The essays in this volume form a rich collage of the central Mekong basin spanning nearly 1,400 years of history. Gathered from an international group of scholars, each with a unique approach to the region, this research draws upon materials in more than a dozen languages scattered in archives around the world. Topics include basic structural problems in writing Lao history; political geography from the 600s to 800s; separate discussions of Lao, Vietnamese, and Western sources of early Lao history; the Lao-Tay-son alliance in the late eighteenth century; Lao millenarian movements and...

This landmark study is the result of a collaborative research effort among the East-West Center and a group of institutions in China (Taipei), Japan, and Korea, in consultation with experts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Electric Power Research Institute of California. The first project of its kind to mobilize senior power experts in the three major countries of Northeast Asia for cooperative electric future assessment, "Electricity in Economic Development" highlights the critical role of the electric power sector in influencing a nation's future industrial...