Using over two hundred color pictures, this guidebook illustrates the charm and adventure of traveling to Cambodia and Myanmar. The guide is aimed at the cost conscious, but not the cost adverse. "A Traveler on a Rope" is neither traveling on a shoestring, nor toting, or having another tote, Hermes luggage. Cost is an object but so is comfort. She recognizes the danger of a luxury cocoon as well as the tedium of a shared bathroom. The guide offers unvarnished recommendations on food, lodging and sights. Equally important, tips are shared to assist each traveler to plan, and memorialize, his perfect Southeast Asian trip.
Using nearly two hundred color pictures, this guidebook illustrates the charm and adventure of traveling to Thailand and Laos. The guide is aimed at the cost conscious, but not the cost adverse. "A Traveler on a Rope" is neither traveling on a shoestring, nor toting, or having another tote, Hermes luggage. Cost is an object but so is comfort. She recognizes the danger of a luxury cocoon as well as the tedium of a shared bathroom. The guide offers unvarnished recommendations on food, lodging and sights. With this guide you may stay in the same suite enjoyed by Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie for under eighty dollars a night. Equally important, tips are shared to assist each traveler to plan, and memorialize, his perfect Southeast Asian trip.
What martial arts are associated with Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Myanmar (Burma)? What makes them unique when compared with other Asian martial systems? This anthology is a convienent collection that focuses on the martial arts of these areas, such as the familiar art of Muay Thai, and lesser-known arts of Than Quyen of Vietnam, Burmese bando, and Cambodian leth wei. In chapter one, the David Allan brings readers inside the Lumphini Stadium in Bangkok to witness the fighters’ kickboxing skills and etiquette through text and photographs. He also records how musicians play and the locals participate in each event, with emotional exuberance of cheering, and betting. Jeremy Skaggs wanted to go to Thailand to train with some of the top Muay Thai fighters. His chapter allows readers to relive his experience through text and superb photography. He reports on his travel to Thailand, daily training routines, daily life there, and a night at the Lumphini Stadium. Chapter three by Jason Tran presents the origin and functions of That Son Than Quyen’s “spirit forms” as inspired by real and mythic animals. This is accomplished by contrasting Than Quyen with Chinese imitation styles, tracing the development of Vietnam religion and superstitions, and exploring the impact of geographic and cultural elements. In the next chapter Scott Mallon recounts excursions he made into Myanmar and Cambodia to learn about their indigenous martial arts firsthand. He reports on the Muay Thai-like systems and their similarities and difference, along with the special cultural atmospheres where these arts are found. Excellent photo coverage highlight the martial artists. Loh Han Loong’s chapter goes beyond the common views of Thai boxing by critically examining the way Muay Thai is portrayed in nonacademic sources, such as articles and websites. The manner in which Muay Thai is framed in popular culture is not simply the result of historical facts, but is a way of creating the Thai nation myth and the uniqueness of Thai culture. The lengthy final chapter by Dr. Winborne focuses on the bando system. His chapter explores ancient Burmese fighting traditions and their evolution to modern-day martial arts practices. Bando is a seamless amalgam of striking methods, grappling techniques, weapons approaches, and healing strategies from the Southeast Asian country currently known as Myanmar. This comprehensive self-defense system is reviewed and analyzed based on documented viewpoints of prominent masters and practitioners. The philosophy and principles that undergird the bando system are discussed as well. This anthology offers a concise overview of the history, cultures, and combative systems associated with the geographic areas of Cambodia, Myanmar, Vietman, and Thailand. Familiar or not with these martial traditions, readers will be find the chapters informative and photography delightful.
Presents works of art selected from the South and Southeast Asian and Islamic collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, lessons plans, and classroom activities.
With pictures and prose, 'Bangkok and Chiang Mai on a Rope' guides you through the two largest, and most visited cities in Thailand. Well-traveled author Larry Stein outlines the planning process that he follows, and documents the details of the trip itself—including specifics about lodging, costs, shopping, dining, and transportation. Stein explains how to do all of this affordably ('on a rope,' not a shoestring) while still enjoying comfortable accommodations, good food, and realistic travel options between destinations.
Assessing trends toward creating innovative forms of political, economic and security co-operation in Southeast Asia, this text discusses the international dynamics of Southeast Asian security, and its impact on such external factors as the US, China and Japan.
For Americans, Cuba has been the forbidden fruit—a skin of Detroit sheet metal covering a center of tasty rum, swirling cigar smoke and sandy beaches. Pointed prose, and over 200 pictures, tempt you to take a bite out of major cites and nibble on hidden beaches. Unvarnished opinions, with a uniquely American perspective, guide you to warm accommodations, fine food, stirring sights and sizzling salsa. As in Larry Stein’s three other books in the Traveler on a Rope series, 4 Americans in Cuba targets value options for readers with cash flows wider and thicker than a shoestring.
Walker Connor, perhaps the leading student of the origins and dynamics of ethnonationalism, has consistently stressed the importance of its political implications. In these essays, which have appeared over the course of the last three decades, he argues that Western scholars and policymakers have almost invariably underrated the influence of ethnonationalism and misinterpreted its passionate and nonrational qualities. Several of the essays have become classics: together they represent a rigorous and stimulating attempt to establish a secure methodological foundation for the study of a complicated phenomenon increasingly, if belatedly, recognized as the major cause of global political instability. The book opens by reviewing a wide range of scholarship on ethnonationalism. Connor examines nineteenth-and early twentieth-century debate among British scholars on the viability and desirability of the multinational state, the American "nation-building" school of thought that dominated the literature on political development in the post-World War II era, and the recent explosion of literature on ethnonationalism. In the second part of the book, he shows how progress in the study of ethnonationalism has been hampered by terminological confusion, an inclination to perceive homogeneity even where heterogeneity thrives, an unwarranted tendency to seek explanation for ethnic conflict in economic differentials, and lack of historical perspective. The book closes with a consideration of the inherent limitations of rational inquiry into the realm of group-identity.
