Asia’, JSEAH, Vol. 2, No. 2 (July 1961), pp. 72–102.
See David Carr, Time, Narrative, and History (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986).
Moral Order and the Question of Change, eds David K. Wyatt and Alexander Woodside (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Southeast Asian Studies, 1982), esp. pp. 9–52 (reprinted in D.K. Wyatt, Studies in Thai History [Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 1994], pp. 131–73.
See especially ‘Family politics in nineteenth-century Thailand’, JSEAH, Vol. 9, No. 2 (September 1968), pp. 208–28, reprinted in Studies in Thai History, pp. 107–130; and Michael Vickery, ‘Thai regional elites and the reforms of King Chulalongkorn’, JAS, Vol. 29, No. 4 (August 1970), pp. 863–81.
See esp. Natthawut Sutthisongkhram, Phraprawat lœ phraniphon khong Somdet Phramahasamanacao Kromphraya Paramanuchitchinorot (Bangkok: Samnakphim Watthana Phanit, 1962).
Cf. Wyatt, in ‘The “Subtle Revolution,” of King Rama I of Siam,’ in David K. Wyatt, Studies in Thai History. (Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 1994), pp. 131–74.
The first published version of this appeared in French translation by Camille Notton, Chronique de Xieng Mai (Annales du Siam, III; Paris: Geuthner, 1932). Notton’s version is based on a manuscript now lost that contained only seven chapters, and probably dates originally from 1805. The first Thai edition appears as Tamnan phun muang Chiang Mai, ed. Sanguan Chotisukkharat (Bangkok: Samnak Nayok Ratthamontri, 1971), and is seriously marred by sloppy transcription and editing. The only full version now available is Tamnan sip ha ratchawong, 3 vols (Chiang Mai: Sathaban Wicai Sangkhom, 1981–90), which, however, includes only the first seven of eight chapters. See my ‘A case for the Northern Thai Chronicles’, forthcoming in a volume edited by John Villiers and Dhiravat na Pompejr, to be published by the Chulalongkorn University Press in Bangkok, and The Chiang Mai Chronicle, ed. and trans. David K. Wyatt and Aroonrut Wichienkeeo (Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 1995).
D.K. Wyatt, Thailand: A Short History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984), p. 180, to cite but one of many instances. See especially ibid., p. 175.
See especially Appendix A of the Nan Chronicle, as well as relevant pages in Chapter 10. The Chiang Mai manuscripts are catalogued in Lan Na Literature: Catalogue of 954 Secular Titles. Preserved on Microfilm at the Social Research Institute of Chiang Mai University (Chiang Mai, 1986), and Chiang Mai University, Social Research Institute, Raichu nangsu boran Lan Na: ekkasan maikhrofim khong Sathaban Wicai Sangkhom Mahawitthayalai Chiang Mai pi 2521–2533 [Catalogue of palm-leaf texts on microfilm at the Social Research Institute, Chiang Mai University 1978–1990] (Chiang Mai: Sathaban Wicai Sangkhom, 1991). On Laos, see Louis Finot, ‘Recherches sur la littérature laotienne’, BEFEO, Vol. XVII, fasc. 5 (1917), pp. 1–174;
Thao Kéne, Catalogue des manuscrits de la littérature du Laos (Vientiane: National Library [Laos] 1958) and the same author’s Catalogue des manuscrits de la littérature Lao Vientiane (Vientiane: National Library [Laos] 1960).
Junko Koizumi, ‘The commutation of suai from Northeast Siam in the middle of the nineteenth century’, JSEAS, Vol. 23 (September 1992), pp. 276–307.
Jennifer Cushman, Fields from the Sea: Chinese Junk Trade with Siam During the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries (Ithaca, NY: Cornell Southeast Asia Program, 1993) is particularly useful here.
Lysa Hong, Thailand in the Nineteenth Century: Evolution of the Economy and Society (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1984) is nicely suggestive on this point. See also
Chatthip Nartsupha and Suthy Prasartset, Socio-Economic Institutions and Cultural Change in Siam, 1851–1910: A Documentary Survey (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1977) which, however, deals with a slightly later period. Most works on this subject suffer from the mistaken impression that ‘modern’ economic change by definition begins only in 1855 for doctrinaire reasons.
A succinct summary of these events is in Walter F. Vella, Siam Under Rama III (Locust Valley, NY: J.J. Augustin for the Association for Asian Studies, 1957), chapter 6. See also
D.K. Wyatt, ‘Siam and Laos, 1767–1827’, JSEAS, Vol. 4, No. 2 (September 1963), pp. 13–32, reprinted in Studies in Thai History, pp. 185–209. A Lao perspective, and prodigious research, is in the forthcoming book by Mayoury and Pheuiphanh Ngaosyvathn cited above.
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© 1997 Anthony Reid
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Wyatt, D.K. (1997). History and Directionality in the Early Nineteenth-Century Tai World. In: Reid, A. (eds) The Last Stand of Asian Autonomies. Studies in the Economies of East and South-East Asia. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-25760-7_18
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