Understand a particular foreign country through dynamic descriptions and analyses of its historical, social, environmental, economic, governmental, political, and national security systems and institutions. Particular attention is devoted to the people who make up the society, their origins, beliefs, interests, and their attitudes towards their social system and political order. Each study is written by a multidisciplinary team of social scientists. This series is a recognized standard in the field.

This strikingly original book examines how sport and ideas of physicality have shaped the politics and culture of modern Laos. Viewing the country's extraordinary transitions—from French colonialism to royalist nationalism to revolutionary socialism to the modern development state—through the lens of physical culture, Simon Creak's lively and incisive narrative illuminates a nation that has no reputation in sport and is typically viewed, even from within, as a country of cheerful but lazy people. Creak argues that sport and related physical practices—including physical education, gymnastics, and military training—have shaped a national consciousness by locating it in everyday experience. These practices are popular, participatory, performative, and, above all, physical in character and embody ideas and ideologies in a symbolic and experiential way. Embodied Nation takes readers on a brisk ride through more than a century of Lao history, from a nineteenth-century game of tikhi—an indigenous game resembling field hockey—to the country's unprecedented outpouring of nationalist sentiment when hosting the 2009 Southeast Asian Games. En route, we witness a Lao-Vietnamese soccer brawl in 1936, the fascist-inspired body ethic of the early 1940s, the novel modes of military masculinity that blossomed with national independence, the spectacular state theatrics of power represented by Olympic-inspired sports festivals, and the high hopes and frequent failures of socialist sport in the 1970s and 1980s. Of central concern in Creak's narrative are the twin motifs of gender and civilization. Despite increasing female participation since the early twentieth century, he demonstrates the major role that sport and physical culture have played in forming hegemonic masculinities in Laos. Even with limited national sporting success—Laos has never won an Olympic medal—the healthy, toned, and muscular form has come to symbolize material development and prosperity. Embodied Nation outlines the complex ways in which these motifs, through sport and physical culture, articulate with state power. Combining cultural and intellectual history with historical thick description, Creak draws on a creative array of Lao and French sources from previously unexplored archives, newspapers, and magazines, and from ethnographic writing, war photography, and cartoons. More than an "imagined community" or "geobody," he shows that Laos was also a "body at work," making substantive theoretical contributions not only to Southeast Asian studies and history, but to the study of the physical culture, nationalism, masculinity, and modernity in all modern societies.

This book shows how small countries use "big" diplomacy to advance national interests and global agendas – from issues of peace and security (the South China Sea and nuclearization in Korea) and human rights (decolonization) to development (landlocked and least developed countries) and environment (hydropower development). Using the case of Laos, it explores how a small landlocked developing state maneuvered among the big players and championed causes of international concern at three of the world’s important global institutions – the United Nations (UN), the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Mekong River Commission (MRC). Recounting the geographical and historical origins behind Laos’ diplomacy, this book traces the journey of the country, surrounded by its five larger neighbors China, Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar and Cambodia, and influenced by superpower rivalries, from the Cold War to the post-Cold War eras. The book is written from an integrated perspective of a French-educated Lao diplomat with over 40 years of experience in various senior roles in the Lao government, leading major groups and committees at the UN and ASEAN; and the theoretical knowledge and experience of an American-trained Lao political scientist and international civil servant who has worked for the Lao government and the international secretariats of the UN and MRC. These different perspectives bridge not only the theory-practice divide but also the government insider-outsider schism. The book concludes with "seven rules for small state diplomacy" that should prove useful for diplomats, statespersons, policymakers and international civil servants alike. It will also be of interest to scholars and experts in the fields of international relations and foreign policies of Laos, the Mekong and Asia in general.

This is an effective and concise self–study Lao language book. Lao for Beginners is for the person who is beginning to learn Lao. It is an incredibly useful introduction to spoken Lao for tourists, businesspeople or students. Lao for Beginners is primarily a workbook full of exercises to help beginners practice and acquire the ability to communicate with Lao people in spoken Lao. It is not a phrase book to scratch the surface of the Lao language. The book has been tested in classrooms and by individuals who have used it successfully to learn Lao. This beginning Lao text was designed for people who want to learn how to speak Lao fast. The book mainly teaches speaking Lao although there is a section which teaches reading Lao. The vocabulary in the whole text is limited to the 1,000 most frequently used words in everyday speech based on one of the author's own research in Vietnamese. The Lao words are listed in a special glossary for beginners which is arranged in English alphabetical order. To make studying easier, all exercises are written in phonetic Lao as well as authentic Lao script. As an additional aid, a review of the major features of Lao grammar is condensed into only 16 pages (including very useful tables) and is located in one place so that it can be read quickly and used as a reference frequently. Lao for Beginners is organized in five parts: Part 1: How to speak Lao. Part 2: Grammar Review. Part 3: How to Read Lao. Part 4: Lao–English Glossary for Beginners.

More than a quarter of century after the end of the war in 1975, the Lao leadership is still in search for a compelling nationalist narration. Its politics of culture and representation appear to be caught between the rhetoric of preservation and the desire for modernity. Meanwhile, originating from the periphery where ethnic minorities had hitherto been symbolically, politically and administratively confined, the participation of some of their members in the Indochina Wars (1945-75) exposed these individuals to socialization and politicization processes.This rigorously researched and cogently argued book is a fine-grained analysis of substantial ethnographic material, showing the politics of identity, the geographies of memory and the power of narratives of some members of ethnic minority groups who fought during the Vietnam War in the Lao People's Liberation Army and/or were educated within the revolutionary administration. No study has ever been conducted on the latter's views on the national(ist) project of the late socialist era. Their own perceptions of their membership of the nation have been overlooked.Post-War Laos is a set to be a landmark study, and an original contribution which refines established theories of nationalism, such as Anderson's 'imagined community', by addressing a common weakness: namely, their tendency to deny agency to individuals, who in fact interpret their relationship to, and place within, the nation in a variety of ways that may change according to time and circumstance.