Bang Chan
Social History of a Rural Community in Thailand

Lauriston Sharp (Author), Lucien M. Hanks (Author)

9780801408588

Hardback, published 15 April 2018

316 pages, 15 b&w halftones, 5 maps - 15 Halftones, black and white - 5 Maps
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.8 cm, 0.907 kg

Bang Chan is a delight to read. The authors have a good narrative style and an eye for detail—not just detail to exemplify but detail to humanize their characters, to relate Bang Chan to the wider world. What a pleasure it is to follow these two guides along the route from Bangkok to Bang Chan, along that rural community's busy canals, and back again to the big city. Our authors know how to make the trip an absorbing, entertaining, and easy one, no small feat when the journey is scholarly as well.

Bang Chan traces the changing cultural characteristics of a small Siamese village during the century and a quarter from its founding as a wilderness settlement outside Bangkok to its absorption into the urban spread of the Thai capital. Rich in ethnographic detail, the book sums up the major findings of a pioneering interdisciplinary research project that began in 1948. Changes in Bang Chan's social organization, technology, economy, governance, education, and religion are portrayed in the context of local and national developments.